Some navy people were hanging out at Lonsdale Quay today, answering questions & offering tours of their big-ass Halifax-class frigates. One’s called “The HMCS Vancouver (FFH 331)”, and it’s got a little orca on the side. The other one’s called the “HMCS Winnipeg (FFH 338)” and it’s got a little buffalo.
Louise & I asked one of the sailors what that huge metal-grated column is towards the rear of the frigates, & they said it was the air intake port for the gargantuan combustion engine that moves these things around. Another man asked about every single one of the guns (how big the projectiles they fired were, as well as how many of said projectiles could be fired in one second).
A different sailor then kindly gave a bunch of exact numbers, but my general takeaway was: Frighteningly-huge projectiles, thousands of times per second! Also there were all kinds of wild surface-to-air missiles and underwater torpedoes and shit like that.
Our nation might not have the ability to fix everybody’s teeth, but it does have the ability to fire frighteningly-huge projectiles thousands of times per second, so I guess that’ll have to do right? Haha.
We spotted this pair of juvenile rock doves , stowed away within one of the Vancouver’s various… uh, holes! (I think this particular hole is a ‘scupper’?? But truthfully I do not know shit about warships haha.) These little ones looked like they were just about ready to fly, yet they hesitated to take the leap.
I love the way these birds can adapt to any situation that’s even vaguely reminiscent of ‘a cliffside’.