The old steel bucket

[Captain Kong]

Done a few Ashes at sea,
One in mid atlantic blew back and stuck on a newly painted bulkhead,
another on a tanker blew up in the air, and disappeared, The Galley Skylight was open, at lunch time we found the soup was a little crunchy.

[John Arton]

Re Richards #23
I paid off a product tanker in Mindelo, cape verde islands, after a 7 month trip. The Harbour was full of half sunk coal barges and old rusting coasters. On arrival the ships chandler came on board asking the captain what the captain could sell HIM, not the usual request from a chandler.
The Cape Verde was gaining independence from Portugal at the time we arrived so there were daily celebrations going on, with each island celebrating its own independence day. To get home we had to fly to the Isle de Sal where the international airport was situated but the inter island plane had been charted to fly the Portugese president and the new Cape Verde president around each island as they celebrated their independence day. We were put up in a hotel and before leaving the ship we were warned to take our own food as the hotel staff would all be celebrating, also not to drink the tap water as it either was recycled or from the only source of water on the island, a desalination plant. The island was totally bare of any vegetation beyond a few scraggly trees in the town center but there were walls built out of volcanic rock dividing the slopes up into barren fields and all roads were cobbled using volcanic rock. On landing ashore the jetty was covered with aid given for free from the Portuguese to feed the population, the vast majority of it being cases of Skol lager!!!!!!.
WE met up with the Reuters news agency reporter in the hotel that night and spent a pleasant night on the vino watching the independence celebrations. A couple of days later inter island flights resumed and we were able to get the twin engine turbo prop plane to Sal to catch an onward flight to Lisbon and thence London. The agent had given us an address in SAL of a b&b that we may need as he could not guarantee we would actually get on a flight that day. The airport was a staging post for South African airways as at that time they were not allowed to fly over black Africa. TAP were the only scheduled airline to fly into and out of Sal and when we arrived in the empty terminal building we went straight to the TAP check in desk only to be told to get to the back of the non existent queue, moments later crowds piled in and we had to take our place at the back of it.
WE eventually got onboard and had a very pleasant flight to Lisbon. On arrival there we went to the transfer desk to check in for the London flight only to be told there was no flight that day. WE eventually got into a nice hotel in the centre of Lisbon only to find the army were on the streets and our hotel was chock full of American female bible students on tour around the European cathedrals. The next day we were back at the airport only to find the check in staff were holding a 2 hour strike every 6 hours but very late we eventually boarded a London bound flight. On arrival at Heathrow we were amazed to find all our luggage had arrived safely. After that it was a quick hop care of B.A. up to Newcastle and home and guess what B.A. managed to loose my luggage!!!! eventually got it back 2 days later.
rgds
J.A.