Departure from Portsmouth

On a cold and blustery morning, 180 crew members were anxiously awaiting to "leave the wall" in Portsmouth dockyard and head off for seven and a half months. To places known, and unknown in the same breath. Known, because a lot of the people on here have been out to the Northern Arabian Gulf (NAG) before and know where abouts we shall be stopping and have frequented these places before. The unknown, well, that's because we are going to do a job that many, many people at home and abroad do not understand or even know that we do! The Royal Navy, due to it's very nature seems to get overlooked by the public as a whole and many of us don't really feel that we get the recognition that we feel we deserve.
Right, that's the moaning out of the way, now what i am going to try and do over the next 194 or so days is keep a diary (sort of) with the day to day things that we do on board HMS Richmond. At sea, as we are at the moment, i have no facilities to upload photographs or video. With some of the stops that we get there will, hopefully, be a chance for me to get a connection on my laptop to upload said photo's. So you might have to check back once in a while!!! Well, we departed, as i said, from Portsmouth at 1000 on the 19th January 2009 to head East to the NAG. First day at sea is always a little hectic and when we depart for a 7 month trip we leave in what we call Procedure Alpha. This is all our weapons and sensors uncovered and the crew, who are not on watch in the Operations room, engine rooms or steering the ship on the bridge, are lined up on the side of the ship in our best uniforms ready for departing. Family and friends, and the occasional interested person will gather on round tower and watch the ships leave Portsmouth harbour. For a lot of the younger ones on board it can be a very emotional time, especially if it's their first time away. Anyway, once clear of round tower we fall out of Procedure Alpha and get changed into our working rig and continue with our daily jobs. We had a customary Fire Exercise after only a few hours at sea, just to blow away the cobwebs, as we've been alongside in Portsmouth for Christmas and have not had a full blown fire ex for some time. I am the support team leader, in the event of a fire, my team, myself and for other junior rates get dressed into a full firefighting gear (I'll try to get a picture it's easier than explaining) the exercise went well. The rest of the day passed with no other events of note. At 1730 we had evening rounds. This is where about an hour before, the lads and lasses clean up Mess decks (where we sleep and relax) Heads (toilets) bathrooms (shower/sink area's) and flats (the main thoroughfare between decks). For all you inquisitive people out there, NO we aren't co-ed like the Dutch. Men and women shower separately. Evening Rounds is conducted by the XO (executive officer- second in command of the ship) and he goes around all the mess deck checking cleanliness and securing and generally keeping the junior rates abreast of what we're doing and maintaining morale!!! the rest of the evening is our own, so we played Guitar Heroes on the X-box before going to bed. The night was rough and still is now, i hardly had any sleep last night, so I'm going to try and catch an hour over lunch.