I was accepted for a Sea Cadet deployment aboard the Grizzly 60 (an Orca Class Patoll Vessel), to live and sail upon it for over a week. At first I was concerned that I would miss too much school, and shouldn't go. I did attend, and it was most definantly worth it!
Over that week, I learned how to do many things including navigation, port and starboard look out duty, signalman duties, and how to be a part of the first response team. The Orca trip was a lot of fun, and a lot of hard work. We learned about the many small jobs around the ship, but that each job is just as important as any big job. Over the trip, I had such a great time, and met alot of friends that are so so close to me now.
One of my favorite moments was when one day, it snowed really hard and it was really foggy out. That meant that we couldn't go out cruising. Instead, we spent the whole day learning power boating, and making a grizzly snow bear.
If any of you cadets out there are looking to have a lot of fun and an amazing new experience, I would highly recomend it, because you can get so much out of this trip that you wouldn't be able to access anywhere else.
PO2 T. Vo
