The John C. Stennis

On Chris and Karen's last full day in Victoria we were going to finally show them around the city a bit. We'd planned for a nice long walk along Dallas Rd., right on the strait of Juan de Fuca, stopping at Fisherman's Wharf for some fish and chips, and ending up downtown for a couple of pints. Since we were going to be walking right by our friend Brian's place we decided to give him a call to see if he wanted to join us.

Now Brian is in the Navy, and though this was on the holiday Monday, he was on the base in Esquimalt when he answered his cell phone. Jeremi asked him if he wanted to go for a walk, and Brian asked us if we wanted to go on a tour of the visiting US aircraft carrier, the John C. Stennis. Knowing that this would entertain Chris to no end, we decided to go for it.

Because the ship rather large it was anchored a ways from shore, and the small, invitation-only tour groups had to take a small boat out from the naval base to dock at the aircraft carrier. So we headed out to Esquimalt to meet up with Brian. There was a bit of miscommunication, so we ended up going on a later tour, but it was worth the wait. Even the trip on the boat out to the ship was worth the trip, on a beautiful sunny day with a great view of the harbour. Here's a picture of Jeremi, Chris, and Karen on the small boat.

Since the boat left from the base, we also got a great view of all the other Canadian ships that were in port, including the one sailboat, the Oriole, on which Jeremi's brother Nick spent his summer, travelling the west coast of BC. Here's a picture of the Oriole:















We then made it to the actual aircraft carrier, where we had a tour that was about an hour or so long. It was a very highly structured tour, with only a bit of over-the-top propaganda at the beginning, when we visited this little room that was basically a shrine to John C. Stennis, some US senator who worked in military appropration. Basically, he got a lot of funding for the Navy, so they named an aircraft carrier after him, or something like that.

Unfortunately the aircraft component of the aircraft carrier wasn't on board, as this was really just a fun trip for the sailors. So instead we got to visit an almost empty flight deck, where you can see us here:


All in all, it was a very fun day, and very unexpected! We still made it to Fisherman's Wharf for some fish and chips, though we didn't get to spend as much time downtown as we might have. Still, it was too good a chance to pass up.