A financial appraisal

Norman G III
Sun 12 Jun 2011 19:36
good evening

at 2100 sunday we are at

36.47.27N 002.00.49W

some good and bad news

the good news is that last night we transited ( another nautical term) the straights of gibraltar managing to cross the busiest traffic channel at between midnight to 4 am -- exactly the darkest period of the night. my watch was 9-12 but we all stayed up until 3 to help. Initially I started off as first lookout with the first officer as backup and then skipper as chief spotter.. there were ships everywhere but all you could see were lights of varying colours mingling with the lights of Gibraltar and africa only 15 miles away.. All the night lights mean something so its important you recognise the colour quickly and relate it to its directional sense. This put me at a disadvantage to the other 2 on lookout.

firstly I dont remember the colours so well from my training and more importantly I had not told them about my dicky eyesight. it really was dark and confusing so I thought id better do the right thing for the watch-- i started guessing-- well its worked all right in business. Amazingly my first few guesses proved to be pretty accurate and i almost had convinced myself i could get through the night without having to own up to being less than 100% perfect in the eyesight department. The problem arose when a supertanker of 1010ft long was coming towards us with all its lights on and its decks lit up and i declared i thought i could see the lights in Morocco on the other side of the straights.James had his first little hissy fit-- quite girly really- and i got posted to watching things and relaying messages about images from the radar screen. I may as well have been in Circeo and told them on the telephone

the bad news-Money is never far from my mind so every time The skipper says something is broken im thinking of ways to make do or to cobble together a cheaper alternative- not so easy with the computer equiptment. ive been thinking back to what i might have done differently with the project and my mind turns to the boatyard that did a lot of the refit work.of 101 jobs they did 95 now need some further attention and the other 6 were jobs that didnt need doing but when someone says" in the interests of safety" or " if it was my boat id do it to feel secure" what choice do you have but to pay. there were some real characters at the yard led by a modern day dick turpin called " come in its ralph" Ive met some characters but hes special. After hed finished telling me how little profit there was in boatbuilding and how poorly paid they all were and there would be no christmas dinner this year I almost paid him more than he wanted---almost. "Cavitation carl" the mechanic and the "bright spark george" made up a formidable team ---- they dont realise they are married to this boat now!!


lastly tonight happy birthday dad for a couple of days ago. im thinking of you but just forgot the day

Until tomorrow in Cartagena

Love and good night


Marshall