Probably the biggest off duty diversion on cruise underway was MUSIC! Mainly LP records copied to large audio reels. The first big buy at the initial port call at Yokosuka at the NX (A-33), was a huge AKAI or TEAC reel-to-reel tape deck, a Garrard turntable w/ stereo diamond needle, stereo headphones, loads of boxes of blank tape, and numerous contemporary LP stereo music albums.
Everyone would get all their albums copied to large reels... then as the cruise progressed, we would swap tapes & copy tape-to-tape, until everyone had a great recorded tape collection at cruise end. It took a large bulk of the 'off' time' on my deployments.
Looking back, the 2 Sqdn combat cruises had relatively little spare time for anything but actual flying day/night, lengthy detailed mission planning/briefs/debriefs, eating; watches (SDO & Integrity), SpecWpns loading drills (VAs only), spending what time you can w/ Div/Dept collaterals, Pilot's weekly A/C corrosion inspections, and most importantly, crew rest whenever!
Always felt bad about disturbing the "Shoe's" evening wardroom movies with the explosive, jolting cat launches, and the hull pounding, screaming engine traps
C'est la guerre!
BzB