Puerto Rico & St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

A few pictures

All images on this page © the author. Camera used: Minolta SRT-101.


Approaching Puerto Rico in a Sea King Finally, after much delay I am on my way into Roosevelt Roads, the US air station on Puerto Rico to fix a Phantom (003), that had diverted ashore with rocket hang-ups in its pods.	North East coastline of Puerto Rico Rocket hang-ups aside, the port Solent gas turbine starter had failed and I had a spare with me along with (most of) the tools required to do the job.

St. Thomas. British Virgin Islands The darker ship in the centre background is Ark Royal, she being accompanied by two of her escorts a Leander class frigate and a County class destroyer.

Before taking off from Ark Royal in late afternoon I had completed a 'doom watch' night shift beginning at 1800 the previous day. I was just finishing the undercarriage and brake functionals after replacing the main undercarriage doors and also the hydraulic and pneumatic lines on both main undercarriage legs of the second of two Phantoms which had suffered heavy landings during the day's sorties. These heavy landings invariably blew the 450 psi main-wheel tyres, taking the doors and pipelines with them.

Towards the end of the watch we learned that 003 had diverted ashore. The AE watch 'Chief' asked if I fancied going ashore. Having jumped at the chance I then learned about the downside, i.e. the rocket hang-ups. No armourers could be spared because of intensive armament trials. So this airframes and engines artificer had to be briefed on how to disarm them. Suddenly this trip ashore didn't seem so attractive.

When I eventually got ashore, sometime after 1730, I found that 003 was parked way across the other side of the airfield (inside which you could fit the whole of Gosport, Fareham and Lee-on-Solent and still have room to spare) pointing at the mountain range beyond. Just in case.

By the time I had managed to get the rocket pods off and the aircraft towed to a hanger where I could begin changing the starter it was about 2220 and about midnight before the job was done. Some day that, all 32 hours of it! That is only a part of the story.

'Your's Truly' climbing a coconut palm This on a beach in St. Thomas one of the US Virgin Islands, where the maintainers of 892 were having an R and R 'Banyan'.

This was after discovering that the line of buoys stretched across the bay ostensibly supporting an anti-shark net were doing nothing of the kind. Having swum under water and surfaced further out to sea it became obvious that the line of buoys were there for decoration. Hum! Rapid swim back to the shallows followed.

Ant's nest up in a Lychee tree St. Thomas again. Having climbed a coconut palm to knock down the nuts to the 'troops' below I made the mistake of thinking this one would be easy and did not look up before climbing. Ho! Hum!

As I wrapped my fore-arm around the base of the tree I felt my arm sink into something yielding but puzzling. It was then, to my horror, that I discovered the wide and deep column of ants making their way to and from that nest.

Despite all the Lychee within easy reach having been consumed by late afternoon I decided to forego any further attempts to climb these trees.

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