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Thread: A trip down the West Coast

  1. #31
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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    Thanks for the memory Ivan, I fell off the mast in Port Harcourt and I was a fit 18 year old ruffy tuffy sailor.
    No chance now at 85 and a quarter. now I cant even use a step ladder to change a light bulb.

    Cheers
    Brian

  2. #32
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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    Getting back to the ship at 4 or 5 in the morning after a night of booze and jiggy jig. Woken up 2 hours later and told to rig stages over the bow. Some how we did it and went back ashore that night for a repeat performance.
    Now it would take a month to recover just from the jiggy jig.

  3. #33
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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    We can all still do what we did then, just use your mind and it is easy.
    I served two tables of ten last night, just before I woke up.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

    John Strange R737787
    World Traveller

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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    Quote Originally Posted by Louis the fly View Post
    I joined the Obuasi of Elder Dempster in Liverpool October 69.
    There was a great crew on this ship, every man a comedian, once we were back at sea all the bad times were forgotten and we laughed and joked about what we had been up to on the trip. It almost made me think of doing it all over again but sanity prevailed and I stored it away in my happy memory box.
    I, Anthony J. Palmer, spent a year on the West Coast, when I first went to sea as a Deck Boy on an Elder Dempster Sam Boat: the Zungeru. We experienced the same weather conditions, the most ferocious of which was sailing through a violent thunderstorm, at night, while I was on lookout at the bow. (I had graduated to a JOS by this time.) Lightning was hitting the sea all around us and I was just a little concerned, because I was standing on a steel deck, in the pouring rain. On a Sam Boat, our accommodation was in the centre castle, of course, but my experience in a poop deck was not as enjoyable as that of Louis the fly;353956. By this time, I was an EDH on a Royal Mail Empire Boat; the Teviot. We sailed from London and as we rounded the Ushant Light to enter the Bay of Biscay, there was a Force 10 gale blowing. Under normal conditions, the Teviot would cover the distance from Ushant to Finistere in 24 hours. We were making just 2 knots headway and it took us nearly 3 days. . It was the only time that I was ever seasick. Our quarters were aft in the Poop housing. As the bow rose against an oncoming roller, our quarters would drop down; then as the ship crested the peak of the wave and headed down into the next trough, we would shoot up and when the propeller broke clear of the water, the whole stern would shake violently It would reach its zenith and we would temporarily be weightless for a moment before we took the plunge down again. It was if we were going up and down in an express elevator with shaking side effects. We could not keep the water out of our cabins; there was always five to seven centimetres sloshing around. We ate our meals and then, more often than not, I rushed to the rail, on the leeward side of course and threw it all up. When we had to stand to on watch, we had to grab lifelines to get along the deck to the centre castle and the bridge. There it was relatively calm and from the wheel house we could look out upon the churning sea and watch it as it broke across the bow. I do not remember being afraid; I found it exciting, although the Skipper may have had different thoughts, but after reading what had befallen this ship before and having watched modern videos of ships in similar circumstances and seen what happened to them, I know that we were very fortunate. Our troubles were not over, when we had weathered the storm. Part of our cargo was cement and somehow it had broken loose and got into our water. Most of the crew came down with various diseases; I suffered from dysentery and was very glad to arrive in Recife, Pernumbuco, Brazil, so that we could all get ashore to visit a doctor.
    Last edited by Doc Vernon; 21st October 2020 at 07:40 PM.

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  6. #35
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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    This poem is of Tombo Mary who was a Legend in Apapa side, Lagos ,Nigeria.

    Tombo Mary's Bed


    Apapa was the venue for our lads run ashore,
    On the coast of Africa where tourists never tour,
    The bar was Tombo Mary's where she ruled the roost all day,
    Customers were seafarers - keen to spend their pay.

    In this one-roomed shanty, with hard mud for a floor,
    Palm fronds on the thatched roof and canvas for a door,
    Our black mama Mary - a wondrous female sight,
    Would choose a handy sailor for her carnal joys at night.


    Raised up on a dias just behind the bar,
    The centre of attention from here to Calabar,
    Was a huge four poster bed with linen and fine lace,
    Imported from some far off land and taking pride of place.

    It`s where Mary held her lover-boy for a torrid night of fun.
    Piccaninnies and the bar staff - at the setting of the sun -
    Would sleep below this raft of love, with tassels hanging red,
    While the sailor did his duty - in Tombo Mary's bed.


    Author unknown, but he must have been there.
    Brian...................
    Last edited by Captain Kong; 17th October 2020 at 02:42 PM.

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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    Remember after a night on the turps in Lagos we decided to get a canoe across to Apapa instead of taking the long way round, half way across the canoe man demanded more money which resulted in an animated discussion and a couple of us including me ended up in the water, eventually we sorted everything out and no harm was done, I was considering swimming for it in my inebriated state, glad I didn't.

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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    It's a bit vague in the memory these days, but I do remember a number of us from the Dumurra in Takoradi getting back to the ship (loading logs at the buoys) on a few of the Takoradi Threepenny Bits. We'd been ashore to be defeated by a Polish ship at football and as losers went onboard their ship to help reduce their booze stock. I recall we gave the drivers a ridiculous amount of the local currency.

  9. #38
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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    From what I read I must be the only one to cross the Bay of Biscay a number of times and each time it was like a Mill Pond. However the worst storm I encountered was in the Mediterranean where we lost a lifeboat, a lot of stores and the Peggys never came for the meals. Have just remembered that upon leaving Genoa the sea was like mirror with a sailing boat becalmed, was woken up in the night by noise from the PO's mess and found, through the steam, that the heater had come adrift from the bulkhead.
    Terry Sullivan R340406

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  11. #39
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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    Have tried twice to answer this post and has disappeared. In brief the coldest I have seen at sea was Venice in 1955. JS
    R575129

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    Default Re: A trip down the West Coast

    I joined the Houlders iron ore boat Oregis after being told in the pool she would be loading in one of the Brazilian ports. Finished up in two of the coldest and miserable places on earth, Kirkeness on the Norwegian / Russian border and Seven Islands in Canada. Not very good after packing a small grip with shorts and flip flops.

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