A couple of weeks off for a walk in the park and all of a sudden it's presumed that I've popped my clogs.
Sorry to disabuse you.
But the last time I talked to you I left you drifting around the Med somewhere. Perhaps our Nav couldn't find Malta, after all, it is quite small.
I recall a certain amount of hostility to our visit...Maltese politics have always baffled me. They welcome our tourists but not those who saved them in WW2. A funny lot, even before Mintoff decided that he liked the Chinese more than us Brits. But it's a very odd sort of place (or was, in 1988). A language that no-one but themselves can understand, taxis and busses that would never in a million years pass an MOT (no wonder that the taxi and bus drivers used to say a prayer and cross themselves before setting off). A huge church for every day of the year...the noise of the Sunday bells was mind-blowing. A skyline dominated by very tall TV aerials (must have been some sort of status symbol). Only 2 colours, various shades of brown and blue.....brown landscape and buildings and blue sky and water, but also lots of black-clad local people. No birds. The locals shoot them all. Even the sea-gulls give the place a miss. Yet Grand Harbour is a place of great and outstanding beauty. So you may have gathered that Malta was not very high on my list of favourite places. Times may have changed....
Due to the antagonism about our visit, each ship (apart from Olwen) was allowed to "opt-out" and go someplace else. We had to stay "close(ish)" to "Ark". A couple of ships decided to go to Augusta (Sicily...not the US, although ...well, why not). But as a "just-in-case" measure "Orangeleaf" disgorged as much of her cargo as we could take. That took 7 hours out of the day. But then the situation became more "as usual"....the "Ark" and somebody else went into Grand Harbour to "do their bit", while the RFAs were to anchor 2 miles off St.Pauls....miles away. In a pretty steep swell at that. I really must be a born optimist because I always felt despondent when this was such a regular occurrence. Over the past month, on top of all the other "stuff", I'd spent ages arranging the hire of wind-surf boards, trips, visits and so on for the ships company.....only for our "agent of choice" to succumb to media pressure and chicken-out. So everything went for a ball of chalk. "Fort Grange" got seriously hacked off with all this hoo-ha and took herself off to Cyprus. So there we sat for 4 days. No breaking of the watch routines. No "enjoyment". Out of sight and out of mind and everyone on board feeling very cheated. Nor did we get any mail. "Ark" got hers, but it was a bit "inconvenient" to put ours on a sea-boat so they sent it off to Cyprus....despondency was now turning into anger.
This little lot isn't reading like a recruitment advert for the RFA is it. But that's the way it was.
We by-passed Cyprus and went south of Crete towards Port Said. Many of our crew (more often the young officers than the "old hand" ratings) had never experienced or expected the sea conditions that you can get when coming out of the lee of Crete. This is the area where Paul Gallico sited his novel "The Posseidon Adventure", and in real life, the ex-Bibby liner "Leicestershire" turned over. For a few hours it was more like being in a N.Atlantic winter storm than the Eastern Med. Not unusual, but it was a bit of a "wake-up" call to the more inexperienced or just plain complacent.
It was about now that the news broke about the mighty and infallible USN shooting down a (Korean?) airliner. Hmm. Gave some pause for thought and concern.
The Suez transit was as uneventful and as unexciting as usual, with the exception of the unusual steep rise in air temperature. Generally speaking I would hazard that going from the mid 70s at Port Said to the low 90s at Port Tewfik would be "normal".....but 110*F was not nice....it hurt. But only 20 days before Singapore. This may seem a long time, we could do that run in a fraction of the time. But the RN has never really got to grips with straight lines on charts. A bit of meandering is always required. Except that in the "Red Sea" you can't, or not very much. What a dreary part of the world is the Red Sea (I think it's called the "Red" sea because of the dust that gets into every natural orifice). Every time I ever went up or down this "rift" I would recall my cadet days in hell-holes like Port Sudan, Jeddha, Djibouti and Aden. I tell you, the most God-forsaken council sink-hole estates in the UK are sheer paradise compared to these places. But eventually we turned left and headed eastwards. Past an island that in my younger days I would have loved to visit..Socotra..but probably just as well I didn't as there is a "there be cannibals" sort of warning.
But by now we were back into "Portland In The Sun" sort of mode. Portland "Work-Ups" were hard work and miserable at the best of times. But I find it hard to say whether doing it in cold weather or very hot weather (or vice verca) one is better (subjective) than the other. In hot weather it feels like one is permanently on the verge of either heat-stroke or a heart attack. So I'll go for cold weather.
Then the Air Con system broke down. Go back to the cabin for a rest but only to find the place is at 90*F. No good opening the ports as the wind is from aft and I really don't want the funnel fumes in here on top of all that. I think I (and others) may have felt a tad suicidal at this point. And I've got a 6 hour stint on the flight deck to do tomorrow morning.
The Bridge team have been "relatively" protected from all this as they are watchkeepers. Getting promoted is not always a "good-thing"! And we are still a long way from completing this bloody audit. Me and "my team" all look, feel and behave like old wet dish rags..and we are to greet our wives in about 10 days when we get to Singapore when we are due a 3 week break. With the AirCon goosed and the "cold water" out of the taps too hot to put a hand in, temperatures both physical and mental were beginning to get a wee bit ragged.
But at least I've got rid of that red dust from my nether regions.
I shall continue!!!!!!!!! BY