Awesome. Spent a career in USMC Herks. We'd call you guys PEDRO- which was the CH46 SAR platform then. Once in Japan, one of our pilots had a buddy on the PEDRO bird and got us a joy ride with them on a local training mission. One of our guys was late, so the swimmer instructed him to hurry up into his poop suit, as we were all waiting aboard. This guy shows up and sees us, all strapped in wearing flight suits, he being the only one in bright orange.
Needless to say, he was "downed aviator" that day! We hovered in low, dumped him into the Sea of Japan, (cold as hell) and flew off in a big circle. The guy didn't have a clue as to what was going on. We came back in low, and swimmer jumped in and hooked him up. Pretty neat experience.
I was an amature sailor most of my adult life. I was able to do a lot of racing in Asia. We (and other skippers) were always looking for crew, so with your experience, you will be in high demand as crew- and every base with a body of water has a marina. It was especially rewarding to race under Japanese rules with mostly Japanese owned boats to outter islands. Always a party afterwards on some island, then back home the next day. They used a bastardized version of IOR rules, even though some of them had some hotrods- Elliot one-off schooners for example racing against Beneteau First series boats. Cheating bastards. But we still had fun. Sounds like your life is headed for some great times!
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