Notes from aboard HMCS Athabaskan

I love the navy. Or perhaps it's better to say I love the way the navy works when it works well.

Take the mission to Haiti. Last week Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced that Canada's navy would send two ships to help with Haitian relief. (MacKay said that HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Ville de Québec would be dispatched; in fact, the navy sent Athabaskan, which is an air defence destroyer, and the patrol frigate HMCS Halifax.)

The order? Go to Haiti.

It seems simple enough. But where? And do exactly what? And for how long?

All good questions and all unanswered when the dock lines were dropped in Halifax harbour and the warships headed south.

Think of it as a painting: a giant, blank canvas with not even a speck of paint on it.

Day by day, the sailors aboard the Athabaskan, the soldiers on the ground in Haiti and the mission planners in Ottawa are filling in that canvas.

A picture is starting to emerge.

Pencilled in is a line drawing of southern Haiti. A big area for sure, but it's just a hunk of Haiti, narrowed down considerably from "Go to Haiti."

Now place a full-colour drawing of the Halifax and Athabaskan just off that southern coast.

The warships, it's been decided, won't tie up to a Haitian jetty just yet. Instead, they will remain at sea off the south coast.

OK, now sketch in the sun and make the painting full daylight.

It's also been decided that work parties of 60 to 64 sailors will leave the warships at the crack of dawn each day and return just before nightfall. It's safer that way.

Now, let's draw some fine detail on the canvas.

Ink an open Zodiac-style fast boat. Put 16 sailors in that boat. Make one a junior officer and one a senior petty officer. Place several sailors in black combat gear with large guns in the fast boat: they are naval boarding experts, there to protect the work party.

Add a 3,000-watt generator, 14 shovels, a power chocolate bar for each sailor, the doctor-recommended amount of bottled water and a concrete saw or two.

Now, every good painting has a little bit of wonder: Something inexplicable that makes art experts debate for years. (Is Mona smiling or sneering?)

The navy's unfinished painting of Haiti is no different.

Of course, what is missing is the exact location of the painting: southern Haiti yes, but what town or village?

Well, I know but I can't tell you. 

Part of the deal I made when I joined the Athabaskan is that I wouldn't reveal stuff that had to do with operational plans until the navy was prepared to release them. Staying silent is no easy task for a yappy type like me, but a deal is a deal.

This canvas will be finished soon. It's going to be a hopeful and horrific masterpiece.

Why does this unfinished painting make me love the navy?

The men and women of the Athabaskan have gone from "Go to Haiti" to figuring out how many snack bars will be on the landing craft inside five days.

Cmdr. Peter Crain told his assembled sailors that "we are going to learn more about this in the first 20 minutes ashore than in a week of planning."

That may be true, commander.

But I have to tell you that when it comes to filling that barren canvas you were handed a week ago, the Group of Seven has nothing on the Athabaskans.