USNS Point Loma T-AGDS-2

          This was the first ship that I served on during my third employment with Military Sealift Command- Pacific. I served aboard as a wiper and spent most of my time assisting the deck engineer machinist who at that time was Carl Miller. I believe that the Chief Electrician was John Petersen. The Chief Engineer was Gil Hay who would later be my Chief Engineer during my second tour of the USNS Observation Island T-AGM23. You might ask what a wiper is? The wiper is the lowest rating in the engine department, and basically spends the day cleaning up messes or wiping up oil. The wiper always carries a rag with him.

            Even though I had an endorsement as an electrician on my MMD I hired on in 1989 as a wiper just to get my foot back in the door.  Looking at the ship one might assume that she may be an LSD, the term given to a class of amphibious support ships classified as landing ship docks. I used to be of that opinion myself. The ship does have a stern gate and can fill ballast tanks in the rear to lower the stern into the water, however that is where the similarity ends. The key is in the last two letters of this ships classification DS which stands for deep submergence which suggests that she was built around supporting the DSRV or one of the deep ocean exploration submarines like the Alvin. Scuttlebutt that was that Point Loma was instrumental in retrieving one of our space capsules during the Gemini program. Research shows that the Point Loma had never been built as a regular component of the amphibious forces but was specifically built as a public vessel known as the USNS Point Barrow T-AKD-1. In that roll she resupplied Arctic bases which at one time existed as part of the DEW Line. It was as the Point Barrow that the ship participated in the Apollo program not the Gemini as the the rumor went.

       Programs and tasks change in the Navy from time to time and so do a vessels purpose in the fleet. Point Loma had some refitting done to accommodate the electronics package that you see on the bow of the ship. Her purpose would no longer be to support the deep submergence task but to track the trajectory of Polaris missile tests when they occurred. In light of that fact the ship only proceeded to sea perhaps every six months or when ever a test was about to occur. That resulting activity only required a few hands aboard to maintain the ship, it was not a very good use of military personnel and so the Navy turned the crewing and maintenance of the ship over to Military Sealift Command. MSC then in turn kept the vessel in an ROS-34 status. ROS stands for reduced operating status.  I only spent about 45 days aboard and then was pulled to fill a billet aboard the USNS Mizar T-AGOR 11. The ship was normally berthed by itself at the 32nd Street Naval Station in San Diego.

       One of the draw backs of ROS is that overtime pay did not exist. Yes, that is right, we mariners made overtime as day workers for any work performed before 0800 or after 1700.  It should be understood here that since one is posted to a ship one is paid for seven days a week even if only five are worked. Even ashore waiting for assignment a mariner is paid for seven days a  week. If we did work on the weekend the rate worked out to be something like 2.25 time. This means if  your normal rate of pay for an hour was $7.97 you would be paid $17.9325 for every hour worked on Saturday or Sunday or a Federally recognized holiday. I think if I go back in my records for that period that my daily rate as a wiper was only $42.67. Of course during the regular days we were paid 1.5 time for every hour worked before 0800 or after 1700. We could get a draw on our pay mid pay period so we could enjoy some time ashore. We were paid every two weeks and before the days of mandatory direct deposit we were paid in cash, not by check. While in the placement pool in Oakland we would be paid by check but while aboard ship the law required that we be paid in cash, although we could request part of the pay in a check if we needed to send money somewhere.

       One of my primary past times aboard the Point Loma was fishing. One time I even caught a small nurse shark. I think I may have given it to one of the crew members who lived locally in San Diego. Ever the tourist I would get out and explore San Diego and that also meant taking in a movie. Going to the mall in those days was not a good experience. The closest mall was Mission Valley Mall. Was it a real mall? Not by most of our standards. When most of us think of a mall we are thinking of a place that we can shop without the hindrance of temperature or weather, we expect to do our shopping indoors. Mission Valley's tenants were all exposed to the weather. There were many times that I just got plain soaked or had to endure cold weather at that place. Eventually I discovered the Harrison Plaza in down town San Diego off of Broadway. Harrison Plaza had just about everything that I could ask for. It had 21 movie screens under the United Artists brand, it had a Marie Calender's restaurant, and it had a pizza joint. If I wasn't trying to buy fake Rolex watches in Tiajuana I spent my time at Harrison Plaza.