All the nice girls love a sailor!
- Mike B
- Feb 17, 2019
- 6 min read
S.A.VAAL Merchant Navy 1975-76
We had just finished the Captain’s party, which was the ‘welcome on board bash,’ where all the passengers could mingle and meet new acquaintances and some of the officers would take the opportunity to scan the ‘lonely’ women for potential ’rendevous’ later in the voyage. Tinder had yet to be invented.
There had been one ‘faux pas’ during the event when, as was customary, the ship’s assistant Purser was standing at the entrance to the ballroom, announcing guests to the Captain and the rest of the crowded rooma la town crier, when he delivered in the best London ‘Master of Ceremonies’ voice - ''Mr. and Mrs. Bates and their son------ Master Bates!''
There was a deathly hush as the ‘slow burn’ of what had just echoed around the magnificent main entertainment room began to be understood or mis-understood! The Assistant Purser
( What a tosser!) turned a vibrant shade of ‘cooked Scottish lobster,’ the Captain turned a ‘whiter shade of pale’ and poor Master Bates and his gob smacked parents turned as black as thunder.
The band ( one violinist - the leader, one pianist, a *drummer, one guitarist, and one double bass player ) re-doubled their efforts with their rendition of “Doing the Lambeth Walk” and the party got going again.
When we awoke the next morning all hell broke loose, the ship, all 342,000 metric ton of her began to rise and dip and roll and crash, through mountainous waves and foaming, burnished jade coloured seas. People on board looked like like Myxomatosis Rabbits caught in the headlights, one minute they had been sipping their champagne at the Captain’s cocktail party and the next they were bracing themselves against the bulkheads (walls) ready for the next thundering crash as we hit the next wall of a wave!
Even some of the crew were fearful for their lives and later the following day we were to learn that 4 people had lost their lives off the English coast in some of the most appalling conditions for decades.
That morning immediately after breakfast I had the unenviable job of placing a couple of hundred decorated Chinese “demi-tasse’ - small single shot espressocoffee cups - around the circular coffee tables in the ships main Ballroom, so that those hardy few, who were not throwing up their previous evenings ‘overindulgence’ into paper bags or ‘over their partners and who also had the strength to walk against the dramatic pitching and rolling of the ship, could relax after their petit dejeuner and literally, lounge around like overfed walruses until the lunch gong sounded and they waddled back to their linen clad troughs.
As the ship went into an almost full barrel roll a couple of cups tipped ‘overboard’ as it were, from the coffee tables, I soon gave up trying to place them around and instead only put them on the table if they were subsequently held in place by the passenger. I had just begun serving the piping hot coffee and milk, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw an elderly gentleman sat in an armchair which was slowly tipping backwards as the ship began to make a violent, shuddering pitch to one side. I placed my hot coffee and milk servers onto the nearest table and then sprinted across the dance floor toward the old boy. It was like something out of ‘Baywatch,’ the whole thing started to slip into slow motion as I skidded gracefully to a perfectly timed stop just in time to catch the poor chap from emptying from his place of rest and plunging backwards and headlong toward the landing and ominous stairwell! I held the chair and its bemused occupant as the ship pitched in the opposite direction, only to see out of the corner of my other eye my ornate silver Turkish ‘milk and coffee ‘servers slowly pass their own centre of gravity and fall from the table, careering, sliding and spilling their contents as they headed toward me and the old boy. As they were about to smash into his gout ridden foot I tipped the chair backward again and spread my legs to allow said pots free passage to the stairwell! It was very reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh and a Blustery day when Winnie the Pooh and Piglet were in Owls Tree House trying unsuccessfully to gain access to the honey pot!
Cape Town
Balthazar Johannes Vorster was Prime Minister (1966-78) and presided over some of the darkest days of South African history and the loathsome policy of Apartheid Separateness.
I had encountered him and his wife when they came aboard the S.A. Vaal for a cocktail party to celebrate a car company called Chrysler ’s marketing milestone with the tag line ‘Erste Classe’ First Class’. I didn’t know at the time but he was a staunch supporter of Hitler and had been a member of the South African Storm Chasers which in turn was modelled on the Nazi ‘Storm Division’.
Mrs. Vorster approached me and demanded service. She appeared to wear a a faintly dyed pink wig, which was indistinguishable from the small ‘faintly dyed pink’ Poodle lap dog that she held throughout the party, I remember thinking that if the wig blew off then she could immediately plop the dog straight on top of her head and literally , no one would have been the wiser! I also remember thinking how unfair the whole thing was and wondering how they could possibly sleep at night knowing how they were treating their fellow men and women to such an inhumane existence . It would be another 18 years before a more forward thing President, Fredrik Willem de Klerk, finally extinguished the detested Apartheid system and released Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned on Robben Island (1964-1982) at the time just a few miles from where we were berthed.
Cape Town is a fabulous, vibrant and at times windy city situated almost at the tip of the Great African Continent and has always held very fond memories for me. I was 19 and ready for a bit of adventure! I was not to be disappointed!
I had stocked up in the Canary Islands; the ship’s first stop after leaving Southampton, with cigars which were only slightly more expensive than the duty free cigarettes which I could buy on board for a mere fraction of what I was paying ‘shoreside. There were two or three rusted and beaten up Russian fishing trawlers anchored in the bay. I was informed by an old Merchant Seaman that the Russians were regular visitors to Lanzarote. ‘Fishing’ vessel was a loose term as they were more likely to be ocean going ‘listening posts’ which would steam as close to European countries as would seem reasonable for a vessel supposedly fishing, or just cruise the Atlantic hoping to pick up any radio signals that they could. Well that was what I was told. To me the rusty old buckets didn’t look as though they would last five minutes if they left the protection of the the harbour and laboured out to sea!
For the next ten days we would sail down the coast of Africa, watch flying fishExocoetus (which is where the Japanese sushi delicacy Tobiko the little orange fish eggs comes from), wonder at the Doldrums, that surreal expanse of dead calm sea where traditional Tall Ship sailors past and present, float for days on end waiting for a breath of wind to carry them forward on their journey and then, turn in beneath Cote d’Ivoire and track down the edge of Gabon, Angola and Namibia with its haunting and desolate ‘ Skeleton coast’. I had no idea at the time that I was going to travel down this coast again some 20 years later in a search for Hake Merlucius capensis and Rock Lobster Jasus leland.
We would then chug down to Cape Town and head into the serene and wonderful Table Bay at about 7.30 in the morning and watch as the ‘new emigrants’ on board stared goggle eyed in suspended disbelief at that most spectacular view.
I visited recently and its beauty still makes the heart miss a beat!
(Incidentally., in the main presentation room at Billingsgate Market they have a magnificent display of plaster cast fish and shellfish. Some years ago I pointed out to the then Chief Inspector that the plaster cast of the Rock Lobster had the incorrect latin name on it and rather than the label ‘Nephrop norvegicus’ ….which is in actual fact Scampi / Langoustine/ Norwegian Lobster ….yes it can be called anyone of these… that it was in fact Jasus lalandii from the Panulirus family. I think he probably thought ‘what a little upstart ‘but assured me it would be changed forthwith’. I visited a few weeks ago and it has still not been changed!) CJ....over to you!
I am pleased to introduce one of my favourite ‘mentors’ and great friends!
Comments