AMT Blog

When I finally came to this morning and began contemplating breakfast, I suddenly realised that during this trip I must have devoured the equivalent of a whole ‘dead pig’. Breakfast at home is two slices of ‘wholegrain toast’, a quick cup of tea and then out of the front door and off to work.

Starting work at 4:00 am and anticipating breakfast at 07:20 at the very earliest tends to focus the gastric pangs to an almost irrational craving. Suffice to say that when ‘dead pig’ is on the menu (and it always is for breakfast) it is a shame to ignore the choices on offer. We’ve had it all, bacon, sausages (various), liver, black pudding, white pudding, gammon, ham, roast pork, pork chops, meatballs and pork steaks and still it keeps coming.

Captain stats:

Born 1956 in Barry, South Wales.
First went to sea April 1972 as a Catering Boy.
Married to Carol in 1982.
2 children: Gareth (25) and Carys (22).
Lived in Wolverhampton since March 1980.

I have mostly liked my life on the high seas – visiting those places I dreamt about as a lad, meeting nice, indifferent, dour, menacing, jolly people along the way.

But what is the very BEST thing?

Diary writing has never been a strength of mine and my intention to write regularly to this blog was always under threat. And so true to form I am sitting down to write this, my second entry in just over three weeks – about 10 days later than I had hoped for.

Cruise track showing sampling stations

Since the last time I wrote when we were approaching the Azores, we have transected the northern gyre of the Atlantic where surface seawater temperatures where in parts greater than 28°C, we have crossed the area of equatorial upwelling, which was coincident with heavy cloud cover and much to the delight of Marie Cheize (from the University of Brest )at times torrential rain. Marie is collecting aerosol samples and when possible rainwater for isolation of bacteria and determination of dissolved iron.

There were some 20 or so members of the scientific party and ships crew who had never crossed the equator prior to this year’s AMT, including myself. It turned out to be a day that will live long in all of our memories and not merely due to the significance of such a traverse.

The day (7^th November) started much as any other with everyone busy conducting their respective science. However, there was an undertone of deviance resonating from the ‘Shellbacks’ (those who had crossed the line previously) leading to much apprehension on the part of the ‘Polywogs’ (those who hadn’t).

The Polywogs

We had no idea what was in store for us but made a collective decision that we would not succumb to our fate without a fight.

Well we ‘crossed the line’ and it was the first time for many of us and we all had to pay homage to Neptune and his queen, pay our forfeits and celebrate with a beer. Then some bright spark came up with the idea of a charity head & beard shave after dinner.

Office of Origin: Davy Jones’ Locker Enterprises, Equatorial Monitoring Systems

To: Master, Royal Research Ship “James Cook”

Date: Friday 6th November 2009, 1300

Delivery by: Flying fish

MY SCOUTS REPORT THAT YOUR VESSEL IS PASSING OVER MY DOMAIN OF EQUATORIA WITH MARINERS THAT HAVE NOT PAID THEIR HOMAGE TO ME STOP BE PREPARED TO BE BOARDED BY MY SELF AND MY COURT FOLLOWERS DURING YOUR AFTERNOON 12 – 4 STOP WATCH TOMORROW STOP                       

 NEPTUNE REX (NNNN)

King Neptune - prepare to be boarded

This is my second entry for AMT19 and I must confess that I’m not at my best first thing in the morning so I’ve waited until mid-morning to start this piece. My alarm went off at 4:00am and I was already half-awake so switched it off. Then with a start I sat upright in my bunk and it was 4:45am. I’d done it – dropped off into a deep sleep again.