The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Ship sails home in time for Christmas
The sailors of HMCS Toronto made it back to Halifax with one shopping day left before Christmas.
The frigate covered about 65,000 kilometres of ocean during its six-month deployment with a NATO fleet that took the warship as far north as Norway and as far south as Spain.
“We just launched the helicopter — returned the helicopter to Shearwater — and we’re just getting prepared to come alongside this afternoon,” Cmdr. Jeff Dargavel said Wednesday morning in a telephone interview as his ship steamed into Halifax.
The crew knew they were back home when Toronto sailed out of the warmth of the Gulf Stream, Dargavel said.
“When we punched through the Gulf Stream, temperatures went from 20 C to 5 C in the matter of a few hours,” he said.
It was tough for the crew of 231 people to disengage from their work mindset during the
deployment because they didn’t get to experience much civilian life due to pandemic restrictions on trips ashore.
“We’re tired, but that’s to be expected,” Dargavel said. “We’re at the back end of a six-month deployment.”
Dargavel said he never had to worry about his ship’s operational effectiveness during the tour. “No matter what we got asked to do, or what we were doing at sea in operations, it always went swimmingly well.”
‘INSIDIOUS ENEMY’
That said, his crew put a lot of effort into “fighting off the insidious enemy of the lack of respite” on board Toronto.
To that end, the ship had a civilian fitness instructor on board running daily classes catered to various trades. “We had a Biggest Loser competition,” he said, noting the winner lost 13.7 per cent of their initial weight between Aug. 2 and Dec. 17.
When Toronto stopped in Finland, the ship rented a portable sauna and set it up on the jetty. “That was very popular.”
They had an Amazing Race competition aboard and a mini-putt competition dubbed the Stoker’s Open. “When we were in Glasgow, we had an Oktoberfest-themed kind of get-together. We had Halloween on board. Regularly we had bingo nights — those were really popular. We did trivia nights.”
The latter two raised money for various charities including the Children’s Wish Foundation. “We raised $10,000 to grant a wish to a child.”
The Halifax-based frigate was part of a NATO fleet that shadowed nine Russian warships in August through some of the busiest traffic lanes in the world as they sailed close to the English Channel. Britain’s Royal Navy reported the Russian fleet that sailed out of St. Petersburg contained three Steregushchiyclass corvettes, three Ropuchaclass landing ships, and three missile-armed patrol boats.
Toronto was tasked with doing the same type of shadow operation with another Russian frigate in early December in the North Sea.
“They were just at sea patrolling. There wasn’t any real big activity that they were performing. I think they were just being physically present.”
The ship’s arrival was a much less crowded affair than normal, with most families waiting in parking lots for their loved ones to disembark.
“The only family that’s going to be brought on to the jetty is the family for the sailor who is going to do the first kiss,” Dargavel said.
Before they arrived back in Halifax, Toronto’s crew voted that Sailor First Class Justin Steele be allowed off the ship first to greet his daughter Theresa, wife Ashley and their new baby.
“While we were deployed his wife gave birth to their ... son only a couple of weeks ago, Tommy. So, Sailor Steele is going to meet his son for the first time.”
Dargavel plans to spend some down time at home in Halifax cooking and hiking with his dogs. “It wasn’t the homecoming I had originally planned for,” he said. “Before COVID19 my plan was to go to Hawaii for Christmas. I’ll just have to do that another time.”
RUM AND EGGNOG
He expects most of his crew will be enjoying some rum and eggnog with their families “and order food from their most favourite restaurant.”
They’ll likely have a busy shopping day Thursday, he said.
“We weren’t planning on being home this early,” Dargavel said.
“A lot of people shopped a lot on Amazon. I think there was a lot of that going on. But there are certain gifts for certain people that you can’t really just buy online.”
The crew didn’t get to go ashore much during the deployment because of the pandemic.
“Under normal circumstances, people would fly home, they would go travelling around Europe, (or) they would experience the port we were in,” Dargavel said.
So, when Toronto stopped in Portsmouth, England, for maintenance in October more than two-thirds of the sailors flew home to Nova Scotia for a week, Dargavel said.
“Everybody rotated a week home. So that was a highlight for them.”
HOME FOR A WEEK IN OCTOBER
The sailors came home in mid-october when the prevalence of COVID was very low, Dargavel said. Anybody on the crew who wanted to go home to Nova Scotia was allowed to participate.
“It was a very well-calculated plan with lots of thought into the risk analysis of it,” he said.
“We got everybody home to Halifax without I’d say breaking our bubble and then once they were home, they were allowed to go into the Atlantic Bubble — restricted of course to Nova Scotia.”
They were allowed to go to restaurants during the week off, but not bars or public gyms where the captain thought there might be a greater risk of contracting COVID-19.
“The idea was really just to get them home visiting their families, getting some rest and relaxation and a bit of respite from being on board with no privacy.”
Forty-eight hours before they returned to the ship the sailors got another COVID test at the base hospital in Halifax, he said.
“Once they were tested, they were put into quarantine at home. So, they had to return to their residence and stay there until it was time to leave for the airport again.”
That process worked well, Dargavel said. The only COVID scare on board during the entire deployment turned out to be a sailor with a case of strep throat.
The ship had a portable laboratory on board that tests for COVID as well as 20 other common respiratory pathogens, Dargavel said. “Because we’re able to diagnose it, we’re able to treat it properly.”
Dargavel stayed with his ship in Portsmouth. “My highlight in that time period is the Royal Navy was very gracious to organize some tours of HMS Victory for us.”
Victory is the world’s oldest naval ship still in commission. The 104-gun sailing vessel, launched in 1765, was Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. The ship now sits in a Portsmouth drydock and is preserved as a museum ship.
Back at sea, Dargavel’s frigate acted as the anti-surface warfare commander and antiaircraft air warfare commander for Standing NATO Maritime Group One.
Toronto sailed north of the Arctic Circle off the coast of Norway.
“We got to operate in some of the majestic fjords up there,” Dargavel said. “They’re pretty stunning.”
The frigate patrolled as far north as the northern tip of Norway.
“That was the furthest north I’ve ever been,” Dargavel said.
The ship’s Cyclone helicopter broke ground as well.
“It was the first flight for a CH-148 north of the Arctic Circle,” he said.
‘ABSOLUTELY STUNNING’
The Northern Lights were amazing “every night – it was absolutely stunning,” Dargavel said.
“That was a very spectacular part of the trip.”
He admits it was weird operating with so little daylight. “Basically, the sun would rise at 10 a.m. and by 3 p.m. it would be dark again.”
He thought the crew would feel isolated that far north, but Norway’s mobile phone network is so good that Dargavel’s crew was able to purchase European SIM cards and use their phones. “That really helped people remain in touch with home.”
Dargavel said he’s had time to share his experiences of keeping a warship COVID-FREE with the skipper of HMCS Halifax, the next frigate that leaves in early January to sail with the NATO fleet off Europe.
“And I imagine I’ll have time to talk with the (commanding officer) of Fredericton, who is deploying after Halifax. But, hopefully, knock on wood, by then, when Fredericton deploys later this summer, the crew will be vaccinated.”