Sea Stories- The Adriatic Fishermen

Sea Stories

We all love them.

My first real sea-going assignment was on the USS SOUTH CAROLINA (CGN-37).

She was a nuclear powered cruiser with a crew of about 500 which was really packed because a traditional propulsion plant would have much fewer people in the engineering department.

She also had some pretty special radar stuff that allowed for her to do some pretty amazing things with regards to flight operations and some other things.

On of the things we did while on deployment was called ‘Red Crown’- essentially we went 5 by 5 by 5 (speed 5 knots for 5 miles, turn, go 5 miles, turn- a 5x5 mile box at 5 knots) and would take responsibility for aircraft control tower type operations in the area.

We were on deployment in the Mediterranean Sea and had made our way up into the Adriatic Sea (between Italy and Croatia/Bosnia) and were running Red Crown to nowhere.

The Adriatic isn’t very far from one side to the other but it is far enough that you can’t see any land from the horizon. So it can get pretty boring just running around  in a 5x5 mile box.

That why the entire crew came up topside one day when we encountered a pair of fishermen standing in their little boat waving at us frantically.

We had pulled along side them- their boat was more or less just a little ‘John boat’ or ‘alumaflat’ with a motor on it. To us, it was really crazy small to be out in the middle of the Adriatic like that with no land in sight- but there they were.

The SOCAR was a tall gal and her main deck towered above these two gentlemen who were now directly alongside. The entire crew standing along the lifelines looking down, them standing and looking up.

The Executive Officer (XO) and Command Master Chief )CMC) were standing directly above them trying to communicate, asking questions. Turns out they were speaking Italian and nobody topside could speak it.

They made announcements on the ship ordering anyone who spoke conversational Italian to report to the XO/CMC topside.

That’s when the fun began.

There was this dude in one of the topside divisions who we all knew was one of those ‘I do it all’ kind of guys.

(Engineers, like me, were in the bowels of the ship and have a love/hate relationship with what they refer to as ‘topsiders’ who work ‘way up there’).

Anyways, he came running up there yelling ‘I can speak Italian! I can speak it! As he came closer to XO/CMC, the CMC grabbed him and told him to ask the guys below what was wrong and wha they needed.

The topsider pushed his way in-between the XO and CMC and was now standing directly above these two fishermen staring down at them staring up.

The crew lined the edge of the ship along the lines all leaning over and looking at the topsider who was now at the absolute center of attention of at least 100 people.

He took a deep breath in and with a seriously straight face said:

Want-o Food-o? Need-o Gasolinio?

The two fishermen below turned to each other to see if the other had understood anything, shrugged and turned back up with the most confused faces.

The XO, who was looking intently at the topsider when he pumped out his version of Italian, leaned backwards with a death-ray stare at the CMC who sprung into action grabbing the topsider and dragging him off cursing in a way only a 25+ year veteran of the seas could do.

SOCAR eventually found a crew member who could actually speak Italian and we gave the fishermen some gas and off they went, happy as could be.

I never saw the topsider again for about 3 months- I think the CMC had him on some sort of ‘special’ detail.

Whenever I come across confused situations I always remember to ask…

Want-o Food-o? Need-o Gasolinio?

Be Good!

Curtis