Now N Then

Guest of honor

We always thought that Jim had eyes in the back of his head

Campground management hosted a Penguin Day Party. Lots of attendees, Lots of fun and lots of appreciated effort on their part:

Inside of Recreation Hall during Penguin Day party

These two pictures from the Navy Base tour I forgot to include before:

An instructor in the tank at the dive school:

curiouser and curiouser. A USAF (must be anti terror) speedboat that they apparently keep at the Navy base:

On the way to the movies (The Bucket List)(best we have seen this year) (also the only one) we stopped at Smitty’s Barbeque for lunch. A previous owner was into model airplanes and they were hanging all over the ceiling.

After golf yesterday four of us went to Applebees for dinner. Got to use one of the gift certificates. They are in Mardi Gras mode. The hostess with the beads and mask agreed to a picture, giggling all the way. Should have done the red eye eliminator.

This is the diving school for the entire military except for the Seals.

Below looks like a sphere but it is really a cylinder. On the bottom is a huge tank and on top there are five compartments where up to 10 divers can live for weeks for saturation diving. In saturation diving divers are brought down to a desired depth (pressure) and kept there for extended periods of time. This permits them to get more work done rather than use so much time compressing and de compressing.

This is the Quarterdeck of the Dive School

At the base there are a number of hover craft with which they experiment.(notice that I did not end the sentence with a preposition). A hover craft has four engines(really powerful ones) and two huge air fans. These things can carry tanks, lots of soldiers or Marines or other stuff and travel about 50 MPH or more. They blow up a lot of dust/dirt/water when they hover as you can see below.

The H53 has been around for a very long time although these are the latest versions. These two are used in research and development. Inside, they have a lot of cable that is used to tow “stuff” through the water to detect “stuff” (which could be harmful to ships etc.)(like mines and submarines). The stuff that is towed is experimental and classified.

H-53 in storage mode with rotors and tail assembly folded to save space.

H-53 ready to go

Yesterday 38 of us FamCampers toured the Navy Base on the West side of Panama City. The next several days will cover that tour. We first saw the H-60 Blackhawk below and then the old standby: the Huey bottom.

Once a year, our friendly social host, Ron, has a bean soup night. Campers provide bags of beans (any kind etc) and he makes the soup in a couple of days. Attendees then also bring side dishes (like deviled eggs, etc) so it is a combination bean soup and pot luck dinner. It was a musical night at the campground.

dThe colocated club in a beautiful location right on the water is an all ranks club which puts out a really fantastic brunch one sunday a month for $9.95. Like the clubs on all bases, this former officers club hasn’t gotten near the business that it used to before the services really clamped down on drinking years ago

The inside of our trailer. Getting ready to have company for dinner.