Back to work day. We sailed from Roosevelt Roads at about 1000, and turned north, to start our transit to Fort Lauderdale. It was the first full day’s work we had done since our arrival date in Puerto Rico, as every other day while alongside had been either Saturday or Sunday routine. We were occupied with a whole series of Vulcan/Phalanx tracking runs for a good deal of the day, and after the Sea Harriers recovered on board from the air base we went into a fairly full flying programme, including night flying in the evening.
As I had missed my usual Monday night ITV show, Peter Lavis and I did a sort of joint effort, as we did when we were first starting, which I think went down very well, as I had quite a series of funnies to relay from the experiences of various people in Puerto Rico. One of the main reasons we had stopped there at all was to give everyone on the ship a chance to let off steam where it wouldn’t hurt anyone, because at Fort Lauderdale we will be expected to behave with a modicum of decorum!
There were quite a lot of people who took full advantage of this weekend to get themselves thoroughly drunk and incapable, including Baby Doc, who was found curled up in a foetal position in a monsoon drain by a USAF pilot and returned, liquid-like, to the ship. No charges are going to be brought, as far as we are aware, which I think is a good thing, bearing in mind that we have been at sea for almost a hundred days.