Sea Harvest

 Merry Xmas to you all.

Here is another article from the pen of my brother, Peter.

The smell of fried bacon still, lingered as we set off to collect Richard.  Mum always insisted we start the day on a good breakfast.  We walked through the garden and over the bottom stile grabbing a handful of peapods as we passed the rows.  Away on the distant hillside a plume of smoke followed the tank engine pulling its few carriages up to the cliff top station.  As we approached the top of the bank we heard the clatter of Len’s horse and cart before it came into view.  Len looked as he always did, covered in black dust, as a coalman should look.   

The red pantiled roofs of the cottages were spread below us like a garish scarf.  Seagulls sat on chimney pots squawking the news at each other and contemplating the likelihood of tasty fish morsels when the fishing boats returned. We ran down the bank past the fish shop and up a narrow cobbled street to Richard’s house.  The smell of fresh bread from one of the village bakeries reminded us to get a penny loaf on our way home.  Richard handed us our buckets, shrimp nets and crab hooks, which we kept down the bank at his house for convenience.  A few houses higher up the lane was our village school and the coastguard station, which had a commanding view of the whole bay.  On the horizon ships were dotted like crumbs on a green cloth.

The smell of the gas works hung in the air as we approached the beach from the cliffs.   Taking off our shoes and tying them by their laces we hung them round our neck and walked up the cliff, and down to the beach.  Our feet were tickled by the grass smoothed by soft mud on the cliffs, covered in sand and finally stabbed by the barnacle covered rocks as we headed for our favourite shrimp pool.  The sea was just leaving it isolated.  We walked across the still cold shallow water, and shuffling our feet into the sand we could feel the shrimps with our toes. 

After collecting a few we left them in one of the buckets and followed the tide down the rocks to collect winkles.  The strong smell of seaweed rotting above the tide line was blown down to us on the offshore breeze.  Carefully stepping over the slippery seaweed we gathered winkles until the tide had receded far enough to expose the scaurs that were home to crabs and lobsters.

The sound of jingling harnesses distracted us and we ran back up the beach to greet the horses and ponies waiting to give rides to visiting holiday makers.  The strong horsey smell was added to as they relieved themselves on the wet sand.  As usual we volunteered to lead the donkeys on their 10 minute route along the sand and back.  Our reward may be a free ride at the end of the day.  There wasn’t enough business to warrant our help so we were asked to come back later.

Jim the sea urchin man was setting up his stall.  If we were lucky and found a couple of good sea urchins he would give us three pence for them.  He would clean off the spines, gut and polish them and filled them with thrift and heather flowers they would provide the tourists with a memento of their holiday.  Before returning to the hunt we built a dam at the outflow of one of the draining pools.  The soft sand squidged between our toes as we battled in vain to stop the tides outflow with rocks and scooped handfuls of wet sand.

The sun rose higher and dried the sand above the tide line.  The breeze played with empty cigarette packets, before dropping them back on the sand.  John my elder brother decided the tide was right to look for crabs.  We retraced our steps over the barnacle and limpet encrusted rocks, before stepping off the scaurs to find the holes where the crabs hid.  Glances back to the village, which nestled in a gap in the cliffs, through which a stream flowed, showed us that we had our bearings right.  The scrabbling of our crab hooks in gaps in the rocks almost drowned out the soft rippling sound of sand and pebbles being fondled by the sea.  We searched in vain, and soon returned to the beach.

A noisy game of beach cricket was in progress, and we soon joined in.  Shouts and curses erupted when our wet ball landed on the back of a young woman sunning herself higher up the beach. 

Soon John shouted, ‘Here’s Mum,’ and we left the game and joined her and Richard’s mother with our picnic lunches.  Orange juice was greedily swigged down before tucking into our egg and cress sandwiches and cold sausages.  An apple for a pudding and then maybe an ice cream cornet from Trillo’s van that stood at the foot of the slipway.  It was our lucky day.  The cold soft ice cream and the crunchy wafer was the perfect finale to a summer’s morning on the beach.

 

Growing up in Robin Hoods Bay

 My brother is an entertaining writer of short stories, Here  is one on our childhood memories.

Memories

Memory is a funny thing.  As my mother entered her final years, she seemed to have an incredible recall of events and people from over 80 years in the past.  Whilst still aware enough to remember who the prime minister was, she would have trouble remembering what had happened to her in the last week.

 

My memory for some things is poor; I am dreadful at remembering names.  I can recall that I know the face, but often not the association or the name.  On the other hand, my wife’s memory for names and faces is amazing.  She still on occasions meets and remembers people who she knew at primary school.

 

I can remember numbers, places, names of places and events.  It probably says a lot about the kind of people we are.  My wife is a warm, friendly people person.  I can remember numbers.

 

But the purpose of this piece is to recount some of the memories of my childhood.  Some I certainly remember, some may be that I remember what I have been told.  I am describing events before I was 9 when the family lived in Robin Hoods Bay prior to our move to Middlesbrough.

 

Robin Hoods Bay on the Yorkshire coast grew up in 3 phases.  Early settlers were subsistence farmers living high above the coast in fear of Viking raiders, fishing when weather permitted.  Once it was safe to do so they moved down to the coast.  The wide bay has three streams cutting through the soft cliffs of shale and clay.  They chose the northernmost and built their houses astride the steep sided beck. In appearance it looks as though a child had spilled their toy houses and they lay where they landed.  Later still the Victorians built a railway and started to construct a more orderly village near the station on top of the steep bank that led down to the old village. 

 

Fishing boats would be drawn up in a square at the village foot where a slipway led down to the beach beside the culverted stream.  At high tide the sea rose up the slipway and in stormy weather flooded the square.  At low tide sands lay at the foot of the cliffs on either side of the village.  Rocky outcrops or scaurs lay in parallel bands angling out from the beach.

 

This long hot summer we have enjoyed brings to mind another one – 1947.  But it is that winter, which brings up a memory.  At that time my father was still in the RNR, having been drafted in 1939 from his position as a Merchant Navy Officer.  His role involved him travelling from one naval dockyard to another adjusting magnetic compasses on naval vessels.  He managed to get home most weekends.  But there was one weekend that he got home and was trapped.  The tale was told that the village was cut off for six weeks.  Huge drifts blocked both the rail line from Whitby and Scarborough and the roads over the moors.  My memory testifies to this. 

 

Running short of fresh meat my Dad elected to take his shotgun onto the cliffs and try and bag a rabbit or two for the pot.  He took me along well wrapped up against the snow.  I would be 5 and it is a bit of a mystery why he decided that watching him shoot rabbits was good for my education.  In the event we didn’t get any.  Whilst tramping along the cliff top in the snow I tripped over something.  Dad picked me up, brushed me down, and scraped away the snow to reveal what it was that had felled me.  It was the top of a telegraph pole.  The phone line followed the railway line and at this point it was in a cutting that was completely filled with a snowdrift.

 

I have another incident in the snow, but this would be later in about 1950.  Having been allowed to move away from the Bay School, where I had started my education at the age of 6, I now walked to Thorpe School with my brother and one of his friends. The journey was about ¾ mile and involved walking up a steep bank just passed the railway bridge on Thorpe Lane.  We had trudged through the hard packed snow as far as the bank. As we started on the bank a United bus drove up behind us.  We thought it would be a good idea to get a help up the hill so as the bus slowed down to gingerly climb up the bank we clung onto the back and let it tow us up.  It did seem a good idea at the time, but the bus driver had an alternative view.  Before we had got to the school half a mile away he had stopped there and reported our escapade to the headmaster.

 

On arriving we were summoned to the front of the boys assembly.  Not as intimidating as you might think, there were probably only about 30 children.  The headmaster said he had a mind to punish us for our foolhardiness and asked us which punishment we would select. Being new to the school I was uncertain what he meant by this, but he soon revealed his intent.  He opened a cupboard to display his armoury.  It contained a thin Malacca cane, a walking stick, a leather strap, a plimsoll, a riding crop and a shepherds ‘hezzle’ or hazel walking pole.

 

Being the new boy, I was asked first and deliberated my choice.  I knew the Malacca cane would sting, as would the riding crop.  I settled for the hezzle.  He asked me to explain my choice, and I said that I believed it would hurt less than the others.  Turning to the school he asked them if they agreed with my selection.  To a boy they confirmed that my judgement was misplaced.  I shivered with dread anticipation.  In the event the headmaster then decided to let us off with a caution.

 

A similar recollection from these wintry days was batting to school through heavy snow and arriving cold and wet.  We were told to remove our coats and dry them near the potbellied stove that supplied the room with heat.  Once we were warm and the clothes a bit drier we were packed off to trudge our way back home through the driving snow.

 

On the way to school we had passed the local church St. Stephens, known as the village cathedral because of its classic imposing structure.  In the late 19^th century it replaced, for regular worship, the old church, high above the village.  Close by the church was the vicarage, another good example of Victorian architecture.  It was here that I enjoyed or endured, you may choose, two of life experiences.

 

My mother was a fine pianist and organist and often played the organ at church.  She was keen for her sons to be part of the church music experience.  My older brother was already in the choir, and it was my turn to audition.  I was an altogether different proposition.  Shy, lacking in confidence, and with a marked stammer, I was unable to produce a single note at the audition in front of the vicar’s wife.  I was thus destined never to grace the choir stalls. 

 

I did grace the vicar’s lawn though, or maybe that should be disgrace.  Every Whitsuntide the vicar held a garden party in the grounds of the vicarage.  One of the highlights of the event was maypole dancing.  Quite how the vicar rationalised this ancient form of pagan symbolism with his Christian duties is not recorded.  The weaving of intricate patterns and the successful un-weaving appealed to my senses.  Unfortunately, I did not always get it right and the chaos that can ensue when a young boy takes the wrong step on the unwinding can be hilarious – for the onlookers.  Apart from the boy’s mother that is.

 

I started school when I was 6, delayed due to a bout of pneumonia.  My education had been at home, and I apparently developed reasonable reading skills and the ability to knit.  My reading ability resulted in a change in my grandfather’s choice of Sunday reading.  I can remember the incident, but the result was explained to me many years later.  Reading the paper one weekend I pointed out to my mother that the paper had made a misprint.  They had spelled the word six with an e instead of an i.  My grandfather’s copy of the News of the World was cancelled forthwith.

 

Our papers were delivered by Bill Brown who ran one of the village shops.  He also delivered groceries for Uncle Dan.  He wasn’t really an uncle, just the husband of a lifelong friend of my mother.  He ran the village grocers and post office.   Part of his trade was to provide a grocery service to the many farms that dotted the hillside from Ravenscar to Ness Point.  He walked up to each farm once a week and took orders from the farmer or his wife.  The orders were assembled and then delivered by Bill Brown in his old, battered Armstrong Siddely, whose rear doors were tied together with cord.

 

My role in all this I shared with my brother.  We helped Uncle Dan assemble the orders after school. We weighed sugar into blue paper bags, and flour into brown ones.  Tea was scooped out of the tea chest and weighed into packets, which were then carefully folded to prevent spillage.  I carved and weighed lumps of lard, margarine and butter from large slabs and neatly wrapped them in greaseproof paper.  Shelves were trawled for tins of peas and peaches, jars of meat paste and pickled onions, and the haul was packed neatly into cardboard boxes. But the best job was grinding the coffee beans on the big old grinder.  The wonderful smell is to me the best part of coffee, more preferable than the taste.

 

I received no pay for this work, a dip into a sweet jar was all I could expect or wish for.  My mother reaped the benefit through Dan’s generosity with his groceries and his surplus eggs when the hens were laying well.  I suspect also that my mother’s food ration coupons had a degree of elasticity.  It was with Dan that we learned an early lesson in animal husbandry.  Once his hens were no longer able to produce eggs they were promptly despatched.  Dan showed us the most effective way to wring a chicken’s neck.

 

There are other memories of my childhood, which I have known for a long time was a very precious and privileged time in my life.  Catching lobsters and collecting winkles on the shore; Christmas Masonic parties; the deadly scourge of polio; penny bread loaves, fleeing from strange men and arson.

It was inevitable that as children we would spend a lot of our spare time on the beach, particularly in holiday time.  We would spend this time largely unsupervised, generally 4 or 5 of us in a small group of mixed ages, but all under the age of 12.  The bay had notorious tides patterns, which each summer managed to strand some holidaymaker on the scaurs requiring them to swim to safety and occasionally they needed recovering by boat.  Somehow we kids already knew the dangers and managed to watch out for each other as we gathered winkles, sea urchins or fished for crabs and lobsters.

 

Winkles were taken home, boiled and after seasoning with salt and vinegar eaten with a pin. Getting the winkle out of its shell is a simple matter of skewering the end, twisting and pulling before discarding the flat cap that seals the flesh in the shell. Sea urchins were a different matter.  These provided us with the pocket money that we could spend at Trillos ice cream van to be found on the beach most holidays.  Both on the beach in the high season and in a small shop in the village a local man, a real ancient to us youngsters sold the sea urchins, gutted, stripped of their spines and polished.  He then filled them with small bunches of coastal flowers such as thrift, samphire and sea lavender and sold them to holidaymakers.

 

Crabs and lobsters were taken home to eat.  The local fishermen caught them in lobster pots, but we and other villagers used our crab hooks. Getting your own crab hook was a rite of passage for children.  The hook was a broomstick with a metal spike on the end twisted into a hook. The technique was to follow the tide as it ebbed and start poking your hook into crevices under the rocky scaurs.  Both crabs and lobsters objected to this intrusion into their premises and grabbed the hook with their claw.  The task was to gently tease them out of their hole, bind their claws with string and drop them into your bucket. Memory tells me that we got loads.  The reality is that we probably had many more failures than successes.  We also had to follow the conservation rules, which prevented us taking immature specimens.  Immature lobsters were called ninties by the local fishermen for some reason.

 

We must have had some success, as I recall that summer evening meals sometimes comprised a large bowl of salad, local bread, more of this later, and a cooked lobster on each plate.  It was a matter of pride to extract as much flesh as possible using only a teaspoon.

 

When the tide was in we played on the cliffs and beside the village stream until we were banned from doing so.  This arose when one of our extended gang contracted infantile paralysis, or polio as it came to be known.  It was believed that she contracted the disease from the stream, which probably served as a sewer for half the village and farms further up into the hills.  The fear in the village was palpable and as a young boy I was aware of this.  Fortunately, no one else became ill and Ailsa remained isolated until her sad early death as a teenager.

 

The other illness that haunted us from these times was TB. My brother had an infected gland in his neck removed and for years the family were regularly screened for the disease.  The source of the illness was never established, but we all drank milk delivered directly from the farm.  The milkman, old Len, walked the streets with a yoke across his back carrying two pails of milk.  He ladled your requirements into your jugs from his standard measures, in pints not litres.

 

The cliffs in spring were carpeted with primroses, and one day my brother and I gathered fists full to give to our mother on Mothers Day.  My brother had a little wheelbarrow made by a joiner friend of our parents.  We decided that this would make a good receptacle for our gift.  However, once we placed in our primroses the gift looked a bit sparse.  The primroses needed augmenting, and we found some daffodils in a field along Church Lane.  These were nearer than another trip to the cliffs for primroses.  It was later that we were told that we should never ever consider taking flowers from the churchyard.

 

But life was not all fun. One of the local tradesmen, the coal man if memory serves me right came with a health warning. Our parents advised us that we boys should stay away from him.  Why this was so was never explained, adulthood provided the answer. One late Autumn afternoon I was returning home when he appeared behind me and called out.  What he said or what his   intentions were I have no notion.  I had just one idea.  To run for home.  I was soon there but in my headlong flight I misjudged my turn into the drive and ran headlong into the gate.  Within minutes I had a lump the size of a hen’s egg on my forehead and my mother soothing it with a cold compress.

 

In those days the village had a thriving year-round population and was well served by local shops.  These include a shoe shop, grocer and general dealer, a milliner and fabric shop, newsagents, butchers, wet and fried fish shops, cafes and bakeries.  It is the last of these that gave me a lifelong taste for fresh, home baked bread.  On the way home from school, when I was about 6 or 7, I would call in to collect the bread ordered by my mother.  I would also get a penny loaf.  This was a miniature loaf about three inches long.  They were still warm from the oven, and I would eat it as I climbed the bank to home.  The Hovis advert filmed in Shaftesbury is redolent of this memory.

 

The smell of the warm bakery reminds me of another smell, in an altogether different setting.  One of my sons recently described his love of the coal and log fire he now lovingly tenders in his Victorian house.  He believes that all men are at heart closet pyromaniacs.  This may stem from the racial memory that man was responsible for providing the fire for warmth and cooking.  Whatever the reason I too have the love of fire.  Many a happy hour has been spent in feeding garden fires in the days before they became antisocial.  It all started as a young boy.  I was probably eight years old.

 

I was accompanied and maybe encouraged in this joint venture by my cousin Liz and best friend Richard.  We bought a box of matches at the Top Shop, so named as it was at the top of the bank in the village.  Oddly there was no complementary Bottom Shop.  Or maybe this is not so surprising.  Such a purchase by children was not questioned, as our parents often sent us on such errands.  We walked out of the village on the cliffs to the north of the bay.  The railway line ran along the cliff top between arable crops on the landward side and fields dotted with sheep and stands of gorse bushes, towards the sea.

 

Our game was to set light to the dry grass at the base of the gorse bush and then stamp it out before it set light to the bush itself. This worked very well, and we enjoyed the few miniature blazes as we moved from bush to bush. We got a bit bolder each time until the inevitable happened. We couldn’t stamp it out and we learned one of the wonders of nature.  When a gorse bush sets afire it does so in an explosive manner. Faced with this conflagration we did what every arsonist would do in the circumstances, we ran like hell back to the village. With great presence of mind, we threw away the box of matches as we fled. Nearing the village, we heard the siren of the fire alarm, so we made our way to the fire station and then followed the crowd and the fire crew back upon to the cliffs to watch them extinguish our fire. 

 

Another act of destruction, and of this I have no memory was one Christmas, probably 1948.  The story was related by my mother to anyone who was prepared to listen to her tales of the perils of raising boys.  Apparently my brother and I were keen to own a cardigan.  Granny sharpened her knitting needles and set to with a will.  Eventually Father Christmas brought us each a hand-knitted Fair Isle patterned - sweater.  But we wanted cardigans.  The solution was clear, and I credit my brother with the solution.  Despite being left-handed my 8-year-old brother made judicious use of the kitchen scissors, and we had our cardigans.  Granny left in tears.

 

About two doors away on Church lane was a relation of my Mothers, with the quaint nickname of Chipping Hammer Tommy.  He was a retired ship’s captain and acquired his name due to his diligence in keeping his ships in tip top condition.  To do this he insisted that the crew made full use of chipping hammers to remove old, chipped paint and rust.  His desire to keep his paintwork up to scratch resulted in one of my first DIY jobs at the age of 8.  Quite how everyone thought it was a good idea to allow such a young child loose with a tin of green paint and a garden gate in need of a touch up I have no idea.  However, by all accounts the task was completed satisfactorily, and I eventually returned to my natural colour.

 

Christmas in these austere days in the late 40’s were grim. A large present was an enormous treat, what we usually got was a sock filled with oranges and nuts.  I do remember receiving a gantry crane one Christmas. This could move across the floor, and the crane hoist could lift and move the length of the crane.  It provided many hours of fun.  Another regular event at this time of year was the Masonic Christmas party.  This was usually held in Whitby, and we children travelled through by bus.  I have little memory of the details apart from receiving a Dinky toy of an army lorry that had a detachable hood.

 

We lived in my grandfather’s house, we, being my mother, brother and I and late in the 40’s my two younger sisters. Dad worked away a lot of the time.  One task that was allocated to my grandfather was to take his two grandsons to have their hair cut in Whitby.  The journey was by train.  Our role as boys was to watch for the train leaving Ravenscar station across the bay, which signalled the time we needed to walk up to the station.  Apparently at the barber’s I was a fidgeter and far from his favourite client.  He mounted us on a plank laid across the arms of his barber’s chair, and set to with his scissors, trying hard to avoid cutting my ears.  Our reward for enduring the ordeal was a visit to the Smugglers Café with Granddad to enjoy a drink and admire the many ships in a bottle which were on sale to customers.

 

This village life changed when the family moved to Middlesbrough soon after my 9^th birthday.  Although we lost the freedom that the village gave us, our new home in Middlesbrough was at that time at the limit of Middlesbrough’s urban expansion.  Fields at the bottom of the garden, a stream 100 yards along the road, and woods and playing fields, little further away allowed us to continue in some measure the childhood freedom we had taken for granted.  The promise of a bicycle if we achieved success in the 11+ would allow us to explore even further afield.

 

 

 

 

 

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Holiday Review

 I used copilot to draft this article and then edited it. My experience was that it limited my creativity and it took just aas long to edit the artificial intelligence derived draft as to start with a blank page.

A Personal Account of a Memorable Getaway

Introduction

There’s nothing quite like escaping the arrival of winter with cold and long nights with a well-earned holiday. Recently, I had the pleasure of spending a week in Ischia in Italy, and I’m delighted to share my experience. Whether you’re seeking adventure, relaxation, or a bit of both, Ischia offers an abundance of delights that make it a great destination.

Accommodation

We stayed in a small hotel in the main town on the island, a quiet oasis set back from the main road into town. Reminded me of other southern Italian towns with open arches instead of doors all painted white.

Activities and Attractions

• Boat tour: To explore the southern coat of this volcanic island revealed stunning bays with small village and also larger tourist destinations.

• Wine tasting: Ischia has its own winemaking, and we enjoyed a day trip to taste both local wine and food.
• 
  

• Cultural Spots: There is a long history of settlement by the  Greeks and a visit to an archaeological museum revealed many artifacts.

Local People and Atmosphere

The real value of our annual visit to Italy is to experience the atmosphere and mingle with local people. There is nothing like sitting in a restaurant and flavouring the ambience of Italian living. A day trip to a small island, Procida resulted in lunch in an idyllic fishing village. 

Evening meals with our group were a highlight of the tour.

Of course you also get the very vocal and apparently chaotic scenes that we experienced on our trips by ferry.

Overall a wonderful way to get some late summer sun in a vibrant culture before the onslaught of the northern winter.

The navigators toolchest- sight and sound

 Background

The Navigator possesses 2 personal traits that greatly enhance his ability to navigate. His eyes and his ears. Both require he or she have the highest medical standards for sight and hearing. Colour blindness is not an option if you are to be a deck officer as you must be able to distinguish between the major navigational colours of red, green and white.

The navigator is trained to identify conditions in his maritime environment. The sky, the horizon, sea surface and objects around him, all need to be analysed and translated into navigational decisions. He must be able to differentiate them by day or by night.

By day

During the day he normally has a focus on weather.

[1]

To start interpreting weather for navigation purposes, the navigator first turns to the barometer. The marine barometer[2] is quite special, not at all like the circular aneroid barometers seen on land. Instead it is a glass column filled with mercury. The scale on the side facilitates the reading of the top surface of the mercury. Atmospheric pressure controls the height of mercury in the tube. So a low pressure has a lower level of mercury and high pressure has a higher level.

The instrument is gimballed so the barometer stays relatively vertical during the motion of the ship.

[3]This is not the place for a technical discussion on weather systems. The navigators prime interested is how locally forecast weather will affect the ship in terms of wind, wave height and their direction. The changes in the barometer reading indicate to him the general status of local weather.

 Then he focuses on 2 prime features of the weather, the type of cloud and their height and the wind direction and its current tendency. With that information, he can make decisions to reduce bad weather affecting the ship.

This is very important when a winter storm or hurricane is near.

[4]The water surface by day also provides numerous navigational types of information. The swell and local waves help the navigator assess any danger to the ship's motion. Excessive rolling or pitching that can be a safety issue.

Changes in wind direction and strength help the navigator decide the most likely course to take.

By night

[5]The nighttime sky is a wonderful source of navigation items, the stars and the planets. They can be used to fix the ships position and give him also a relative course to steer by. First, he must identify these celestial bodies. The planets Saturn and Mars are easily identified in the northern hemisphere. Then there is the moon. The first star he searches for in the northern hemisphere is probably the Pole star.

Not very bright, but on a clear night observable. Its importance is that its altitude is also the ships latitude. A navigator can identify a range of stars useful for celestial navigation.

 The sea surface

[6]The presence of ships or land and navigational symbols are constantly monitored by the navigator. The horizon is a special case. It is where he first sees the approach of other vessels and land. At night, the loom

of the lighthouse often appears long before the light itself. Constantly sweeping horizon is a fundamental requirement of the watchkeeper.

Convention on the International Regulation for Prevention of Collisions at Sea (1972)

In addition to interpreting the natural marine environment, the navigator must be able to identify and interpret the actions of other users of the Maritime Highway.

The rules for this are embedded in the regulation for the prevention of collision at sea, colloquially called the “COLREGS”[7] He is trained to know each of the forty-one international navigational rules for conduct of vessels at sea. In addition, he must be able to identify each vessel on the sea and determine its actions. Is it a fishing boat, a ship not moving, is it anchored?

Vessels display symbols by day and lights at night to indicate their status. For example, the ship at anchor displays a black ball in the bow by day and a single white light in the same position by night.

The common set of light for all vessels are their steaming lights. They are white masthead lights, red port and green starboard lights and a white stern light. In addition there can be other lights and symbols denoting their current status.

Sound at sea

The navigator has a further sense he can use to effectively navigate. His hearing. A deck officer must have good hearing. Discerning sounds internally to the ship and externally and interpreting them is an essential safety element in navigation.

Externally, it can be one of many sound signals used to inform on the COLREGS. From changing direction, to abandoning ship or to announce your presence in reduced visibility, the ships whistle, or horn is an essential navigational tool. For example, three short blasts on the ships horn indicates the ships is running its engines astern.

Other ships announce their presence or their intentions with their horns or whistles. Light houses and buoys signify their presence in reduced visibility conditions with foghorns or bells.

All this helps the navigator fixes the ships position.

Internally the watchkeeper must be able to respond immediately to a range of sound alarms whether it be an equipment failure, presence of fire or flooding etc.

There is another sense important to the navigator and that is his sense of balance. A change in the motion the ship is instantly felt. Was it an intended action or is this something the navigator needs to address? It could be a change of course, the shifting wind or wave direction that is felt. Sometimes it is a combination of all these senses that alert the navigator to the changed status of the ship It could be changes in  engine noise or vibration or alteration of course that alerts the navigator to a change in the ships status.

The navigator must be constantly alert using all his senses.

References

‘123Capture.JPG (305×305)’. n.d. Accessed 31 August 2025. https://britastro.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/123Capture.JPG.

‘Don’t-Confuse-the-‘Loom’-of-the-Light-with-Its-“Dipping-Distance”.Jpg (800×377)’. n.d. Accessed 31 August 2025. https://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2015/08/Don%E2%80%99t-confuse-the-%E2%80%98loom%E2%80%99-of-the-light-with-its-%E2%80%98dipping-distance%E2%80%99.jpg.

in, You are not logged in-Log. ‘Kvikksølvbarometer’. Accessed 31 August 2025. https://digitaltmuseum.no/011024193297/kvikksolvbarometer.

‘Low Pressure Clouds - Google Search’. Accessed 31 August 2025. https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=788002144cbb21b9&sxsrf=AE3TifN56Og6MJOGBUqjvHFQAA49VK-GbQ:1756647986743&udm=2&fbs=AIIjpHxU7SXXniUZfeShr2fp4giZ1Y6MJ25_tmWITc7uy4KIeqDdErwP5rACeJAty2zADJjYuUnSkczEhozYdaq1wZrEIDTyhM-aSQUsrB-ed3geL88JFzloJ36yIlLvNFOvrd4yvVOUa-6l0eI7rWgBT54Ag8yyO_tE6L9K_1dLOwaFTlEoj3BElHlxog-MP3Nt77kS6XXt&q=low+pressure+clouds&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjv8frZl7WPAxWLPhAIHY9wHVMQtKgLegQIExAB&biw=1136&bih=480&dpr=1.1#vhid=V-GEuVWkTcnKNM&vssid=mosaic.

‘Mariner’s Guide to Ocean Waves’. Weather Wisdom. Ocean Weather Services, 29 October 2015. https://oceanweatherservices.com/blog/2015/10/29/mariners-guide-to-ocean-waves/.

Organization, International Maritime. COLREG: Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972. IMO e-Publications, 2003. https://doi.org/10.62454/KB904E.

 

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[1] in, ‘Kvikksølvbarometer’.

[2] in, ‘Kvikksølvbarometer’.

[3] ‘Low Pressure Clouds - Google Search’.

[4] ‘Mariner’s Guide to Ocean Waves’.

[5] ‘123Capture.JPG (305×305)’.

[6] ‘Don’t-Confuse-the-‘Loom’-of-the-Light-with-Its-“Dipping-Distance”.Jpg (800×377)’.

[7] Organization, COLREG.

Summer ferry to Denmark

 

Summer Holidays are always welcome and especially when we go to Denmark.

The holiday really starts when you leave home and that requires planning because we are going to take a ferry from Norway to Denmark in the middle of summer, lots of people on the road. Lots of traffic.

Nevertheless, it is exciting as we pack all our goods and prepare to set off. The first challenge is. Shall we stop and have a cup of coffee on the way or are do we not have time? Must we press on because of delays on the road etc with good planning, that's not a problem, so we stop and have a cup of coffee. Very pleasant.

Then we set off for the ferry terminal and the queue starts about 3 kilometres from the ferry terminal and we join a queue. Everything gets exciting. We pay for our entry. They know all about us. Because they have the car registration number from the overhead camera and we booked online no problem. Straight into a parking lane with a ticket to let us into the buffet when we get on board.

Then the chaos starts. Once given the signal to drive onboard you join a line traffic until you've parked the car, You must remember where you parked the car. Quite important which deck, which side you go upstairs. And you look for the cafe entrance. Complete chaos. Not everybody likes the idea of queuing, so it is like a rugby scrum, pressing in to find the answer, the answer to who can help you with the finding a place. Finally, we get in there, sit down, sigh of relief. Just relax for a few minutes. But not everybody else, no, they are running round, filling their plates with food, sitting down and talking, talking, talking. Time to observe people around us. There is all sorts of people. There are groups going to music festivals, there are groups going on holiday, there are young families, there are old, there are lorry drivers. All are interested in one thing, food.

It appears something takes over when they word buffet is mentioned instead of eating sensibly and taking just enough for the period. They fill their plate repeatedly. They gorge. There is even a card on the table which says eat as much as you like but please do not waste food. That tells it all. Nevertheless, it is nice to see that there's lots of families, young families, looking after their newborn baby. Carrying all the requisite number of. carriers, changing gear that is needed. And older kids running around. Taking part in treasure hunts, etc. The start of the voyage was a little bit bumpy, a little bit bouncy, there was a little bit of wind on the bow, but as soon as we got away from the Norwegian coast, moving towards the Danish coast, it subsided.

As a seafarer, I'm extremely interested in what's happening outside of the ship. Not so people travelling on holiday in the buffet. All they are interested in is eating, talking to each other, drinking as much as they can and enjoying, which is, after all, the start of their holiday.

Happy holiday

Senior Travel revisited

 

On a package charter flight

You would think that as you get older it would be easy to travel abroad, especially if you spent a large part of your career travelling internationally.

But it does not. Why is that?

Well, your age and your physical and mental resources become somewhat diminished.

Secondly, travel procedures change. Remember how parking rules change and become confusing. Well, it's the same with flying, especially if you are on a package tour.

It starts the day before travel when you start the challenge of finding your travel gear. Where are my sunglasses? Do I need my swimming gear in the Canary Islands in February etc etc.?

You learn as your memory fails you to assemble everything in one place before packing and only then start the procedure of packing. What are the travel agent’s rules for the tour. Well, they're different from ordinary flight booking and check in procedures. No check-in details, only a booking reference number. But it is all sorted out at the airport. Passport number and booking reference number, work. Whew, what a relief! With two artificial knees, progress through security requires special attention. Off with belts, hope the trousers stay up, off with the shoes and then the indignity of the standing in a glass machine with your hands over your head, followed by a body search. So boring.

Once you have past security there is a sigh of relief.  Now we can relax, we are in the hands of the airline.

Airports are a great place to observe people, they display a microcosm of society, all waiting to depart to various parts of the world.

The young Thai couple who talk in Thai with the waiter, the Asian family that clear their table and place a tray of discarded food on the trolley. Not something we all do!

One noticeable feature is the number of people with small sacks on their back, a typical feature for Norwegian travellers.

We sit in a cafe and wait until it happens. “Go to gate!”

Immediate response. Half the cafe guests rise and saunter over to the departure gate where seating is at a premium!

We watch the gate operators keenly as they check and double check the readiness to board the aircraft. By this time the gate is surrounded by many people clutching boarding cards and mobile phones with check in details.

Then the bombshell. We will be boarded by groups A, B and C! We are Group B so expect to board as the second group, but we were the first because we are in the middle seating area of the plane.

Onto the plane with the usual queuing, bumping into people and finding your seat. Sit down and wait for the public address to announce boarding complete.

Now is the opportunity to find a vacant seat to be more comfortable by the emergency exits. No such luck, the flight is fully booked.

Once airborne, you start to look around you. Babies and children run up and down the aisles. I had an aisle seat, which I thought was wise because I can get out without disturbing other passengers in my row. What a mistake!

I was battered, bumped, hit by trolleys and by people passing down the aisle. Not a wise choice.

The ordered warm foods arrive, and it was the signal for others to remove home food from their packs and start eating. Clearly a reference to charter flight onboard food!

However, it was not too bad. Then we all settled down to the remainder of the flight. Noise cancelling headsets in place. Neck supports inflated and you take up a recumbent pose. Good. But how do you do that. Some rest their heads on the table, or they sit upright and try to go to sleep, but not everyone. Sudoku ready, reading newspapers, watching video, take out knitting, all take people's attention as we headed South at 35,000 feet to warmer climes.

The flight attendant announces there is one hour left before arrival. So, the queue for the toilet starts. Should I join it or wait. Eventually there is a gap in the queue, and you scurry forward and bounce around from one seat edge to another as you weave your way down the aisle. When you get in the toilet basin is full of grey water! Take down your trousers and try to sit on the toilet seat that requires Houdini like antics. Is it because I've gotten older or am I imagining it?

 Finally, you return to your seat, the toilets ate off limits and the plane descends, and you look out the window and see an airport full of aircraft. You land. The scramble to get baggage. And finally, out onto the concours where a lady with a large sign assembles us and lead us to a bus and we're on our holiday.

A sign says Welcome to Las Palmas. I think a siesta is what I need!

The Navigators toolbox-marine log

 

[1]

Background

The compass, sextant, chronometer, and radar are tools that fix the ships position on a chart, meaning the position is a known place “on the ground”.

The speed of a ship is another parameter important to navigation and historically has been achieved by measuring the passage of an object alongside the ship. The principle is that an object thrown overboard stays stationery as the ship moves past it. If we can measure the time it takes for the ship to pass the object, we can measure the speed of the ship. There is an important provision here. It measures distance travelled through the water not “over the ground”. Therefore the effects of water mass movement, tide and wind on the ship are not taken account of.

The structure of the log is simple. A quadrant-shaped piece of wood is weighted with lead to hold the quadrant vertical in the water. A bridle is attached to each corner of the quadrant and then to a log line that is wound on a spool. A release line is attached to one corner of the quadrant and a wooden plug secures it to the log line. A sharp tug on the log line will release the quadrant from its upright position in the water for retrieval.

Another version of the log uses a canvas drogue or mini sea anchor with the same construction.[2]

Attached to the logline is a series of

knots depicting how much line is released. The knots are placed a known distance apart, eight fathoms generally. So a double knot is the second knot on the line and signifies 16 fathoms of line are out. To mark the deployment of the log, the line is released until the first line marker is in the water. This is

usually a piece of leather or cloth.

[3]The element of time in the use of the log is supplied by a sandglass built especially for use with a log. The time to

empty the sand from the upper glass is usually 28-30 seconds.[4] So if 16 fathoms of line is run out in 30 seconds, the distance covered is 11520 feet in one hour.

[5]However the unit of distance at sea is the nautical mile defined as the distance of an arc of one minute measured on a meridian and is 6080 feet. The vessel’s speed in this example is 11520/6080 which is 1.9 knots.

Approximately 2 knots for the two knots on the logline.

[6]There were variations in distance marking of logline and the time to empty the sandglass but the principle for each ship was that the number of knots on the logline should approximate the vessels speed in knots.

 

[7]Thomas Walker was a clockmaker who turned his attention to measuring distance at sea. After much experimentation the “patent Walker log” was produced in the 1880’s.  A mechanical counter (1) was connected to a governor(2) and a braided logline(3). A rotating propeller(4) completed the assembly. The log was attached to the taffrail at the stern of the ship and was deployed on leaving port. The counter recorded distance and was read each watch and the result recorded in the ship’s logbook.

Reading of the log was usually done by a junior officer and in pouring rain and sometimes heavy seas I would struggle aft to read the log and report my findings to the officer of the watch. A miserable job!

Later models had an electrical connection to a bridge repeater, much easier.

Deploying the log after leaving port was not that simple as I found out. Thinking the best way to set it in the water was to lower the propellor into the water and pay out the logline until everything was set out resulted a set of knurled rope full of twists and knots.

You stupid boy, said the Scottish 2^nd. Mate. You pay out the line from the log first and then finally drop the rotator in the water. So much to learn “on the job”.

Nevertheless, the patent Walker log stayed an essential tool to the navigator for many decades until replaced by a rotator built into t the hull of the ship.

 

References

‘Chip Log’. In Wikipedia, 28 September 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chip_log&oldid=1248278445.

in, You are not logged in-Log. ‘Logg’. Accessed 27 May 2025. https://digitaltmuseum.no/011024192632/logg.

———. ‘Logg’. Accessed 27 May 2025. https://digitaltmuseum.no/011024192629/logg.

———. ‘Logg-Glass’. Accessed 27 May 2025. https://digitaltmuseum.no/011024193987/logg-glass.

‘Nautical Mile’. In Wikipedia, 20 February 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nautical_mile&oldid=1276676565.

‘Thomas Walker & Son’. In Wikipedia, 5 May 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Walker_%26_Son&oldid=1289002093.

Walkers Patent Log. n.d. Norwegian Maritime Museum.

Acknowledgements

Bengt Malm, Ancient Mariner, and volunteer at the Norwegian Maritime Museum

Camilla Nordeng, conservator for artifacts at the Norwegian Maritime Museum

 

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[1] in, ‘Logg’.

[2] in, ‘Logg’.

[3] in, ‘Logg-Glass’.

[4] ‘Chip Log’.

[5] ‘Nautical Mile’.

[6] Log.

[7] ‘Thomas Walker & Son’.