The thundering waves are calling me home...

...home to you.
The pounding sea is calling me home, home to you...
The thundering waves are calling me home, home to you
The pounding sea is calling me home, home to you.

I'm coming home.

It's been a somewhat momentous couple of weeks since last I wrote; we've visited Dubai again and left, for the last time. We visited Djibouti again, and left, for the last time; and it was a much more pleasant stay than the first time, probably because I wasn't involved with cargo operations, and actually had a chance to see the place a little more. I put in a leave slip on our departure day, visited Camp Lemonier - the American Joint Task Force Anti-Terrorism Base - wandered around downtown Djibouti for a little while, and all in all had a rather enjoyable time. Of course, a few days later I came down horribly ill - despite having neither eaten nor drank (other than bottled alcoholic beverages) anything out in town. C'est la vie...

We transited the Suez Canal without incident while I was preoccupied transforming my insides into my outsides. The Mediterannean is delightfully cooler than the Gulf, or the Arabian Sea, or any of the other southern climes we've been lingering in since summer; it's strange, to walk outside and feel chilly, or to have to wear a sweatshirt in the open air rather than the frigid confines of berthing, but I like it. I've always been a creature of winter and autumn, rather than sun and summer.

And, of course, most importantly - I'm coming home. Tomorrow morning I leave the USNS Supply, possibly for good (who can tell? It's a small fleet, after all...), board a big silver freedom bird, and wing my way west, slowly going backwards in time as I go. Tomorrow night, I hope to be in the arms of my loved ones again. It's been almost six months since I've seen them; it's hard to say just how much I've missed them.

I'm coming home.