How many times did COCHRANE cross the equator?

I crossed the first time on the 71 cruise. Seemed I did such a good job the day before we crossed that I earned special privileges for the initiation ceremony. Then crossed again in 75 where I was the royal brat and got to give all the wogs a special treat. Crossed again towards the end of her (88 or 89) career when I was a sand crab and was riding her to fix the missile radar system. I knew it was fixed but the CO wouldn't let me leave until he saw it work underway, ended up riding from Yokosuka to Singapore with the added thrill of catching the tail end of a typhoon around the PI.

We also crossed in 1979 on our South Pac Cruise. I remember dunking all the wanta be shell backs in an old life raft we got from salvage before we left.

Bubbles, you were a beautiful baby! (1974-75 WEST-PAC CRUISEBOOK
page 021 refers)

Do you remember the "electric chair" that the EM1 set up on the fantail as we came down the starboard side? It had some exposed metal on the arms of the chair which gave you a little jolt....nothing major but enough to crack that egg that was popped in my mouth. There's a picture of it on the cruisebook....

Robert Jones SHCS Ret
SH3 USS Cochrane 76-79

Actually her last official crossing was during the IO cruise in 89. Unfortunately for me a large portion of the crew had become shellbacks in November of 88 so there were a whole bunch of hose weilding savages to take care of a small contingent of polywogs. I have a great picture of singing "row, row, row your boat" in front of the fore gun mount at sunrise with a firehose dowsing us with sea water. (Brrrr, still makes me cold thinking about it.) I will tell you this. After such a long torcherous day I finally got to strip down in the sunlight under a salt water fire hose and toss all my destroyed clothes to the sea. That still goes down as one of my favorite moments in life. I had survived! (Getting the peanut butter off my nose and out of my hair took some work.)

Yeah Dave, I still remember that look on your face. You were just enjoying it too darn much!

Mike Gray HTC Ret.
Cochrane 77-79 HT3

I really had a good time, my only complaint was after sitting in the raft with all the left overs from the garbage chute it got pretty stinky. I often had to get the big chunks and throw them over board to prevent injury. It is amazing the amount of garbage the cooks were able to save for that ceremony given the amount of pollywogs on board.