First Ship - 50 years ago

It was 50 years ago today I reported aboard my first ship, The USS Portland, at the US Naval Amphibious Base in Little Creek, Virginia. In a couple of days we would be underway on a shakedown cruise to the Caribbean. The Portland was a brand new addition to the fleet and my orders had actually been sent me to the General Dynamics Shipyard in Quincy Massachusetts near Boston right after New Year's. 

I had to take a bus during a snow storm from the airport to the shipyard while carrying all my gear in my seabag. It was a real pain in the ass and then I check in at the shipyard and my ship isn't there. It had left a few days before. It took a few more days to get things straightened out while I hung out at a small Navy facility in Boston before taking a Greyhound bus down to Virginia.

So after reporting onboard I was immediately sent to the mess decks to work in the scullery for a couple of months which was standard procedure for the lowly new guy. We headed down to the Caribbean to do lots of training exercises among the islands.

On that first trip I got to see San Juan, Santo Domingo, Port au Prince, Charlette Amalie and Guantanamo Bay.  A couple of months later we were heading across the Atlantic on our way to the Mediterranean Sea.

Over the next few years I would spend a lot of time in the Caribbean Sea and make many visits to the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Panama, Aruba, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Colombia, Dominica, Venezuela, Martinique, Nicaragua, Curacuo, Barbados, Trinidad, Grenada and probably a few more.

I think my favorite place in the area was Limon, Costa Rica.