maritime

  I puzzled over what Colin had told us last night. Whites tomorrow! Well, as we neared the eastern end of the Mediterranean and Port Said, it was certainly warmer. Grandpa had helped me with my uniform shopping as Dad was at sea, so I had some white clothes. Time to dig them out and get ready for tomorrow. First there was the short sleeve shirt with holes for epaulets on both shoulders. Attaching the epaulets was relatively simple, the laces go through the holes and are tied on the inside of the shirt. Quite grand with a single gold bar along the length of the epaulet much better than the lapel flashes of the blue winter jacket. Then there were the shorts. Seemed to be a little long as they came to my knees but apparently that was the style.   Fastened with two buckles at the front, “Empire builders” Colin said. Especially important that they were not too short but also that they were not too wide. He told us that once as the ship came into port, the Captain with his wide...

 So, this is Gibraltar, that large rock at the entrance to the Mediterranean that I have heard so much about lately and here it is right in front of my eyes, my very first foreign port. I'm really looking forward to it. As a 16-year-old grammar schoolboy I learnt very little history being more led through English literature and languages which did not excite me at the time. Only later did I learn of the British Empire and its tentacles around the globe. Gibraltar was an outpost of the British Empire but has had an interesting and varied history. Not only is there evidence of prehistoric cave dwellers on “The Rock” as it is affectionately called but it was of religious and symbolic importance from around 950 BC. For the Greeks and Romans, it was called “The Pillars of Hercules” after the Greek legend on the creation of the Straits of Gibraltar. The Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 covered the occupation of Gibraltar until the Spanish recaptured it in 1462. ...

 We sailed out of the Irish Sea and left coastal Britain behind. As we steered South South West (SSW) we crossed over the continental shelf and truly could say we were “deep sea” sailing. For the first time I was at sea going towards foreign countries, in this case the North West coast of Spain. To reach their we must cross the Bay of Biscay, notorious for its gales and enormous swell driven by the South Westerly prevailing winds coming all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, we today were truly in an ocean, no longer a sea. There are several “markers” that tell you that you have left coastal waters and entered an ocean regime. Birds that wheel around the ship zigzagging around the wake looking for food are completely absent. Both land and seabirds are gone. They are not true ocean birds like the albatross and need to return to land. Maritime traffic also changes. There is much less recreational boats and local fishermen. They too have their land-based bases to return...