DAft things we did at sea

[vic mcclymont]

One of the daftest things I was involved with, was a bet to see who could grow the biggest Avocado plant.
At Dinner one night homeward bound from the Cape Avocados were on the Menu. The Third and Junior Second and I decided to have a contest to see who could grow the biggest plant from seed.
Three seeds were obtained, cocktail sticks to support said seed. The seed was supported by the cocktail sticks in order that only a fraction of the seed was in the water, a glass goblet was used as a watering system.
The bet was, loser buys the drinks.
We had 14 days to see which plant would be the biggest.
After about a week the J2E's plant was growing like mad, whereas the other two were barely sprouting. We accused him of cheating, an innocent expression who me?
The second week, the plant was massive, then it keeled over and died, whilst the other two were barely flourishing.
It transpired that the J2E had been given his seed a feed of boiler treatment chemicals, hence the flourish and death.
He paid up on the bet.
Vic

[Tony Taylor]

Was part of the team that reactivated a laid up 315,000 ton tanker, lying in Brunei Bay.
We took the ship to dry dock in Sembawang and when we sailed we were all presented with a pot plant.
All died within 3 weeks or so except mine.
It grew on really well and had lush green foliage. It took every ones' interest and I was asked regularly how it was doing.
People came to look at it and everyone asked at some point, what is it? no one could identify it.
Eventually I had to to cough up; mine had started going down hill like all the others so I ditched it and planted a .... potatoe!
Was one of the best wind ups ever.

[John F Collier]

I think pot plants are all called cannabis nowadays Tony

[Red Lead Ted]

Let my cabin mate play the only record he had in his collection for to long, Sung by Country and Western star Slim Panatela or someone, Played it over and over and over...………….. Typical Lyrics for C/W. Song Hole in his roof/ The crops had failed/ His witling knife had broken/ She buggered of with the horse and left him with 5 kids/ The wheel had fallen of his wagon/Ran out of moonshine/ Snapped the last string on his guitar/And his boots where letting in water...…………………….. It put me on that much of a downer every time he played it I left in out on deck one day in the Persian Gulf it made a lovely ashtray.

[John F Collier]

Let my cabin mate play the only record he had in his collection for to long, Sung by Country and Western star Slim Panatela or someone, Played it over and over and over...………….. Typical Lyrics for C/W. Song Hole in his roof/ The crops had failed/ His witling knife had broken/ She buggered of with the horse and left him with 5 kids/ The wheel had fallen of his wagon/Ran out of moonshine/ Snapped the last string on his guitar/And his boots where letting in water...…………………….. It put me on that much of a downer every time he played it I left in out on deck one day in the Persian Gulf it made a lovely ashtray.

Good job he didn't have "Old Shep then" Terry.

[John Arton]

The daftest thing I ever came across at sea was when I was cadet on a C.P. forest product ship. The captain was a bit of a weirdo and one day he came to me and asked if I could build him a garden on the deck outside his cabin. We were loading around Vancouver island at the time so it was no problem to knock up a frame, then in Harmac I went ashore and brought back buckets of soil to fill the frame with, which drew some weird comments from the stevedores and also a warning that bears had been seen in the woods near where I was digging. Crofton was the next port and that captain had me accompany him to a nursery in chemanous where he brought a load of plants that I had to lug back to the ship. He put them all into the garden I had built and was daily tending them and they were flourishing. Two weeks later we had completed loading and sailed for Europe. As we had been on the coast discharging and back loading for high on a month you can imagine that the outside of the accommodation was pretty grubby so the mate, as would be normal, told the Spanish crew to give the accommodation a good scrub and wash down, which they did. Now whether it was by accident or design, the captain not been too popular with them over overtime restrictions and subs, his garden and my hard work all got washed over the side!!!
Rgds
J.A.

[Red Lead Ted]

Good job he didn't have "Old Shep then" Terry.

John I forgot to mention, Old shep the bloody dog was dead.