Sea bells ringing for HMAS Melbourne

HMAS Melbourne on patrol duties during a typical Persian Gulf sunset.

HMAS Melbourne (CMDR Vern Dutschke) will spend Christmas Day at sea patrolling in the Persian Gulf, providing maritime security in support of the rehabilitation of Iraq.

The lead-up to Christmas has already involved a lot of wrapping and posting of Christmas presents to send back home, while receiving parcels from Australia.

Most of the messes have ‘secret santa’ arrangements in place, so there is some interesting shopping planned for the next port visit to ensure the ‘right’ gift is chosen.

Christmas decorations, together with a selection of Christmas trees have started to appear throughout the ship, however there is still some work going on to arrange a Santa’s hat big enough to fit on the CAS dome.

There are definitely enough 110v fairy lights and various other flashing devices to challenge the most decorated of homes back in Australia.

Melbourne also has Christmas carols running 24/7 on the ship’s entertainment system for next few weeks just to get that Christmas feel.

With Theatre Broadcast System (TBS) installed, it is expected the ship’s company will watch the traditional Carols by Candlelight live from Australia. Then with dusk falling, the plan is to join in for Christmas Carols on the upper deck.

Both midnight and Christmas Day services are also scheduled and will be led by CHAP Mark Burton before he embarks in Melbourne’s aircraft ‘MOJO’ for a holy helo run to provide services for other ships in company.

Defence watches and boardings will continue as normal, with a traditional Christmas lunch in the café with a large selection of meats, vegetables, salads, together with Christmas cake & pudding.

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