Got a chance to board/tour another US Navy ship visiting Phuket, this time the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6).

The approach. Awesome.

Our tour was given by the Executive Officer (X.O.) Capt. Jonathan L. Harnden himself. A very warm and approachable guy with a serious job. He couldn’t have been more tolerant of my ridiculous questions, most of which where along the lines of “What does acronym XXX stand for?”

This ship is an amphibious assault ship, so it contains heavy equipment like humvees and tanks, helicopters, Harrier jumpjets, as well as a bunch of sub-boats used to move equipment and personnel. In particular, they spoke about LCAC’s (“Landing Craft Air Cushion”, pronounced EL-kaks) which hover on an air-cushion they create and are apparently loud as hell.

X.O. Harnden showed us the flood bay, the lower storage bays (with all the heavy equipment), the hangar bays, the flight deck with all the aircraft, the bridge (!), the officer’s ward room, the common mess, and the medical areas.

Just awesome.