Dixie (AD 14) - Naval Cruise Book

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Diego Garcia? Just what the he ok gives? It ' s a place for the donkeys and SeaBees to live. And oats and chickens and menacing crabs , who break coconuts with one of their grabs. It ' s a great place to live if you ' ve simple needs, buy a case of beer and sit in the weeds. But the Skipper said work and thats what we did, our Can Do spirit was never hid. First the Knox our services were rendered, she called us the oldest and finest of tenders. Many ships have pulled up next to Dixie, not a job have we failed, no matter how tricky. To each we give our motto as token, If we can ' t fix it, it isn ' t broken.

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The WestPac Ballad Of U$$ Dixie 79-80 Come along now and hear my tale, I ' ll tell you how the dixie hit the WestPao tratl. I ' ll never forget that fateful day, November fifth we got underway. To San Diego we bid adieu, Next stop Hawaii, old Honolulu. We stayed three days in that tropic port, the liberty? good, but kinda short. But we didn ' t care, P.I. was our next stop, and we didn ' t mind if the weather was hot. San Miguel beer and a local cutie, two days on the beach if you didn ' t have duty. But Iran had hostages, the Ires- said GO , the Indian Ocean we went, we couldn ' t say no. We paused awhile to dog a Russian, then crossed the equator for a polywog lesson. one single tear, for each passing year, that will be

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For fun we sailed to the island Mauritius, for rest, souvineers and plenty of pictures. A cyclone had hit and tore up the roads the pictures we got, but the stores were all closed. Five days we spent on the island Mauritius, then we had to return, for fear the SeaBees might miss us To fix more ships in various ways, ' til the first of May, we counted the days. Then off like a shot to Sydney Australia, the friendliest people - in fact they would hail ya. ' Ey bloke, ' ave an alel ' ave a seat over ' ere, the one thing we missed was the ice cold beer. Sadly we left and headed for Cat. , but some of us had a new pen pal. Hawaii was where we picked up our Tigers, dependents and friends who wished to be riders. Seven days sailing delivered us home, some vowed never again to roam.