turkey9186

I almost miss Diego seeing the pics. I spent a lot of time in the 90s dragging support equipment in and out of the sandbox on C-5s.

Drillium Dude 

Cool - another alumnus

I've always been the sort of person that tries to appreciate the good even in the bad - DG (this final time around only for work-related reasons) and Afghanistan come to mind as the only two places that I've had to work extraordinarily hard at enjoying. Guess I'm lucky that way!

DD

rootboy 

WNG

I'm not referring to DG as a tourist destination. Comparing the views of the beaches, far less traveled and trampled.

rootboy 

Yeah. That's because it is off limits to anyone but military, and a small populations of natives, I believe.

Drillium Dude 

Right on both accounts directly above.

Although if you want to know the truth, I've seen places like Bali and the Seychelles that actually have a little nicer beaches. Why? Because out here we get tons of stuff floating up onto the beaches - mostly plastic bottles, fishing floats and flip-flops. We hold quarterly beach clean-ups, but they can only cover a couple miles of shoreline at a time.

I'd imagine tourist places probably have crews out keeping the beaches clear on a daily basis to keep their paying customers happy

But, yeah Will - it's still beautiful and for the most part the beaches - both lagoon-side and outer reef - are unmolested. I'll miss my beach walks when it comes time to go, but at least I'll have covered every mile while I've been here

DD

rootboy 

It looks just gorgeous, Jeff. How many miles of walk to cover the circumference? BTW, one small place Grace and I used to snorkel, on the coast of the Yucatan well south of the huge resorts ….the beaches were covered with plastic flotsam and jetsam. Piles of it. We were told it was mostly all from South America and from being dumped from ships out in the sea. A rotten practice. Never found any skulls though the Mexican military could be seen walking the beaches from time to time looking for washed up bales.

Your pics give me a little warmth to look at during this white out going on outdoors.

himespau 

Cool pictures. Bummer about all the trash. I've heard about the islands of plastic floating out in the Pacific.

Lascauxcaveman 

Not actual islands per se, but huge areas where there is a lot plastic trash floating on the surface, and more to the point, just under the surface.

noglider 

I love that booby! He looks so boobular.

Drillium Dude 

Mountain bike race a couple weeks ago; I'm in black with the white helmet on the left:



This was shaping up to be a great race for yours truly as I was in 5th place about halfway through when myself and a fellow Chief noticed a smoldering couple of downed palm trees. We stopped, enlisted a couple other riders to help us and then dragged the trunks through the scavvy to dump them into the ocean.

We hopped back on the bikes and finished in good time; not in last place, either, by a long shot

A fun afternoon's workout, for sure.

DD

Italuminium

Cool stuff, nice that you turned into a kinda tropical duathlon! I spy a nice CX/GG there riding next to you, how's DG for gravel grinding?

Drillium Dude 

There are actually three or four guys here that have singlespeeds with CX/GG setups on the island. They hold their own easily on the exposed coral roadways and such, but are at a bit of a disadvantage on the muddy stuff under the jungle canopy. This particular race runs around 9 miles and well over half is in the jungle.

I've ridden with these guys in the road races, too, and they're masters at spinning and do some good pulls in a paceline, too. Too bad they're undergeared for the sprint finishes

DD

RaleighSport

Looks like you're having a blast from the pic!

Drillium Dude 

Pouring down rain tonight - in fact, there's been so much rain on/off for the past month that I should make the transition from DG to WA without any problem at all!

My departure date is set for March 28th. With any luck, I'll be in Bangor's Transient Personnel Unit (TPU) over on the Kitsap peninsula by April 1 - which just so happens to be the Chief Petty Officer's birthday

DD

Drillium Dude 

My job is done here

I'll be flying out of here in about 12 hours. I'll spend 24 hours in Japan for a layover and arrive in Seattle the morning of the 29th. Looking forward to my final 10 days of outprocessing, setting up a temporary residence and then getting together with friends and family.

Oh, yeah - and a couple bike rides, too

'Bye DG!

DD

poprad

Congrats of the completion of your assignment DD.

gomango

Yes, congrats on your years of service.

Noticed and appreciated.

There's a whole wide world of possibilities waiting for you.

RobbieTunes

Just when things are getting really interesting in the satellite analysis arena.
Thanks for hanging in there for us for all these years, I know you'll miss those crypto folks.

Ocean-going garbage is really a problem, very much under-reported. Whole containers are often dumped overboard.

northbend 

Thank you Jeff for your service to our country best of luck to you on the next phase of life.
See you around sometime. Cino perhaps?

TimmyT 

Thanks, DD! I've enjoyed this thread immensely, both for the pictures and for the information you've given all of us about your service as well as the stories from others that are included here.

Next time I'm in Seattle, I'll drop you a line.

rootboy 

I couldn't have said it any better than this^

Safe travels, D. Dude.

SJX426 

Jeff,
Congrats and thanks for your service!
Patrick

oberthecat

Retirement from the military is great, it means you have done something good for your country and yourself.

Kobe 

Thank you Chief Dude (soon to be Mr. Dude) for sharing the your DG experience with us. It is a place I will probably never see but you made it very interesting.

Good luck in wherever your Davidson may take you.