ODYSSEY 2005

19 Nov - Port Said.

Well, the convoy got through the canal without having to spend time in ‘The Loop” that makes a big time difference but I would have liked to have had the time there as, during my last stay in the loop, I had enjoyed the company of a very pretty young lady with the morals of an ally cat – great stuff. We followed a French ship through the canal, apart from the registration you could tell she was French as she kept wriggling her stern at as only Parisian girls can do – well, either that or a nervous helmsman.I confess that these days the transit seems to be a bit stressful, the old well ordered procedures have gone and the thing now seems to be run by a lot of people who think that you achieve things by jumping up and down, screaming instructions and turning purple in the face.

As to the Red Sea – well it was certainly not lacking in waries. They were milling about like a pack of women waiting for the doors to open at the winter sales. The trouble with warships is that they love to steam around pretending to be terribly important; they only seem to have two speeds, full ahead and stop - although the yanks have the strange speed called ‘flank’ I would love to give the order “All ahead flank” it sounds so dramatic. In Brit warships you call the engine room and say to the Chief “Be a good chap and pull all the stops out Chief and a bit of extra if it’s not too much trouble as there are five enemy battleships on our tail”, see, no drama at all, it’s all very … civilised, no ‘flank’ at all.
The Red Sea is a strange place; I have never felt comfortable there. To me the water is all wrong and there is a ‘nothingness’ in the air, it’s hard to explain the feeling, let’s just say I get a bit twitchy there, we had Luna opened to full throttle all the way through.

Alas we didn’t get boarded, in fact I feel a bit insulted nobody seemed to be slightest bit interested in us. One Aussie warie steamed down our port side at a great rate of knots (just to prove they had engines bigger than ours) but that was about it. In the end both Clive and I got dressed up in sheets trying to look like suspicious Arabs but even that brought no reaction and I know that there must had had a dozen eyes pointed at us. I suggested to Clive that on the return trip (I won’t be there) he should put up about a dozed dummy aerials with all the gizmos attached – that will bring the grey ladies running.

As to Port Said (sy – eed) absolutely nothing has changed except that the wharf facings have crumbled and the large mooring buoys have lost their paint and the ringbolts are so rusty that I put a buoy jumper into a boat to keep a eye on things. This has always been a scrappy place, famous within the marine industry only for it pornographic postcards which have been in existence since the camera was invented. I am not going ashore here except to try and dispatch this via the agent to Angela via xmaraset and ADlogmein. Jim and Carole don’t have Logmein capability, I should have set it up before I left but it got a bit rushed at the end) this place holds nothing for me (I got my postcards 40 years ago). In fact only Clive is properly going ashore and that only to have dealings with our principal port agent, who doesn’t seem to know how to do things.

We sail at 0300 and I have some very weird feelings about the rest of the voyage. You see, although we have, in reality, been in the Northern Hemisphere since before we reached Colombo, for me it will only seem so when we leave this damned place and head into the Med.
It will be like somebody visiting their old school playground after growing up, moving away and living a life for 40 years. Only, here the school is now deserted, all the buildings gone to dust, all the people scattered to the four corners of the world, leaving nothing but a silent shadow of what was, existing only as a half memory, like coming back into a room the morning after the party. I would never have made this journey if it hadn’t had a strong purpose, hadn’t been something that had to be done.

Still, mustn’t get morbid, life is too short for that. I have a good mob around me, a sound deck under foot, a cabin filled with good booze and snack type food and about two weeks left of this wonderful experience. I think this voyage is proof that you don’t need drama and excitement to keep you going, if you are doing something that you really enjoy, something that makes you feel part of something again, then that’s all you need to make life extremely enjoyable, all the other stuff is just unnecessary glitz. I think most people would find this voyage extremely boring, and I guess that it is, nothing out of the ordinary, what goes on in this ship is being repeated in countless small cargo ships around the world.

Anyway, by this time tomorrow I shall be back in my old world, it’s been a long time, probably too long but who cares it will be a bit of a hoot. Clive asked me if, after Skagen, I will head for England and my home village and to be honest I’m not sure; we will see how things unfold. I would love to go back and see the place but after 40 years would there be anything I would recognise, and would I be known to anybody, perhaps it’s all best left in the past. I am in contact with a girl I knew between the age of 5 and 16 but she now lives in Canada. She goes back every couple of years and has told me a few things – it seems many old faces have met their end one way or another and others just moved away never to be seen again and the village (which is in the green belt) has been taken over by extreme yuppies.

Time permitting I might make a trip into Sweden. If memory serves me there used to be a Ferry between Fredenksvaven and Goteborg and from there the train goes all the way to Stockholm.
Maritime weather reporting gives a temperature for Copenhagen as 7c today and Stockholm 9c (that’s bit of a worry) slightly cooler than Queensland.
Still all that stuff is for the future.

Now it’s time for me to sign off for our fuel and water, do the shore run (with two body guards – problem is one of them will be Primrose), check that Sam is happy with the victualling stores we took on (only tinned goods, we aren’t suicidal) log everybody aboard, sound all the tanks and get ready for self slipping. We only have one boat in the water so, once Clive is also back, that will only take a few minutes to stow. With luck, time will permit a few drinks with the Customs guys (they have their case of scotch so are happy) and you never know when, in the future, you may need a favour.

Next stop is Valletta, where I promise that any message, if sent, doesn’t ramble on as much as this one. The problem is I never know what to write – do people want the day to day small stuff – it’s all very much the same, or the broader picture – all I can do is try and mix it up a bit. Tell Angela and she can try and ring my mobile, it sometimes works.

One very good thing is that Clive has told me that I am going to be paid for this trip – and at higher than usual rate, I believe he has enjoyed the relief of having another real watch keeper around – plus we do get along very well. It means that I will have enough to travel without hitchhiking, stay in hotels rather than doorways and when the time comes, fly back to Oz. It will be nice to have a pocket full of folding money again.

Harry