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By Lt. (Navy) BRIAN OWENS
HMCS Fredericton

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Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Fredericton departed for the Arabian Sea and the Horn of Africa on a six-month deployment Oct. 25. It will work alongside our NATO and coalition partners, to conduct counter piracy and counter terror operations.

Over the next several weeks, The Daily Gleaner will be publishing articles from HMCS Fredericton detailing life onboard, the variety of situations the Navy works in, and some of the unique jobs that naval personnel do in their day-to-day lives serving Canada.

These articles will be written by the sailors, soldiers, airmen and airwomen who are on patrol in the region onboard Fredericton, the warship named after the New Brunswick capital.

This week marked the beginning of our journey towards the Arabian Sea. The North Atlantic has been quite rough. Since our departure we have seen the seas grow, from one to two metres, to our current seven metres.

However, it's extraordinary how a person can quickly adapt to these conditions and get their "sea legs.''

There are challenges to life at sea. The ordinary tasks you do every day come with a twist. To put it in comparison, imagine eating at your dinner table which is rising and lowering about two feet, left and right - now try to catch your food.

And when you go to sleep, you may buckle your seatbelt, just to be sure you don't fall out. Outside of the rocking and rolling, you need to get used to living in tight quarters with people you only just met.

You get one locker and one drawer to fit six months of clothing, toiletries, reading material, DVDs, etc. And you have to learn a completely different language - naval jargon. Call the galley a kitchen or your dobie your laundry and someone will quickly set you straight.

Life onboard a naval vessel also gives you a sense of teamwork and interdependency unlike any other career you would choose - and everyone has more than one role to play. Everyone is trained to fight fires. The cooks and stewards are also the casualty clearing team (first aiders) and meteorological techs run the mail.

You could soon need to rely on one of your shipmates for help or them of you.

In the coming weeks, you will see how HMCS Fredericton operates, the different things we do, the unique challenges and certainly some of the highlights of being in the Navy.

For more information on HMCS Fredericton, please go to: http://www.navy.dnd.ca/fredericton/

Naval Terminology of the Week: Killick - Leading Seaman. Often used with the branch name or nickname, e.g. Killick Stoker, Killick Bos'n.

Owens is the public affairs officer onboard HMCS Fredericton. He was formerly based at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown and is a native of Saint John.