Charleston - April 25

Last night was our dinner on the USS Yorktown. We were also able to tour the flight deck and hear about working on an aircraft carrier from a member of our Loopers group who had his navy career on a carrier. He was on the USS Enterprise and Darrell was deployed on the USS Bainbridge, a destroyer that accompanied the Enterprise and provided protection to it when it was underway. Darrell got an opportunity to visit with him for a while one-on-one. They may have in Viet Nam at the same time, early 1971 when both ships were in the Tonkin Gulf.

We had the opportunity to tour more of the ship and saw several more types of aircraft. Many of them had wings which folded up to allow more aircraft to be kept on the carrier. Notice the aircraft with the small Japanese flags and bombs painted on the side. Those represent kills during the war.

On our way to the Yorktown we passed a mock up of a U.S. Naval Support base in Viet Nam. There was also an old submarine and destroyer tied up next to the carrier.

Our dinner was very good, by far the best of the event. Everything was delicious. The speaker this evening left something to be desired. Darrell was lucky enough to win a door prize, a $100 gift certificate to Landfall.

It was a late night and was nice to be able to sleep in this morning. We didn’t have to be up and ready for anything. When we did finally roll out of bed we were able to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee before starting our day.

Darrell worked around the boat. It is true that there is always something to repair or replace on a boat. There are several things needing attention, and Darrell got a good start on them.

This afternoon was a Harbor Tour we had signed up for as an add-on to the Rendezvous. Bob, Margaret and I went on the tour and Darrell stayed to await delivery of a replacement refrigerator/freezer for our boat. The one we had stopped working about 3 weeks ago and couldn’t be fixed. More about the harbor tour tomorrow.