Watching the Ships Come In

As the Fourth of July draws near, all the forward deployed ships have returned this week in time for the base wide celebration. The other half of the army here has their office located near the docks. As I was going over there for a meeting I saw the biggest of the ships stationed here coming into harbor. Being my first time watching this, I camped myself against a rail and watched in awe as it coasted into port. My own personal problems with parallel parking seemed dwarfed to what it takes getting a ship of this magnitude into a slot not much bigger than the ship itself. It took three tugboats and about twenty minutes to get it docked. Once the procedures for anchoring the Essex got underway, I decided to get back to work. There'll be more returns in the future.