The trick to those cargo nets was to wear tennies, had a pair of black converse hi-tops I wore all over the place. I climbed up once bare foot, after that it was tennie city..
Citizens just don't understand what it's like on a boat, how you lived in Naval Distillate soaked mean greens for weeks at a time or how the biggest treat you could have was a warm RC cola and a mystery meat and hot sauce sandwich or saltine crackers and butter for desert..How you can sit for hours in a Main Machinery Room filled with deafening head splitting noise and be able to pick out a Forced Draft Blower drop a few hundred RPM...
The only time it got a little tense was whe we were doing 20 or 30 knots and then started getting Cat Drags, the boilers would get sucked down to 1100 PSI each time the catapault launched a Phantom or Intruder and then go wide open to get back to 1300 PSI, you'd be pouring so much fuel in there the boiler would start to pant from the super fuel rich mixture flashing half way to the rear wall instead of the burner tip, you could literally see the casing expand with each explosion, scare the livin' sh*t out of, you'd just stand there chain smoking Marlboro's and drinking coffee hoping you didn't rupture a main steam or fuel line.....you'd get off watch shakin' like a leaf...
Guess you just had to be there.
