ODYSSEY 2005

Nov 24 – Valletta.

Not much to say about the Port Said – Valletta crossing. Heaps of good food, a ton of fun and laughter with some hard work thrown in to balance things. It’s still warm but the air has lost most of its humidity so I must be getting close to home. We arrived about ten hours late due to a hot starboard shaft baring. One of the lube oil feed lines had clogged (as always, the one hardest to get at) Chalky and his band of trogs eventually got it fixed and we wound up to full (Flank) speed again … love that flank thingy. The stern port shaft gland has also started to leak a bit, nothing to worry about, it’s something that can wait until the next drydock … I hope, these old girls don’t get the full treatment very often. For the time being we are just using a lot of wet packing.

I have discovered that Clive had a Turkish Mother and Scots father – wow, what a combination that is. He grew up in Turkey until 8 years old then they moved back to the UK. I was right about the military bit; he spent 8 years as a serving office in the Royal Navy. Needless to say he is worth squillions of dollars; if he wanted he could be enjoying the high life of the world in style, instead he drives this old lady around.

This morning we discharged 380 tons of mixed cargo and are in the process of loading tinned goods for Europe – lots of tinned fruit and dates, sultanas etc. It’s ‘nice’ to have such an innocent cargo, makes you feel part of the normal team. One trick that you never forget ‘When alongside in any Malt port, put guards on every brow you have in use and nail everything down’ – talk about a bunch of light fingered Larries. We are a bit protected because owing to our other cargo we are berthed at the hazardous cargo wharf, for some reason the port authorities seem to think their city would be in danger if we blew up … and it would.
I guess many of you foreign devils won’t know the Malta story of WW11. This little island with a handful of British troops and 5 obsolete aeroplanes held out against all that Germany could throw at it; that’s how the Malta Cross came into being – the whole island got one of Britain’s highest honors. It got so bad that much of the stores had to arrive by submarine (to feed an island nation) and even then, many didn’t get through.

Clive and I had lunch today at ‘The British Hotel’ the longest running hotel in Malta. I was here before too and things haven’t changed all that much although it seems to have gone a bit ‘up-market’. Still, the tucker was good, the beer chilled and the whisky served as it should be; that being a fresh bottle on a tray with two glasses, ice, a jug of water and a soda siphon. We couldn’t get any trifle so had to be satisfied with a few helpings of good old English apple pie and custard. Strange to say the people in the restaurant were mainly tourists and many from Germany and Italy, still as some of them were females in short shorts and with long legs and bows like Destroyers, I won’t complain if you don’t.
During my last visit to ‘The British’ I had a young Sub Lieutenant with me who went by the unlikely nickname of PONGO. Actually it was just his initials, the full name now escapes me but it was something like Paul Octavia Nigel Grieves-Orfordson. Poor old PONGO he never made old bones, he was killed in a stupid road accident only a few months after we got home. For some reason that now upsets me even though it was a lifetime ago and I hadn’t given old PONGO a thought for over 30 years. I guess this trip is starting to get to me.

Primrose and Buggerlugs were the duty officers today and again they did a good job. Primrose, if he sticks to it, will end up a fine officer, I just think he needed time to find out if he could be accepted by mariners and now that he has found that he is, everything has changed.
Buggerlugs is OK but too intent for small ships like this. If he is going to survive he needs to go back to college and get proper certificates, then join a larger shipping company with big ships. There he can slowly work his way up and hopefully learn something about leadership on the way.
Our third lost sheep ‘The Idiot’ is just a nice guy who has always watched the world pass him by without having to do anything about it or even think. He may, with time, become a useful officer but I doubt it – that officer ‘something’ just isn’t there, I don’t think he will ever understand responsibility towards those that serve under him and that’s the first prerequisite, it’s all surface stuff with him.

As we don’t sail until tomorrow morning Clive and I are going to again get hotel rooms for tonight (The Castile), the place is swarming with tourists escaping the first European winter chills and we intend having a bit of fun (again I won’t say what because Jim will only delete it) we have our German English and Italian English dictionaries and phrase books and are ready to rock and roll. Needless to say we are both going ashore in topical whites with caps and epaulettes, at our age we need all the help we can get.
My cough has almost gone, whatever Sam put in that tea of his sure seems to work. It also puts you on a high for some reason but I’m not even going to investigate that.

Tomorrow we sail for Marseille, another old haunt and the most crime ridden city on the shores of the Med or it was, things may have changed.
It looks as if, after that, we will run straight to Hamburg, the Gibraltar cargo wasn’t worth the fuel and port charges to pick up. I’m a bit sorry about that as Gib holds good memories for me – still maybe another time.

Now it’s time for a shower, change into whites, stuff money into back pocket and get ready for the night, OK so it’s a unreal life at the moment, but why not enjoy it while you can.

Harry