Antartic christmas

[Ian Adrian Millar]

ANTARCTIC CHRISTMAS

We dropped the hook at Deception Isle,
To rest a bit, and pause awhile.
Amid volcanic ash and dust,
Our once white ship now streaked with rust.

Christmas came as Christmas will,
Killer whales cruise for a kill,
The mail arrives from friends we knew,
Gifts passed out to a lucky few.

My mother's fruit cake was great fun,
A tasty treat well laced with rum,
'Twas Christmas time in the polar zone,
Many thoughts of friends and sailing home.

The cake was shared with those around,
Odd where the Christmas spirits found,
A whaling station of long ago,
Where now a days few people go.

A feast we had that special day,
At a lonely island far away,
Within our ship all safe and sound,
The Christmas spirit all around.

Ian Adrian Millar

[Keith at Tregenna]

As ever appreciated, thanks for this and
the festive Christmas spirit.

Seasons best to yourself.

Regards, Keith.

[Ian Adrian Millar]

Keith A Very Merry Christmas to you and yours and let's hope next year brings better times for us all.

Ian

[j.sabourn]

At the other end of the. World and at a different time of year , the 3 months or so of seasonal break up of the ice in The Hudson Bay used to allow. A couple of ships every year to get cargoes through. To assist in doing this a spotter plane out of Port Churchill used to assist in pointing out leads in the ice . One year I was up there the spotter plane was pointing out leads in an ice free Hudson Bay, whoever he was he had a Geordie accent and can only assume he had started an earlier than usual celebration in a lead up to the Christmas festivities , this being in July, all things being equal though we have Christmas in July in Australia, so maybe he had heard and wanted to try it out. JS

PS Ian see by your cv that Jones is a predominant name in your family. Forget his first name but wasn’t Davy, but did you also have a Captain Jones ( welsh of course ) master of the Maratha Envoy about 1968 .He would of been then in his 60s. JS.

[happy daze john in oz]

Go north to the arctic regions of Norway and Sweden at tis time of year.
Christmas in total darkness, all three months of it.
It does effect the minds of the locals no matter how many years they have been there.

[Keith at Tregenna]

My mother's fruit cake was great fun,
A tasty treat well laced with rum,

Added so much to the poem.

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K.

.

[j.sabourn]

#5 Spent a week with some Norwegian friends who lived in Flora above Bergen but not far enough for all daylight in the Summer had about 1 hour of darkness. At the piper Alpha on July 6 th . It got dark about 2215 and light again about 0300 , and during that period it all happened most never lived to see that daylight. Those who worked through it it was only a blur and made no difference to the work in hand .at sea on ocean passages one had to work out. Approx. the time you had available for star sights and how long the twilight was going to last. Time is everything to the navigator of old , it means very little with the entry of computers into a seaman’s life. Apart from smokos and meal times , and suns over yardarms. JS.

[Keith at Tregenna]

Love both Stavanger and Bergen.

One year arrived in Stavanger early afternoon, had a session at the Red Sea House with some chaps from the Norwegian Navy, hit every bar and nightclub in town and was a kip in my room before midnight.

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[Ian Adrian Millar]

JS: Indeed my family includes one of the Jones famiies of Aberystwyth and my Great Grandfather Samuel was the eldest and he was a Master Mariner as was his brother Arthur. His seafaring days ended in November of 1885 when his ship the brig SOLWAY went up on the rocks at Saffi, Morocco and was a total loss. He died in 1921.I do not recognize the Jones you mention and I doubt he would be a relation as my seafaring Jones people all save one died back during WW II. None of them had any children except Great Grandfather and none of them were seafarers that we know of. Deception Island we had light almost 24 hours a day and when we went up to Thule Greenland we also had light round the clock. We had helicopters that would not only spot for leads in the ice but were a great help unloading supplies at both ends of the earth. Somewhere I still have the certificates we got for crossing the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. A long time ago now but I can still taste my mother's fruitcake!

[j.sabourn]

Thanks for that, it was just a shot in the dark. Jones in Wales is probably as common as McLeod in Stornaway. I always remember this Jones , because the mate I relieved in Japan whose name I do remember Norie Smith was another Welshman and there was a bit of friction between the two. Both of them must be dead by now , Norie is because can remember him dying. He was a prisoner on the Altmark at 16. Chiba was the port in Japan where I relieved him. Flew from Skhipol airport to Anchorage in Alaska and over the pole to Tokyo it was the early days for such routing and received the customary certificate for having been to the North Pole. Cheers JS
Have just realised that Smith and Jones go together wasn’t there a film made of that title JS