I have transmitted in port on a number of occasions. One time, in Freetown, stinking hot night alonside at Pepel loading iron ore, was given a message and told to pass it to Freetown Radio on the VHF and never mind the cost. Called up, got answer and laboriously dictated the long message to them, and got them to repeat it back. Took over an hour. Then they asked what they should do with it. I said send it to London. "How, they asked, this is the steam tug
Freetown!" I gave up, and sent it to Portishead on HF. No-one ever said anything!
After Stacoms came in, communications continued all the time, in or out of port. Where one time, they would have a captain's conference deciding whether or not to send a 10 word MSG, the new line of thinking seemed to be "Why bother with ten or twenty words, when several hundred will do just as well!"
One day at Galveston Bar whilst pumping oil from a VLCC into my own ship, on lightering duties, the captain gave me a pile of messages to send to head office in London, plus the US agents, and another lot in Europe. I started off at about 1400 hours. As the afternoon wore on, the captain would keep appearing to see how I was getting on. Whilst on the last message at about 1600, an officer came and handed me a short SLT, that I commenced to send after the last MSG. Captain arrives "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shouts, "We're pumping oil, are you trying to get us all blown to pieces?" I pointed out that I had been at it for over two hours sending his messages. "That was company business!" was the reply. So, I took it that it was OK for us all to be blown to bits on company business (that left us exposed to possible explosion for two hours plus), but not for a short SLT, that only required two minutes to send!
(Flexirule)
After satcoms came it, one captain in particular suggested on a number of occasions that I cleared off when we docked, and stopped in a hotel until we were due to sail. It may have been because my wife was aboard, but it may also have been to keep the company off his back for a few days. Another captain jocularly asked me why I didn't get a wheelbarrow, one day in Cape Town. "What for?" I asked, "to bring all those bloody messages down in," he replied!
Most exhausting work I ever did in Port was in San Pedro, West Africa, aboard the
Bandama. We were two weeks in port loading logs and coffee. The 2nd R/O and myself did 6 hours on, 6 hours off down Nr. 1 hold, supervising the loading of bagged coffee beans right from the bottom of the hold to the top. Rush mats against all the bare steelwork, ventilation channels at regular intervals, bridging them over with more bags every six feet up, so it didn't collapse the channels, and keeping an eye on the dockers (who incidentally workd very hard for very low pay). After it was all complete, we sailed for Marseilles where, on discahrge, it was all found to be in perfect condition. They gave us $20 each in greatful thanks
Also tallied citrus coming out of the holds in the old
Richmond Castle. That was quite pleasant Dakar, as it was hot outside, but coll down below with the chilled citrus.
For three monts in the Falkalnds, kept a bridge watch whilst at anchor (that was most of thebtime) as our two liitle ships
HMS Brecon and
HMS Ledbury were doing their thing with the mine clearance. Did four hours on, 16 off with mate, 2nd mate, 3rd mat and a chief petty officer RN. Some watches were very peaceful with nothing much hapenning, others were all go, especially in the daytime with flying ops (we had a wasp helicopter), stores, transfers, communications, constant vigilance against dragging anchor in hurricane winds, they we did from time to time. All the radio communications was looked after by the RN (eleven of them in total). Also oversaw a group of chief engineers taking their written exam papers aboard the
St. Helena in Cape Town. It was in the dining saloon. One of them wanted to go and get his calculator half way through, but I wouldn't let him! I phoned the captain, who was good enough to find one for him to use, and bring it down, as I was not prepared to leave them to their own devices for one second
Final job that I did in port before quitting the sea, was crawling about at the bottom of
St. Helena's cargo hold to withdraw and grease the log probe.
All good fun!
Bob