I'm not an old Shell man,nor indeed a tankerman , more like an old shell really,(,!)but I often went close to Pulo Bukom if that's one of the islands off Singapore.
Yes,terribly romantic-concrete jetties,storage tanks ,high humidity, the flares,the overpowering stench of petroleum pervading the air.....the lights of Singapore with it's Raffles Singapore Slings and Bugis Street winking tantalisingly in the far distance......
I sailed with an R/O who had been with Shell for many years.He hardly ever went ashore,but used to wax lyrically if not orgasmically about the Shell Club at Pulo Bukom....Poor chap,one of the old traditional Sparks who had joined the MN just after WWII ,then due to the rapid progress of technology would be redundant sometime in the early eighties.I like to think he would spend the rest of his days with his ever present pipe in his mouth in his garden shed in Cheltenham as a radio ham,with a call sign VOFF and 'Knock before Entering 'stencilled on the door.
He often used to tell us how Shellmen used to have nicknames for the tankers based on alternative sounding names for the real thing.If I remember,there was Hemiatrocious for Hemitrochus ,Durex (for Murex,)what else, Doughnuts( for Donax),Sarsparilla (for Asprella),Hemisanus (for Hemisinus.)Vulvatella ( for Volvatella,)Atchootina (for Achatina) Shitala (for Sitala) and one for the sex-starved or cross dressers amongst us,High Nighties(for Hinnites) ,but you get the drift.....
Amazing what memories can be dredged up through reading a post.
Just remembered another,there was Horrormya (for Horomya) which was probably true no doubt depending upon the outstanding maintenance job sheet.