to sea for refresher training and, on the 28th, embarked upon the passage to Alameda. Acadia arrived at the Naval Air Station, Alameda, on 1 October and began a busy six weeks of repair work there. The destroyer tender returned to San Diego in the middle of November and spent the remainder of 1986 in preparations for overseas movement. Although originally slated to deploy in January 1987, Acadia provided repair services to ships in the San Diego area into the spring. On 14 April, the tender sailed for the western Pacific, and after touching at Pearl Harbor (21 – 22 April) and Subic Bay (8 – 18 May), was en route to Diego Garcia when she was rerouted to the Persian Gulf. An Iraqi Mirage F.1 had attacked and severely damaged the guided missile frigate on 17 May 1987. The crippled ship had limped into Bahrain, where Acadia was dispatched soon thereafter. Between 1 and 27 June, Acadia provided berthing, messing, and repair services to Stark, "doing what she (Acadia) was designed to do, providing forward deployed support and battle damage repair..." 1987–1994 On 5 September 1990 the ship departed San Diego for the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. She was responsible for the first reload of shipboard Tomahawk missiles outside the continental U.S. while pierside in Mina Jebel Ali. The reload recipient was the guided missile destroyer . This was the first wartime deployment of a mixed male-female crew on a U.S. Navy combat vessel. Just over one-third of her crew were women, which caused some controversy when during the course of the mission 1 in 10 of the female crew either became pregnant or discovered they already were. On 30 October 1990, sustained a catastrophic mechanical failure when a high-pressure steam valve burst. This cost the lives of ten of the crew but repairs kept her fully operational for Desert Storm after six weeks of repairs by Acadia. On 18 February 1991, the cruiser struck two influence mines in the Persian Gulf just forward of her after gun mount during Operation Desert Storm, resulting in a cracked superstructure, a jammed port rudder and leaking port shaft seal. Despite severe damage to her stern, her forward weapon systems and Aegis combat system were back online within fifteen minutes. Princeton remained on station for 30 hours until relieved. Repairs in the Mina Jebel Ali near