My Second Christmas at Sea

[vic mcclymont]

It was 1972, a funny year, as posted earlier the S.A. Fruit season ended early, we were heading home to all intents as a store ship. We arrived Soton full cargo discharge.
From Memory we arrived late July, went on leave, informed to leave our deep sea gear as we wold be heading for a layup in the Blackwater.
Two weeks later, a call from personnel to join the ship at my convenience, which set the alarm bells ringing.
Arrived Soton, relief crew watching Olympics, eventually next day informed sailing Zeebrugge, Amsterdam and Rotterdam and the Argentine.
Boiler problems stopped us from sailing.
We eventually sailed continent to Argentina, with a cargo of spuds (no Cappy, in sight).
We spent weeks discharging, eventually leaving heading for Cape Verde Islands for bunkers and orders, arriving UK mid to end of November.

We were given the option of leave or sailing, do you fancy a cold winter? - No - we rejoined 10th of December for Angola, South Africa and Mauritius.
We all decided, that we would give up drink until Christmas, we sat in the lounge, not doing much. The Chief Steward Arrived, announced its like a Doctors Surgery, sitting both sides of the lounge and looking miserable.
He then poured glasses of Drambiue which I must say lightened the mood.
Over the next few nights Drambuie took a hammering with he result due to limited stocks. the C.S banned the sale of it in the bar.
Come Christmas, after an excellent meal, copious glasses of wine, and a wee dram of Drambuie, and a phone call home, it was off to the beaches of Durban.

I can honestly sat that I have only ever spent one day lying on sun kissed beach at Christmas once in my life, it was great.
Vic
PS one of the Drinks which was quite popular was rusty nails, whisky, Drambuie, and crushed ice.

[j.sabourn]

Christmas 1953... Arrived Thames ( Purfleet) with 10,000 tons of sugar from Cairns FNQ. After great surmonising the master said I could go home for a few days. Managed to get home had one night at home and got telegram to rejoin in Cardiff. Travel to the Bristol Channel in those days took the best part of the day 24 hrs.from the NE. Arrived back at ship and were loading coal for South America, sailed December , so had Xmas at sea and also my 17 th. Birthday . Both days bring back no exceptional memory’s. In fact cannot remember any Xmas at home , but must have had sometime hopefully.. The ones spent in the North Sea and spent only the one with Harrison’s of Clyde were marked by everyone getting 3 days pay for Xmas and 3 days pay for New year, extremely nice of them and the only British owner I ever saw do so, unfortuanetley they sold their ships in that particular market. Maybe the other company’s saw them sertting a trend they didn’t want to follow, so bought them out. By treating their crews fairly they certainly bought my loyalty. JS..

[David Greenshields at]

It was actually my first Christmas at sea. I was an engineer cadet on the NZSC training ship Otaio in 1966. We had dropped off general cargo around Australia then picked up lamb in New Zealand. Our final port of call was Napier and it was all hands, and cadets, loading trying to get the ship out before Christmas. This failed and we spent the Christmas in Napier. It was a very hot period and I remember lying on the nearby beach after Christmas lunch on the 25th. By the time we left Napier, heading east, we crossed the international date line on 31st December which pleased the Scots on board as we had Hogmanay 2 days on the trot. Crossing the Pacific stopped at Pitcairn to give them meat and we loaded our cabins up with as much fresh fruit as we could, quite an experience.