Do naval officers spend most of their time on a ship?

Hi Toshi. Unrestricted line officers will be in sea duty billets percentage wise more than medical, lawyers, logistics, and other staff corps. The percentages drop as the officers promote up as there are fewer O-4 and up billets available. I was an enlisted sailor that went Civil Engineer Corps. That totally ended sea duty when I commissioned, until I was an O-5 and did a stint as the 7th Fleet Engineer. That was a very rare circumstance that likely won't be seen very much. Even though you may be assigned to a ship, it's then a matter of what the ship is doing. It could be doing an operation, in port, or in drydock. I loved my time at sea and pretty much hated the drydock periods as shipyards are noisy, dirty, and always churning to compressed schedules which results in systems failures when we get back out to sea. The old saying is never enough time to do it right but always time to fix it.

A few weeks ago I met a retired Naval aviator, he had been commissioned at USN Pensacola, FL.

‘Philip’ said in his twenty years he had flown the larger Navy transport/cargo planes and had never been on board a ship!

SWOs and Aviators assigned to a Carrier air group. Other than that, not so much.