Duties included celebrating the birthday of Commodore Miller, the Commander of the Amphibious Task Group embarked in HMS Ark Royal, by firing a gun salute. Commodore Miller also took the opportunity to visit the ship.

He was able to bring with him Steward Phelps, from HMS Ark Royal, who called on her cousin, and our best curry chef, Leading Chef Phelps, on HMS Richmond.

This was the second time in their naval careers that they have met up onboard, on the previous occasion they met off the coast of Oman during Operation Saif Sareea on HMS Monmouth which was Leading Chef Phelps’ ship at the time.

Leading Chef Phelps is hoping that next time they meet at sea he will have the opportunity to go to his cousin’s ship.

Activities at sea continue, in addition to the daily watches, more training serials have been introduced into the programme. This has ensured that the Ship’s Company maintain their high levels of professionalism required of all warships irrespective of their place of duty on the world map.

There have been fire fighting and man overboard exercises, the latter has also been performed at night giving the swimmer-of-the-watch, OM Brown, the opportunity to practice this drill in darkness.

In addition to the close escort work, HMS Richmond has also continued in her more usual task of Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIOPS). This tasking has not been as busy as in the past, but it remains an important one as the mere presence of a UK warship is enough to deter smugglers.

During the week HMS Richmond rendezvoused with the USCGC Wrangell, enabling the crew of this small vessel to come onboard to use some of our facilities such as telephones and email, and to allow our Chief Petty Officer (Weapons Engineering) Traynor to render technical assistance to their engineers who were experiencing problems with one of their systems.

One of the highlights of the week was the arrival of mail from the UK. This arrived a few days later than planned because of operational constraints and was appreciated all the more for the delay.

At times HMS Richmond has been operating in isolation from other vessels, and on other occasions there have been many vessels, such as the capital ships HMS Ark Royal and Ocean, destroyers, and a variety of ships from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, in close proximity to us making for interesting work for the bridge and operations room watch-keepers.

HMS Richmond is likely to have a port visit to look forward to in the next week or so. This will afford the Ship’s divers the opportunity to carry out their routine inspections of the hull and underwater fittings.

In the meantime, a break from the current tasking has enabled the Close Range Weapons Teams the chance to perform a live firing exercise during which OM Lamont demonstrated a consistently high level of marksmanship with the 30mm weapon.