CAF Story | Avoid Detection - Down Periscope!
Video / November 19, 2021
Transcript
We were avoiding detection by a frigate. These are quiet stages and you can basically hear a quiet hum all throughout the submarine which we're trying to avoid detection. And I see the CO and I see the XO and the people in the control room just doing their job, talking numbers back and forth just like a well-oiled machine, just working. And that was an intense moment. We were able to avoid counter detection. Actually, we were able to find the frigate.
I came here with my parents actually. I was in grade 11 when I moved here. I was almost 16. We immigrated from New Delhi all the way to Vancouver.
As a submariner, for example for myself, I'm training to be a second officer of the watch, to be able to help out take my own watches while we are at sea.
It's a very, very different way of sailing for me personally, cause when you are inside the submarine, it's a whole new, very different world than versus when you are sailing on a ship or somewhere else, for example. You're in close quarters with everybody and, you know, you have two separate watches that... You go on watches with the same people and you get to develop a lot of personal relationships, personal stories and you eat with the same people over and over and it is a very close-knit environment.
Emergency stations, for example. It's taken very seriously on a submarine. Fighting emergency and such, so... we often simulate an exercise and they would create smoke and they would create a sense of urgency. And you are inside the submarine trying to navigate from one stage to the other and you have to sort of touch and feel the EDS connectors as you're going up. And there's smoke and you can't see anything, which can be quite disorienting.
I don't know, maybe I take a very romantic approach at this, but I always picture when we are going to these... on a sail. To me, it is like travelling to a whole different world. I'm underwater and I'm inside this big submarine that's encapsulated and I'm literally underwater with columns of water above me. And you are in very close quarters with people, you know. There are people very close by and it gets very personal. I've gone so close to some of these people after the sail and just getting to know them.
But the other thing is, for me, I thought it's really cool to have face-to-face time with my XO, with my operations officer and even with the Captain I've had. Plenty of time, just... dinners and, you know, it's fun to know the higher-ups and the chain of command.
I like it much for a variety of reasons. First of all, it is a very cool job. I get to do some very, very cool stuff. There is no other job like it. The amount of time we have for each other is evident and the learning as a common goal is evident and it's been a very amazing job cause of the people and the way it is in general.
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