Taking the final salute LCDR Bairstow

Friday November 3 marked another milestone in the life of both HMAS GLADSTONE and her ship's company.

The day marked the departure of LCDR Warren Bairstow, the ship's commanding officer for the previous eighteen months.

After signing the log and delivering his final few words to the troops, he handed over command to LCDR Peter Ashen.

After being piped ashore, and as he strode down the wharf of HMAS CAIRNS, he was given three resounding cheers by the team he had led and worked with so closely for the tenure of his command.

This teamwork had produced a happy, closeknit ship's company, who could be justly proud of what they had achieved.

The boat was in excellent condition and had only missed one and a half days of her commitments during those 18 months.

Under LCDR Bairstow's command she had covered 42,000 nautical miles and conducted a Southwest Pacific deployment, assorted patrols, training with the army, served as escort to the replica of the early Dutch sailing ship DUFKYEN and made numerous port visits.

The latter included Gladstone, where a ceremonial Freedom of Entry was conducted, seemingly much to the enjoyment of the locals.

Perhaps not surprisingly, after having done so much together, GLADSTONE hadn't quite said good bye to their old CO as he departed the wharf.

That evening a reception was hosted on board to mark the occasion in fitting style. This was both to farewell LCDR Bairstow and his wife Gwen, and also to thank the hard working community of HMAS CAIRNS and supporting agencies, such as the Defence Community Organisation, for all their work and effort supporting the crew and families of GLADSTONE while he was in command.

The evening culminated with a magnificent Ceremonial Sunset. Seven personnel from GLADSTONE had been training extremely hard for this occasion, under the guidance of the POB Forsyth.

The Sunset party, ably commanded by SBLT McDowell, consisted of ABBM Patterson, ABBM Ritchie, ABMT Turner, ABET Brown, ABSN Saly and ABCIS Fraser.

All in GLADSTONE and many in the wider Cairns community will miss the exuberant, rogue character of LCDR Bairstow and wish him every success on his next posting, to the Australian Defence College.

Now that he has gone the ship's company is busily embarked on a re-education program for their new CO, who for the past decade was a proud submariner. Despite these efforts, negotiations are underway with DSTO to conduct a trial for another Fremantle class paint scheme (this time black), while the Charge is reluctantly looking into using the stabilisers as diving planes.