The Red Sea

 We dropped the pilot at Suez and set off down the Gulf of Suez before entering the Red Sea. On each side the coast was of sandy coloured hills and mountains and a blue, blue sky over an azure sea. We finally had left Europe and were now entering the Middle East with the Arabian Peninsula to port and Africa to starboard and India sort of round the corner.

 Colin called us into our messroom. Boyo’s, he said, we are now in the tropics and EVERTHING changes. With day and night-time temperatures around 30 degrees centigrade you need to take care of yourselves.

First you need to take one of these as he held up a large white pill, salt tablets to replace the salt you lose through sweating. Do not forget to take them.

Then he held up a glass of an evil looking liquid. Lime juice to be taken every day to prevent scurvy!

Why all these precautions?

It is only with hindsight that the precautions Colin was describing were put into context. We were embarking on a 1300 nautical leg of our voyage to Aden in tropical seas in a ship from the 1920’s.

A steam reciprocating engine needs a lot of fresh water and the provision of fresh water for the crew was not always of the highest priority. Whilst we had enough to drink, washing in salt water with special soap was not unusual.

There were no refrigerators or freezers on board, no air-conditioning and thus we had to adapt to the natural hot climate in various ways.

Production of ice was crucial to maintain our store of food and not least beer! Once the ice boxes could no longer be kept cool, we were down to tinned food and warm beer. The only solution was to buy locally at every port we visited. This was a challenge for the purser, responsible for catering on the ship.

Keeping clean in the tropics became a challenge for us young apprentices unused to the combination of heat, sweat and physical work in a scorching sun from 6am to 6pm. Regular change of clothing, sometimes twice a day was the norm and this Yorkshiremen often found it difficult to adapt to it! The result, the dreaded “dhobi rash”, a fungal rash especially under underwear and difficult to overcome. Of course, the problem was the tight clothing we use in the west. The solution might lie in the Indian “lungi” worn often by the Indian crew in their off-duty periods. It is nothing more than a length of cotton about waist high that is wrapped around the waist and tucked into the waist band. Nothing underneath makes it cooler and more appropriate to sweaty conditions! Must get one when we get to Aden.

However, there is an art in tying a lungi. Done correctly, it provides a simple and elegant solution to everyday informal dress. Done incorrectly, can result in an embarrassing situation with the lungi around your ankles and you are showing the world your “nether regions” as we say in Yorkshire. With increasing skill, it can also be tucked up under the waistband to provide a sort of shorts version.

Another issue that arose quite quickly was the problem of sleeping in our bunks in such high

temperatures. We had “punkah louvres” in the cabin up under the ceiling that were supposed to deliver a stream of cool air over us. However, these faded yellow Bakelite nozzles were often stuck in one position and the air was neither cool or had sufficient force to make any difference even when we slept naked on the bunk sheets!

So, another solution was required.

Hammocks on deck is the answer, said Colin. Not only is it cooler on deck but you will learn some essential sail making skills. Ah, I thought, now I will get to use the sailmakers palm and needle that Grandpa insisted I needed in my “ditty bag”.

Go to the “cassab” in his store under the fo’csle and ask for 2 metres of no. 2 duck canvas, a skein of thread for all of us and a few metres of rope used for awnings, said Colin, and come back and we get started.

So started my training into the world of round and flat seams, cringles and grommets and rope splicing, proper seaman like activities! We found out soon enough that a wooden stretcher at each end holding the edges of the hammock apart gave us more space although the risk of falling out was increased!

The ship proceeded south with every day the same, blue sky and sea and hot, hot, hot. You soon learnt that the best times of the day were just before sunrise, around 06:00 and at sunset around 18:00. Being on the graveyard watch meant that midnight to 04:00 was fine with a slight breeze and the stars very bright overhead. The problem was the 12:00 to 16:00 watch where the full source of the sun beat down on us. Even with awnings over the bridge wings it was difficult to stay cool. Hanging your arms over the bridge front helped but every so often you had to go into the bridge itself and that was warm!

The midnight to 4 am watch was my favourite. Sometimes called the graveyard watch because everyone on the ship is asleep and you are alone, well with your Glaswegian second mate who seems to spend a lot of time in the chartroom.

Imagine, you are steaming south in the Red Sea, the temperature has cooled off from its burning daytime heights and there is a cooling breeze from the south, right in your face. The only sounds are the thump of the engine and the swish of the waves parted by the bow. Now and again, there is a splash as a flying fish lands on deck or sometimes a larger fish plays in the bow wave.

The purri wallah, the Indian lookout, is out on the leeside bridge wing and you have checked the bridge instrumentation. No ships on radar and none in sight. You move out to the windward bridge wing and hang your arms over the bridge front to catch the breeze. Magic.

Suddenly there is a click from the VHF and a voice says, “British ship heading south, this is the German ship Hansa, vi haf your Captain on board”!

What is this some sort of joke!!

The Scottish second mate replies, “I will check and call back”. Purri wallah, call the Captain and ask him to come up on the bridge.

Five minutes later, sorry sahib but the Captain is not there!!

Hell’s teeth, what has happened. Purri wallah, wake up the Chief Officer and ask him to come up on the bridge.

He arrives, take over and a thorough search reveals that indeed we do not have a Captain on board!

Frantic VHF exchanges result in that our Captain is uninjured after 3 hours in the shark invested waters of the Red Sea and the German ship heading south behind us will drop him off in Aden!

But what happened?

It was normal for the captain to visit the bridge around the change of watch at midnight and then spend a few minutes cooling off on his deck below the bridge. An inspection of this area revealed that the chain rail between the lifeboat davits and the permanent shipside rail was not hooked on leaving a gap over the side of the ship. It looks as though on his nightly walk he managed to walk over the side of the ship and survived about 3 hours in the water of the Red Sea! A real mystery!

Another challenge for us Northern Europe folk when working in the tropical sun is how to stop sunburn. Well without suntan protection oils we resorted to coconut oil and steaked our bodies brown! Today we would know better, and it is only in later life did we come to realise the dangers of over exposure to the sun. But, in those carefree days been brown was both healthy and we thought attractive to all the girls that were waiting for us at every port!! Ha Ha.

Once we reached the tropics, we seemed to relax more in our off watch periods. With 12 hours of sun every day and fair weather every day it is not surprising that we spent a lot of time on deck. Whilst the day workers followed a 9 to 5 routine with after dinner activities, watch keepers must snatch what leisure they could. For me on the 12 to 4 watch it meant that leisure came after 4pm until bedtime at 8pm.

One of the first things done was to erect our “swimming pool” on the boat deck abaft number three hatch. Well swimming pool is a posh description. It was a wooden box bolted together and lined with a homemade canvas bag with a drain tube in one corner. Measuring around 3 metres square it was less a swimming pool and more a large social bathtub! Once filled with seawater from the fire hydrant we
could relax in tepid water as we drank our Tennant’s lager. Apprentices, deck, and engine officers, all enjoyed a beer around the pool. On those rare occasions we had an engine breakdown we would lower a rope ladder and swim in the Red Sea! It was important to have someone keeping a lookout for sharks, but I never experienced any problems and the joy of floating in the deep blue of the Red Sea was a lifetime experience for a 16-year-old.

This social life was strictly segregated. White officers did not socialise with white petty officers and not at all with the Indian crew. In a way it was run on naval lines, but it seemed to work in those days.

Soon, we neared the Bab Al Mandep straits that separates Africa from the Arabian Peninsula and Jock, the second mate wanted me to check the bearings as we rounded Perim Island and exited the Red Sea.

So, on the port bridge wing I searched for Balfe Pt. tower on the western end of the island as according to our plan we would change course twice with bearings from the tower.  So this was an important task. Shout out when the tower is abeam bearing 054 degrees and then we will alter course to 161 degrees . Then when we have it at 3 nautical miles distance we will come round to 103 degrees and head out of the Red Sea and enter the Arabian Sea on our way to Aden. What excitement, not only being a part of the navigation team as we rounded Perim Island but new opportunities in Aden. What to expect?