Decatur (DDG 31) - Naval Cruise Book

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5 X X S426 iff x X r ustralia The dream of every American sailor is to pull in down-under in the land of kangaroo and eucalyptus. We pulled in thrice, the first time in Brisbane Cshown here, and site of the 1982 Commonwealth Gamesl and then two times in Sydney fnext pagel, before and after ops with the Royal Australian Navy. CSpecial thanks, by-the-bye, to HMAS Melbourne for the raisin dinner rolls she sent over via helo.l Despite the poor exchange rate with the Autralian dollar, we all had plenty of good times, thanks to the many fabulous people who took us to their homes and out on the town. It was all we could do to keep up with them - not so easy when it came to playing football or soccer, or when drinking beer afterwards. Aussies are famous for inhaling huge quantities of ale, but we humored them and drank our lot, and by the time we left for New Zealand, our newly acquired British accents were thick and sloshy. 75

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l i ew Guinea l The stop in Lae, Papua-New Guinea was a nice surprise - at least for those who got ashore. See, we had planned on stopping for fuel, just a quick pit stop to fill our gas tanks and maybe get out to stretch our legs - nothing, but then when they were not ready and made us anchor out an extra day, our Skipper hired a couple of tugboats to haul us all into town so we could do our thing for six hours. Believe me, the tugboat ride was the highlight of the evening - the place was worse than Toledo on a Saturday night, only the long stares from the reputed cannibals kept us quite alert. Oh well, an extra something to write home about. 3 1 9 l i i l l f I l

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