Men belong on ships, and ships belong at sea. . . . but it sure can get lonely out there sometimes.

This scene is probably etched in the minds of every Apache sailor on the cruise. The White Sands astern was about the only scenery we had for most of 1969.

I think Dennis Boggs must have been "driving" for the entire trip . . . he was our "go-to" guy on the helm.

It seemed like Captain Lonnon couldn't get enough target practice. Here Dick Hill lowers a small target that we used for small arms practice. . . . Hey, with week after week after week after week of watching the White Sands in our wake, we needed all the entertainment we could get.

It's a good thing no one is shooting at us. From the looks of things, our gun crew needed a little refresher training.

While Dick Hill continues to read the manual, GMG1 J.W. Thomas shows him how it should be done :-).

Some nights there were spectacular sunsets . . . pictures just don't do them justice.

Lorenzo shooting the evening stars.

Well, this is a little blurry, but, hey, at least I didn't take this one. Behind me is the navigator's station just off Apache's pilot house. From the looks of that smile, I'd guess I got a pretty good fix that night.

Anyone who visited Apache's engineering spaces will remember this sign. Does anyone remember who painted this or when?

I can't remember where I got this photo, but without these heros in the engine room the Trieste would never have made it to the Scorpion scene and back.

Chief Homme had to interrupt his afternoon nap to land this one :-).

Look at the wonderful colors on this beautiful fish.

What wonderful fighting spirit this great fish had.

PN2 T.D. Rhoads and EMC L.J. Homme display the catch of the day. We honored these two great fish by making them the center of the evening's feast.

ENC W.W. Allen and CW02 D.L. Hill standing watch as Apache slowly drags the White Sands through a choppy Pacific.

Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.

During some nasty weather we hit while crossing the Atlantic, these two little birds landed on one of our guns. It was the second day they'd been sitting there when I took this picture. We left food and water on the deck nearby and noticed that they ate a bit before taking off again about 30 hours after I took this picture.

Here RD2 Gagnon (I think) takes note of the fact that the wind is picking up a bit.

We had a LOT of days like this, where the wind, sea, and our course were all at odds.

Lest we ever forget, one night in the Atlantic we were towing White Sands who had Trieste in tow. During the night, the line to TII broke . . . it's a long story and was a long night, but eventually we recovered Trieste, returned her to the White Sands, and commenced towing them again. . . . This drawing was made, I think, by Larry Lonnon. Note the ? at the end of the line :-).

Captain Lonnon was big on bugle calls instead of using a whistle over the 1MC. I think this is QM2 Sherard, who was our official ship's bugler.

I never felt as safe as I did when these guys were at GQ, repelling boarders no doubt.

Once again the White Sands is safely in tow. This is the never-ending sight the Apache crew saw for over 14,000 miles! It was like that "Butch & Sundance" line, "Who are those guys who keep following us?"

This sure looks like three guys who shouldn't be left alone :-). I think this is QM2 L.W. Sherard, QM3 D.M. Boggs, and RD2 R. Gagnon

If you wanted to really know what was going on, you had to be part of the evening foredeck gatherings.

I look more like a tourist on a boat ride than and XO!

I can't find this guy's picture in the cruise book . . . maybe he was just a tourist on a fishing vacation :-).

Somebody always got stuck with those unheralded tasks without which we couldn't have done what we did. Here is one of our unsung heros whose name I wish I could remember.

This is RD3 T.P. Moody. I always knew something out of the ordinary was about to happen whenever Moody approached with that sly smile of his :-).

Not only did CS1 A.O. Bagnas bake and decorate all of our celebratory cakes, he was also the ship's butcher!

This is CW02 Dick Hill, whose deck division has gone into the history books as having handled the deck duties on the Navy's longest tow.

And here is Dick Hill again . . . and once again check out the cigarette in his hand :-(.

My proudest accomplishment during my years in the Navy was to have been the navigator on this cruise, which turned out to be the longest single tow in U.S. Navy history . . . over 14,100 nautical miles!

I don't think the deck hands on both the Apache and the White Sands can ever get enough credit for the astounding feats of seamanship they performed. These guys were the very best sailors the Navy had back in 1969!

I believe that is SN J.R. Bates wearing the sound-powered phones. Bates was sort of our version of "Radar." Whenever Captain Lonnon was doing anything important, Bates was there. I've often thought that maybe Larry Lonnon wasn't in command after all. Maybe Bates was running the show :-).

That's Captain Lonnon on the bridge, I think.

There were so many perfect sunsets on this cruise that the pictures of them all start to look the same.

As Apache's XO, I got to order the uniform of the day each morning. On this particular day, Captain Lonnon told the ship's doc that he'd better begin keeping an eye on me :-).