A Navy seal joined Britain’s flagship on exercises off the Scottish coast – and flapped about a bit.
The creature sailed into HMS Bulwark’s loading dock while the assault ship was taking part in amphibious exercises near Carnoustie and stayed aboard for about half an hour.
THIS is quite probably the best picture of a seal in the loading dock of an amphibious assault ship during exercises off Scotland ever.
The mammal swam up into the landing dock of flagship HMS Bulwark as she was anchored off the east coast of Scotland near Carnoustie preparing for her part in the large-scale Joint Warrior exercise as the command ship.
Flopping about the bay – normally used by Royal Marines landing and raiding craft – the seal appeared to applaud for the surprised sailors and commandos who had gathered in the dock as part of the exercise serials.
Lt Sarah Filshie, Bulwark’s air aviation officer, managed to catch a few pictures of the creature before it swam back into the chilly waters.
“It’s rather unusual to have a seal actually come on board but he seemed very inquisitive and interested in what we were up to.
A seal, yesterday
“He stayed for about half an hour before one of the other officers approached him to see if he needed any help getting back into the water, and then he just turned around and went back out again. He’d seemed perfectly comfortable just sitting there waving at us,” she said.
The seal (temporarily) joined more than 12,000 personnel from the world’s military for what is the largest exercise in North-west Europe this year.
The latest Joint Warrior – it’s run twice a year, chiefly off the west coast of Scotland – involves more than 40 warships, 40 fixed-wing aircraft and 30 helicopters from the UK, Netherlands, Canada, France, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Germany.
From the Royal Navy’s perspective, the exercise will also help to prepare the UK’s own Response Force Task Group, which is intended to respond at a moment’s notice to rapidly-unfolding world events, for its annual Cougar deployment later this year.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
How did you like the post, leave a comment. I would appreciate hearing from you all. Best wishes from JC's Naval, Maritime and Military News