Yokuska

Jesse & Felicienne are both in Yokuska, Japan.  

Got a call from Jess on Friday saying he'd been told on Thursday that he was leaving for Yokuska on Saturday.  It was kind of brief because he was trying to get things in order and Bridget was coming to pick up Ethan.  Good thing Jesse's "weekends" with Ethan start on Wednesday and end on Monday or they wouldn't have had any time together.

Felicienne was already in Yokuska when Jess got the word that he was going.  Seems like he said she'd been there about a week on a "ship check" whatever that is. When she finished the job she went to do, she was told they needed her to stay on and help with something else.

Jesse was also told on Thursday that he'd been promoted (yey Jesse!) and they only needed him there for 2 weeks to supervise whatever it is they're doing. 

The ship they're working on in Yokuska is the USS George Washington.

The GW was sent to Japan to relieve the "permanently forward deployed" USS Kitty Hawk, which has since been decommissioned I think. Jesse worked on the GW at Newport News, VA a couple of years ago, just prior to her move to Japan.  While underway she sustained fire damage and was detoured to San Diego, CA for emergency repairs.

firefighters head to fire

Air Conditioning & Refrigeration shop

Classroom

Fire spread via cableways to several spaces

Red-faced firefighters reflect extreme heat created by fire

By that time (last summer) J&F were in SD working on the USS Nimitz.  The GW repair job pulled Felicienne and some of the equipment/parts from the Nimitz and sent them to GW. That put Jesse in Felicienne's place, kind of a trial by fire but Felicienne had been his mentor so he did fine. They did enough in San Diego to get the ship underway.  What was supposed to be a 30 day repair ended up taking 2-3 months - just one more instance of telling the guy at the top what he wanted to hear I bet.  GW was scheduled for a big job once she got to Japan and thats what J&F were sent to help with I guess.

Jesse called a day or so after he got to Yokuska to let me know he'd arrived safely.  Turned out he had a 26 hour delay somewhere along the line.  The catering truck collided with the plane so repairs and testing had to be done before they could leave. Evidently part of the testing process caused things to burst in the passenger's luggage, he didn't elaborate but I got the impression there was a mess in his suitcase.  Actually Jesse very seldom elaborates, so his curious mother is always asking him questions, must drive him nuts ;)

I'd "visited" Yokuska via Google Earth and commented that it looked like there were a lot of high rises on the base.   He said yeah, a lot of high rise buildings and narrow streets.  He also said his room in the hotel is about the same size as their closet at home!  Haven't seen their new home but I hope he's talking about a walk-in closet.

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Please note: all photos are from the internet