All On Board

The HMCS Fredericton is docked in the Oshawa harbour for a few days as part of their Great Lakes Deployment, so we thought we'd make the trek down for a tour around the ship. The Stalker of the Seas is a Halifax Class Frigate capable of deploying a Sea King helicopter to seek out and destroy submarines at long distances from the ship. (I got that from Wikipedia.) The crew recently spent six months in the North Arabian Sea - Persian Gulf region as part of the Canadian Forces contribution to maritime security against terrorism and in the waters around the Horn of Africa in counter-piracy operations. They returned in May of this year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of our Canadian Navy.

On board HMCS Fredericton

We had a good look around. I think the boys were most interested in all the missile and torpedo equipment. They had a good look at the rifles and guns on board, too. The mini-hockey sticks they use when they're playing soldiers don't measure up, now.  

The back of the boat ship's stern looking out onto Lake Ontario

Once we disembarked, we left the harbour and Paul got talking to a young guy in uniform who was selling raffle tickets for the Air Cadets. Paul told him he'd been in Air Cadets, 151 Chadburn. Sure enough, that was the group this fellow was with. They had a good chat about flying gliders out of Oshawa airport, training at Camp Borden and Trenton. Paul shared with us how they used to march up Centre Street from the squadron headquarters to City Hall where they practiced shooting in the basement. They don't do that anymore. The mayor probably got nervous. We paid up, collected our ticket, wished the young lad well and continued on our way. We wandered along the lakeshore and then spent some time at the playground. All five kids enjoyed themselves immensely...

Yes, that's right; there's Paul, the biggest kid, on the swing. Wheeee

Ribfest is on this weekend but the lineups were a little longer than we were willing to stand in, so we took the shuttle bus back to the GM parking lot and headed home. Cammy has no plans to join up (he inherited his dear ole ma's motion sickness gene) but thinks flying a plane might be fun. Riley still plans to be a hobo in Florida and Nolan's gonna play hockey.