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In the mid 80's I was due to join HMS Plover out in Hong Kong, it being my 6th ship, I wasn't too worried - it should be straight forward - or so I thought!
When I arrived at the base on Hong Kong Island (HMS Tamar), the gate staff told me that Plover was over in Kowloon, in the shipyard, and I should report to the ferry office in the basin to get over there. To cut a long story short I ended up on a small ferry, which took me across the choppy harbour to Taikoo shipyard, on arrival at the shipyard, we rafted up alongside a large 'dead' merchant ship - secured at what I assumed was a waiting berth, after a nod from the Chinese Coxn, I jumped and clambered up the Jacobs ladder up her side, on reaching the upper deck, I was hoping to see the jetty, however I found that the ship I had boarded in the stifling humidity of a Hong Kong summer, was actually the outboard ship of 7 different sized merchant vessels - all waiting for docking, all 'dead ships' and none with a recognisable gangway, other than the odd plank or rickety old rope or Jacobs ladder hung over the side. It took me over 40 minutes to reach terrafirma, by which time I was filthy and lathered in sweat on top of being 2 hours late, I spotted my new ship, almost unrecognisable as a warship - in amongst the clutter of the busy yard, she was on the other side of the shipyard sitting on a Synchrolift cradle and covered in hundreds of Chinese labourers all armed with chipping hammers creating a stupefying level of noise!
First thoughts to cross my mind....clearly I wouldn't be getting any chart work done today!
So I then reported to the ships 'dock office' which consisted of 2 depressing looking converted Iso containers without aircon (essentially to accommodate the 2 man duty watch), so after speaking to the QM (greeted with "what the %*ck are you doing over here shipmate"), then waiting 2 hours for the next ferry back to the Island, I had to make the same torturous return journey - depressed, lathered, covered in oil back to the base, having wasted the best part of 6 hours on a trip I need not have made.
As it transpired, our ships offices were temporarily located in the HQ building, about 100 yards from HMS Tamar's ferry office, where my bad day had originally started at 0700 that morning!
I got so much ribbing for my wasted trip from everyone onboard for quite some time! Even the old man used to ask me "any ferry trips today?"
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