Originally Posted by
joseph connor
The worst job I ever did was on my first deep sea trip on Automedon as deck boy in the far east somewhere , scorching hot day, the other deck boy and me were taken forward and down into one of the deep tanks and watched the bosun and a couple of engineers undo some bolts on a metal plate in the deck, then we were given a small hand brush and shovel and told to remove all the oily smelly muck out of the void below, which if I remember right was about eighteen inch's square going to port and starboard , we were stripped down to our underpants and had to make our way out, every time we took a shovel full we had to crawl backwards to the opening and pass the shovel up then back again ,my strongest recollection is of the heat its a wonder we did,nt cook in there ! Then when it was clean we were taken back up on deck into blinding sunlight , standing there black head to foot we were washed down with a hose , I remember hearing some of the lads ,voicing their disagreement at what we had done .
Funny but I felt a bit proud of it after , what does,not kill you makes you stronger , Joe .