Ahoy and Aghast: Civilians Sail

Deep in the bleak, gray bowels of this Navy ship docked at Pearl Harbor, the sound of cheerful, light laughter began to bounce off the cavernous walls of the hangar deck.

Gone were most of the helicopters and Harrier jets. They were replaced by decorations and welcome signs. Sailors brought aboard 16 roasted kalua pigs, in preparation for a Hawaiian luau on board.

The Tarawa had just spent a grueling seven months at sea, one month longer than scheduled. The ship ferried hundreds of Southern California-based Marines to Iraq, participated in military exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and hunted pirates off the Somali coast.

After it picked up Marines who had battled insurgents in western Iraq near the Syrian border, getting home to San Diego was all anyone aboard could think about.

But when the 30-year-old amphibious assault ship pulled out of Pearl Harbor on a sunny Sunday in February, its mission changed from warship to cruise ship for 374 civilians.

These were friends and family of the sailors and Marines who had flown from the United States mainland to join them on the final leg of their journey home in a Navy tradition knows as the Tiger Cruise. For more than two decades, the Navy has allowed families to join the crew on the passage home, a trip designed to educate civilians about what the sailors and Marines do and to boost crew morale.

The Tiger Cruise was open to almost anyone except significant others. “This ship wasn’t built like a love boat. It’s a warship,” Capt. Peter Murphy said.

For families separated for months, the reunions were emotional and heartfelt.

Just after the Tarawa docked in Pearl Harbor, 14-year-old Jennifer Patron and her mother circled around the dock in a rental car, trying to reach her dad, Lt. Fernando Patron, on his cellphone. Spotting him leaving the pier, she jumped out of the car and gave him a big hug.

“When he was with us, it seemed like he had never left,” said Jennifer, of Chula Vista, who sailed back to San Diego with her dad.

As the Tarawa steamed out of Pearl Harbor for the nine-day journey to San Diego, the vessel seemed to shed its war footing. Guests snapped photos on deck and sailors prepared for a week of entertainment. They had big plans: “Pirates of the Caribbean” in a makeshift movie theater on the hangar deck, karaoke in the mess hall, bingo tournaments and a last-night talent show.

Some top officers, however, warned the civilians they were in for a tough and trying nine days.

“This isn’t a pleasure cruise,” said Col. James La Vine, commanding officer for the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit based on the Tarawa.

But amid the celebrations of that first night, few of the visitors seemed to listen.

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Carrying nearly 3,000 people, the Tarawa is both floating Marine base and self-sufficient city with its own barbershops, hospital, trash collection facility, three mess halls (including a fancy officers’ club), gym and water filtration facility.

Sailors couldn’t stop remarking about how much the ship had changed with its new passengers. Children scurried across narrow corridors. Young Marines proudly showed their parents around.

Erin Meredith, 8, felt seasick after a few hours but eventually recovered enough to hang out with her father, Don Meredith, a hospital corpsman chief who oversaw evacuation of injured Marines in combat. Meredith’s family -- wife, and three kids including Erin -- had met him in Honolulu. But only Erin was old enough to take the Tiger Cruise.

Later, as they rode stationary bikes in the gym, Meredith remembered that a tire on his daughter’s bike at home in Temecula had been flat for five months. “That’s the first thing to do on daddy’s list,” he said.

On the second and third days, civilians started checking out the ship. Marines trotted out their guns and other military gear and offered tours of the tanks housed onboard.

Victoria Deyeaux, 46, eagerly tried on 20 pounds of gear Marines wear in Iraq: flak jacket, helmet and ammunition vest. She looked through night-vision goggles and posed in front of a machine gun mounted on a helicopter. Later, she held up a 45-pound shoulder-launch assault weapon that fires 83-millimeter rockets.

“No wonder they do so many push-ups,” she said.

Deyeaux said she was impressed by what her daughter, 20-year-old Ruth Holmes, an intelligence specialist, had to go through. “I was proud of my daughter to begin with,” Deyeaux said, “but now I respect her.”

*

While families reconnected and learned about the Tarawa, the reality of life aboard the ship was beginning to sink in. And it wasn’t pretty.

The ship’s interior had no natural light, and the trips to the deck required climbing eight flights of ladders. Once on deck, passengers were buffeted by powerful, cold winds. They had no cellphone access and little access to the Internet. The TV sometimes received fuzzy broadcasts from Fox News and CNN.

The ride was far rockier than a cruise ship’s because of the flat-bottomed hull, which houses tanks and smaller landing ships. Seasickness hit the visitors hard.

Officers warned the civilians to forget about those long, hot “Hollywood showers” they usually take.

Water on the ship is a precious commodity. But on this trip, the situation was even more dire, in part because one of the evaporators that produce fresh water wasn’t working properly.

Passengers were limited to minute-long “Navy showers,” just spritzes of water. It was an unpopular order.

“The one-minute shower rule thing is not good for the long hair,” said Jessica King, 21, a nanny from Aliso Viejo aboard to visit her brother, a sailor. King had other gripes.

She got seasick the minute the ship started moving. The day after, she recovered enough to go outside and see dolphins swimming alongside the ship.

“I thought it was a vacation. It’s nothing like a vacation,” she said. “I feel a little like I’m in jail.”

The first night, visitors feasted on a luau of kalua pork, huli huli chicken and fresh marinated mahi-mahi. But the food quality dropped to Navy-issue after that, with boiled vegetables and bland chicken.

“Horrific,” King declared, seeking refuge in the instant noodles from the ship’s tiny convenience store.

As the cruise wore on, others began to share gripes.

On Day Five, Craig Wagner, a school administrator from Orlando, Fla., waited in a 40-minute line for a supper of spaghetti and pizza.

He tried to remember the good parts of the journey -- hearing his son and his buddies swap war stories -- but he complained about sore knees from climbing the ladders and sleeping in the crammed coffin-sized bunks.

“It’s not comfortable.... I’ve been on a regular cruise,” said Wagner, 57, whose son Joel Wagner is a Marine on the ship. “This is no Carnival cruise.”

Visitors looking for a shoulder to cry on didn’t find one in Murphy or the other officers.

The whole point, Murphy said, is for loved ones to truly “understand what their sons and daughters do aboard ship,” which means understanding what it means to take a Navy shower, tolerating the long lines at meal time and coping with the rationing of fresh laundry when water reserves are down.

Case in point: The officers briefly toyed with the idea of letting frustrated civilians grab food in an express line at the mess hall. But it was shot down. Waiting 40 minutes for ice cream, they concluded, builds “appreciation.”

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By Day Six, some visitors were verging on mutiny. They clearly wanted off the ship as soon as possible.

“We have the same thing every day for breakfast, waffles and eggs. I can’t wait to get home,” said Evangeline Martinez, 14, on board to visit her dad, Pat Martinez, a maintenance manager.

And a sweaty return from the gym to the showers around noon brought a nasty surprise. Water levels had dropped to 40% of capacity and a sign said showers were off-limits until evening.

When the showers did finally open that evening, Andrea Berridge, 28, waited half an hour for her one-minute splash. She grudgingly followed the rules, but there was chatter about others cheating.

“People are starting to get desperate,” said Berridge, visiting her brother.

On Day Seven, 8-year-old Erin Meredith, her eyes drooping, was now simply tired. “Yesterday, she said she missed her toys and she misses her mom,” her father said. “The Game Boy wasn’t enough for her.”

But that evening, the mood on board began to lighten.

Some cellphone reception returned, and passengers began frantically calling family and friends. A sailboat was seen off the port side, a sign they were not far from the California coast.

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Day Eight began with a flurry of excitement as the Oceanside marina and domes of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant came into focus.

Marines and their families boarded smaller boats housed in the belly of the Tarawa and were quickly ferried ashore. The Navy personnel and their families stayed on board for the final leg to San Diego Harbor.

A few hours later, they were joined by about 100 other family members who arrived by boat. These last-minute passengers were dubbed “mini Tigers.” Their arrival brought another joyous round of reunions. But real Tigers were unimpressed.

“They don’t know what it’s really like,” groused Andrew Leffler, 14, of Illinois. “They just got off land -- and they can still see it. They probably don’t have to go through the rough seas we did.”

That last night, the shower restrictions were lifted. By the morning of Day Nine, the San Diego skyline loomed large. As the ship passed under the arching Coronado bridge, everyone let out a huge cheer and the Tiger Cruise ended much the way it had begun -- with excitement, hugs and kisses.

But for Krystal Robertson, 24, a nursing student, there was a big difference between San Diego and Pearl Harbor.

“I can’t wait to get home and shave my legs.”