Losing friends

In the past couple of hours, four or five of the other civilians aboard USS John F. Kennedy left our company, headed back to the First Coast. The reason: all the prior uncertainty about when the ship would leave Boston and, more importantly, when it would arrive at Mayport Naval Station.

The original plan was to depart Monday and arrive Thursday. Our departure was delayed to take on 1 million gallons of fuel, plus a stop in Norfolk was added, pushing our arrival in Jacksonville to Monday. While our arrival date seems to be Friday, the uncertainty led several of the mostly-retired Navy League members to quit the voyage to attend to personal and business obligations back home.

Two of those were Terry McMullen of Ponte Vedra Beach and Glenn Schneider of Jacksonville, both of whom left for the airport an hour ago. “If I knew for sure we were getting back by Friday, it would be no problem,” Schneider told me. But his daughter is headed back to FSU on Sunday and he didn’t want to risk missing time with her.

The majority of the Navy Leaguers and former Kennedy crewmen are staying no matter when the ship leaves or arrives. Jacksonville resident Tony Placzkowski, a former Kennedy chief petty officer known as “Chief Ski,” said he’s staying, despite having a business to run in Orange Park. And so is retired Chief Ted Turowski of Palm Bay (pictured). “I called my wife and got permission to stay,” he said with a grin.

And yes, it looks like 12:30 p.m. is still our underway time.

Jeff