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Port San Carlos
Submitted by Neil Williams on Mon, 2012-07-09 20:32
I was in the team put together to take over from 53 Sqn (I think) to get the power stations and water supply up and running. We were that important they even flew us all the way to the islands instead of the standard 2nd rate 12 day ferry cruise!
Possibly the best 6 months of my 15 years as the 8 of us were left to our own devices to get the place up and running, only spoilt when the RA turned up and the usual fun and games broke out between us. I think they got the message load and clear when their electricity and water went off...a few times. There might only have been 8 of us against their 80 or so but we held all the cards!
For the last month I was shunted off to Port Howard on another island.... now that really is remote! Mud up to our ear holes with the Irish Rangers for company!!
Permalink Submitted by Miner on Thu, 2021-12-09 10:41.
We arrived at the camp by Chinook to take over from previous team who left on the same chopper we arrived on, there's planning for you. Our fitter Sgt arrived a week before we did so at least he knew where we were sleeping. He took us over to the power station, we were amazed to see Cummings air cooled generator sets as we were all trained on Rolls Royce!
We managed to remain separate from the RA battery what with their church service in all weathers out on the helipad, and their ridiculous pocket money limit. We mostly mixed with the RAF refuelers and the RCT Mexe float operators. Our full screw Pete Osgood was moved to Port Howard to sort their camp out and never came back.
We set up a freezer container and with much relief for the gunners a potato peeling machine. With a bit of swapping of skills (I rewired settlement fitters workshop and sorted his buzzing florescent fitting in his kitchen) and frozen veg that the incoming RA battery didn't know was in the NAAFI freezer we managed to get 5L of cooking oil and had elicit chip parties in the closed NAAFI, great days.
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Port San Carlos 83
We arrived at the camp by Chinook to take over from previous team who left on the same chopper we arrived on, there's planning for you. Our fitter Sgt arrived a week before we did so at least he knew where we were sleeping. He took us over to the power station, we were amazed to see Cummings air cooled generator sets as we were all trained on Rolls Royce!
We managed to remain separate from the RA battery what with their church service in all weathers out on the helipad, and their ridiculous pocket money limit. We mostly mixed with the RAF refuelers and the RCT Mexe float operators. Our full screw Pete Osgood was moved to Port Howard to sort their camp out and never came back.
We set up a freezer container and with much relief for the gunners a potato peeling machine. With a bit of swapping of skills (I rewired settlement fitters workshop and sorted his buzzing florescent fitting in his kitchen) and frozen veg that the incoming RA battery didn't know was in the NAAFI freezer we managed to get 5L of cooking oil and had elicit chip parties in the closed NAAFI, great days.