All at sea: One Sailor’s Journey
Peter A. Morris
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SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY: Peter A. Morris on Smashwords
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
For Jassandra Lea, my First Mate whose love and support has made this book and indeed the last twenty years of my life, possible. One lifetime is not enough in which to thank her.
Table of Contents
Section Two. The Chunnel Project
The Waterspout and Other Interruptions
Section Three. The Journey Continues
Section Four…and Continues in Canada
My First Boat first appeared in Island Writer
All at Sea (poem) first appeared in The James Bay Beacon
More Than One Way first appeared in Golden Rod and Reels Victoria newsletter
My thanks to Sheila Martindale, whose editing skills and infinite patience have brought this book to publication. Also to the writing group participants – Victoria Adams, Judith Castle and Giselle Loeper, whose combined writing and life skills taught me a new meaning to the word ‘friendship.’ To Iryna of Spica Book Design, Island Blue (Printorium Bookworks) and Susan Merskey of Goldfinch Press.
When Peter Morris joined my Creative Writing Workshop at the New Horizons Centre in Victoria, and began sharing his stories of the sea, I knew we had been blessed with something special. We were living on an island, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, yet until we read some of Peter’s work, we knew next to nothing about the sea, the vessels that sailed it, nor the sailors who understood it in all its moods. We were excited by the adventures, and moved by the passion with which they were written; and we came to love the characters that peopled his tales.
Thank you, Peter, for reliving your life at sea with us; and thanks also to all the members of the workshop who helped to make your memories sing.
Sheila Martindale
August 2011
Jimmy Bumpstead and me. My first job afloat 1946 off Hastings.
All I ask for me,
dear Lord
is a life that’s led at sea
to hear the crack of
sail and sheets
and ever smell the sea
to always have the
sea to smell
and listen to its song
to know, dear Lord
that here at last
I am where I belong
to feel the move at
wake and rest
to feel the ceaseless roll
the roll of
something full of life
and all so full of soul
Peter A. Morris
The first time I ever went to sea was in 1937, when I was five years old. Our family went on a seaside holiday to Newquay, a pretty harbour-side town in the south of England. I loved fishing, and the guest house in which we were staying was right across from the pier, one of those structures that most large seaside towns in England seem to have, reaching out into the sea. I was allowed most mornings to go onto the pier, and Mum and Dad always knew where I was, should they wish to take off somewhere.
This day, however, was different. As I walked to the pier, I saw this boat. I don’t remember the name of it, but it was the most beautiful and exciting thing I had ever seen. Through my child’s eyes it was huge. It had a massive mast, and two men with great muscles were tending ropes that seemed to go every which way. I was captivated!
Then I saw the sign, which said one could actually get aboard this thing of magnificence, for a mere few shillings. At that moment there was only one thought in my mind, one goal in my life, and that was to get on board. But then I wondered how I could do that – Mum and Dad would never allow it, and besides I had only three shillings. I walked round, looking at the boat in awe. I just had to get on it, and I had only fifteen minutes to do so! I ran back to the house, a plan already forming in my head. I was about to tell my first lie to my parents.
“Mum, Dad,” I yelled, “I’ve lost my money!” putting on a grand show to go with the untruth. Clutching another three shillings, I ran to the boat as it was getting ready to leave, and thrust all my money at one of the crew, who asked:
“Do your parents know you are coming on the boat?” Lie number two was blurted out.
“Oh, yes Sir.”
So there I was, off on my first real life adventure, and on my own. I was enthralled as the great engine thundered into life and we headed out of the harbour towards the open sea. I remember being hardly aware of the other six passengers on board, concentrating on everything that was taking place. As the great sail was hauled up the engine stopped, and we were sailing! Ecstatic, I followed the crew everywhere. They let me help haul up the ropes, then, joy of joys, they actually let me hold the tiller. It was the most remarkable day of my life, one that I wanted to go on forever, and only when it was time to head back did I feel a sense of impending doom.
Of course, in my excitement to go on the boat, the length of the cruise had not entered my head, and the hours had just flown by. Nevertheless, time had passed. A lot of time as it turned out. It was now five in the afternoon, and we had left at ten in the morning.
“Looks like some trouble,” one of the crew said as we entered the harbour. There were crowds of people on the quayside, police and boats fussing around the pier, a lot of shouting. As we came alongside in the midst of all this mayhem, I glanced up and my Mum and Dad were standing there.
“Hello Mum!” I yelled excitedly, waving and jumping up and down. Mum looked at me and screamed my name, and then collapsed on the ground.
“Is that him?” asked a policeman.
“Yes,” said my father, “That’s him.”
Lots of words, and possibly actions, must have taken place after my dramatic return from the sea, but thankfully the joy of that first dose of ‘sea fever’ seems to have eradicated them from my mind. And so began my lifelong love of everything nautical, still as strong as ever after seventy-five years.
In 1950 I was conscripted into the Royal Air Force. I wanted to go into the Navy, but at that time I would have had to sign on for twelve years, with no assurance that I would get to sea. So, at the promise of more pay and travel, I signed on for three years with the RAF and became a ‘regular.’
As I had been training gun and guard dogs in civilian life, it seemed to make sense to do that in the service, so I was assigned to the dog section of the Military Police. After about fourteen weeks of training, square bashing, police school and dog school, my German shepherd Chico and I got our first posting. This was to Camp Bawdsey, a radar station situated on the east coast of England, right on the estuary of the River Deben. It was popularly known as a ‘holiday camp,’ and my billet was about eighty yards from the beach! One of the first things I did was to call home and ask Mum to send up my fishing tackle.
I don’t recall how long I was there, but this time was a bonus, a respite before being sent to Germany and Holland, where the life and work would be very different. After the relaxed atmosphere of Bawdsey, our job overseas was quite tough. We were to patrol ‘Class A’ stations, which were either airfields, or top secret or high risk situations such as ammunition storage facilities. The latter consisted of leftover bombs, shells and other items of destruction from World War II, and there were a surprising number of them! Allied and enemy, every facility scattered across Europe was a prime target for those individuals who refused to admit that the war had finished five years earlier. The Cold War was in full swing, and Berlin was already split between Communist East Germany and European West Germany, although the Berlin Wall would not be erected for almost another decade.
So Chico and I, and the many teams like us were there to protect against sneak attacks in the shape of small groups of people trying to destroy these units. The areas we patrolled covered several square miles, with a variety of roads and buildings separating the different types of explosives.
Whenever we started a patrol, we would check the wind direction, for that was the dog’s best tool. Just like a hunting dog uses the wind to detect prey, so the military dog used it to detect human intruders. Chico’s sense of smell was amazing; depending on the wind strength, he would let me know if someone was there, even at half a mile away. I would then ‘send him on’ and he would lead me toward the intruders, at which point decisions had to be made, depending on the location.
We were equipped with some pretty good weapons, such as Chico’s teeth and strength, which were often all that was needed. But I carried a handgun and a wooden club, which were effective backups! Often the problem was a bunch of curious teenagers from the local towns, out for adventure and trying to figure out a way to get through the heavy barbed wire fence to see what was inside. In those cases, Chico’s vicious bark and growl was enough to send them on their way. At other times, when the intruders had gained the inside and were intent on setting explosives to destroy the facility, we resorted to stronger methods. I would sound the alarm to bring reinforcements, release the dog from the leash, and bring my weapons to bear.
If you have never seen a large German shepherd in full aggressive mode and ready to charge, you have never seen angry! The psychological effect alone is enough to disable the victim; once the force of the flying dog hits and the teeth make contact, that individual is not getting up for a while. The dog immediately goes to the next target; meanwhile, a few well-placed shots together with good use of the club, have the intruders in retreat or surrendering.
Anyway, back to Camp Bawdsey. When not on duty, a lot of my time was spent fishing the big eddy formed by the river as it met the sea, and pulling out some big sea bass. They were fighters like salmon, and tasted even better! It was a warm summer, and I guess I was getting a bit lax in my dress code – bare feet, cut-off pants and T-shirt in no way met the dress standard of a sergeant, who one day charged me with being improperly dressed, at the same time eyeing the six and seven-pound fish and demanding to know where I’d got them!
En route to my quarters to adjust my appearance, I was stopped twice more, this time by officers, one of whom was no less than The Commanding Officer. Both were concerned, not with my state of undress, but with how and where I had caught the fish! I had a minor disciplinary action to face, but since it was in front of one of those officers, we spent an hour talking about fishing. I was also called up to see the other officer, but he had a Firefly sailboat and was looking for crew, so that accounted for a lot more ‘overtime’ at Bawdsey. It worked out perfectly for Chico and me, as our duties always took place at night, which left lots of time in the day for the ‘important’ things. He really enjoyed the beach!
To get to the nearest town was quite long and complicated. But if one was just looking for an excellent pint and good company, a pleasant ferry trip across the river took one to a proper English pub, aptly named The Ferry Boat Inn. This was the unofficial meeting place for just about everyone in the camp, from the Commanding Officer down. It was also where the local sailing club met, so that was another good reason to go there. Against all the rules and regulations, Chico was often a good companion on these trips, as he was well-behaved off duty as well as on, unlike some of the personnel! He couldn’t, however, come on the sailing boats. I’m sure he would have loved to go, but they were just too small and he was just too big.
When time allowed and no races were scheduled, we would take off, sometimes in the company of other boats, for a mini-cruise up or down the coast. On one such goodly day, three boats had headed south to explore some of the lively holiday towns and what they had to offer. Sure enough, we found what we were looking for, and were enjoying a fine lunch, when suddenly the skies clouded over and it started to blow. We had no choice but to get the boats afloat and head back to the camp, normally not a problem, but in this case we had one. The wind was ‘foul,’ that is, blowing against us, so we were going to have a hard sail, and a long one.
By the time we got back it was 3:15 a.m.! It was fortunate we had one of the officers with us, who was able to tell an acceptable story to the men at the guard post.
Camp Bawdsey was a posting I could cheerfully have remained at, but eventually Chico and I were sent overseas, where later Chico suddenly became ill and died of a kidney infection. This was a great loss to me. Finding it impossible to connect with another dog, I travelled around Europe, instructing and demonstrating how to train police dogs on military bases. That was how I finished my time in the services, until I returned to civvy street.
The day at sea that you figure you ‘know it all’ is the one that will kill you!
There is always so much to know and learn at sea, long after the studying and the classrooms, but every day you spend on it will provide something new to learn or observe. The ocean has an unfailing memory; you may forget, but it won’t.
I was a young deckhand on the dragger Adventure. The trawl was streaming out over the stern. Ropes, lines, chains and boards were flying along the deck toward the transom and into the water. No time for day-dreaming!
Suddenly I felt a thump on my shoulder; I went flying forward and hit the deck. Somewhat dazed, I looked up to see Val Noakes, an older member of the crew, who had sent me flying.
“Bloody fool!” he shouted, “You had your foot in a bight of rope! Another minute you’d have been over the side and lost!” Right enough, I was not paying attention and had stepped into a bight, or loop of rope that was part of the trawl line streaming over the side. A few more seconds and I would have been a dead man.
That memory lasted a lot longer than the sore shoulder. It was one I never forgot and it always had me conscious of tidy sheets, ropes and warps. Val and I were friends for many years after that, and shared sea time on the Chunnel adventure.
It was some years later when I learned that Val had died. When I asked what had happened, I wish I hadn’t.
“Oldest mistake a seaman can make,” I was told. “Stepped into a bight and was taken overboard.”
The sea never forgets, and now, neither will I.
“I’m fed up with living in an apartment!” I exclaimed to my wife, Betty, “Why don’t we get a boat and live on board?” Betty, you should understand, was a Head Nurse, very tidy and used to things being neat, clean and proper.
The idea was met with something like:
“Yes, dear, but how can we afford it?” A response that I was to get used to over the years. In those days I was somewhat of a bulldozer, and an idea in the head was as good as done.
The London Boat Show was just starting. What better place to sell my idea than amongst those glittering beauties? Something called a ‘Flat-a-float’ was the ideal example to continue my sales pitch. It was a floating oblong box, thirty feet long, bright, shiny, and full of the gadgets and amenities required for everyday living. A universe away from anything we could afford, but the important thing was it sold Betty on the idea! So, the seed planted about living on a boat, I placed an advertisement in a paper called The Exchange and Mart and in a couple of boating magazines. “Cruiser/houseboat required, no down payment available, £5 guaranteed a week repayments.” As usual, the response from Betty was negative:
“That’s silly, nobody in their right mind will go for that idea.” However, as the letters came drifting in, we were both surprised.
An amazing assortment of boats was offered, and it was also amazing the type of craft that people thought were suitable to live on board. An eighteen-foot sailboat; a half-decked twenty-five-footer; a tug with no deck at all. It all went on and on, until one day, there it was, the letter that described the boat of our dreams – well, mine anyway.
She was fifty-two feet overall, with a centre wheelhouse, three cabins, and she was afloat. The letter from Mr. Mobbs went on to point out that she was built of double diagonal teak on oak beams – I was sold! Mr. Mobbs explained that they had purchased the boat with the intention of cruising, but that was before his wife announced the imminent arrival of a child.
The ‘fiver’ a week at that time would come in very useful to them. I made a phone call to Mr. Mobbs, to ensure he understood my terms, as it seemed just too good to be true. Yes, he understood, and explained that the boat needed a little painting and some minor repairs. This was probably the understatement of the year, but those fifty-two feet had me hooked. I just had to see this boat, so an appointment to view was set.
She was called the Noble Venture, what more could I ask? She was moored on the River Thames at Putney. My thought raced to open fields and trees, which at that time were a reality in the area.
“She’s right by the footbridge near the underground station.” We wound our way through the mess of ages in the boatyard – old cranes, steel pilings, oil drums and the like. There, floating proudly, was MY ship! I had no doubt which one she was, and I was in love! After a while Mr. Mobbs, a nice man in his late thirties, turned up. A short discussion, which I interrupted; I wanted to get on board, right now! We hauled the dinghy from under a pile of debris where it had been concealed – an eight-foot double diagonal teak to match the ‘mother ship.’ All this time my wife had remained quiet. She stayed on shore whilst I was ferried out to the boat. Once on board, I was totally consumed. Mr. Mobbs rowed back for Betty.
By the time they returned I had had time to review the boat, and the ‘minor repairs and painting.’ Just about every window in the large centre wheelhouse and the deck hatches had been smashed. The objects that had smashed them lay, themselves smashed, among a profusion of glass and unrecognizable objects, except, that is, the house bricks and rocks which came in a variety of shapes and weights, some of which I could hardly lift. These gave testimony to the strength of the local ‘teddy boys,’ part of whose entertainment was to wreak as much damage to boats within range as possible. Those beyond pitching range were brought under fire from slingshots and large ballbearings, which accounted for the use of much plywood, arrayed on boats that were ‘in the know.’ Anyone who knows boats is aware of the fact that they need, and insist on getting, attention. That was something that this boat had definitely not received for a long time.
The galley was a strange colour, greyish-black, hard to define in the gloom, there being no workable lights. As I leaned against the stove to review the main saloon, I noticed it had a strange feel. Grease, which without overstating, was half an inch thick. In some ways this was a plus, as it stopped any chance of rust getting even close to it. The canvas on deck was full of holes from the assaults from the bridge, and from natural disintegration. This resulted in the seats and bunks being well stained and stinky from frequent soakings. The spacious aft cabin somewhat matched up forward, but without the grease. The only part of the entire vessel spared from assault was the engine room, the heart of the boat. It had a big old Ford tractor engine, the kind used by many British farmers for hauling and driving their machinery. It was good, tough and reliable, and this one even had some engine oil in it.
By this time I heard the sound of Betty arriving with Mr. Mobbs. I should mention that Betty had never been on board a boat before, and by the look on her face, this was going to be a hard sell.
“Just surface stuff, won’t take much to clean her up,” said Mr. Mobbs. I resisted the temptation to enquire why he hadn’t done just that. In an attempt to get Betty’s mind off the chaos, I suggested we try the engine.
“Ah yes!” exclaimed Mr. Mobbs, who went on to say it may take some effort as she hadn’t been run in a while. The way it had been installed, one could only get a quarter-turn on the crank, and no, there was no electric starter.
One may imagine what was going through my mind at this time – judging by the state of the rest of the boat, this engine was never going to go. Now Mr. Mobbs was saying:
“It starts on gasoline, then you switch over to TVO” (tractor vaporising oil, a type of kerosene.) The idea behind this process was that the fuel ran through a type of plate/carburetor which heated up really fast, then switched over to the less expensive TVO. Mobbs turned on the lever to feed the gas into the carburettor. I was trying to figure out how he was going to operate the crank in that confined space, when he reached out with his foot, pulled the handle to the ‘up’ position, then thrust with all his weight down the quarter-turn.
“You can’t get your hand on it, and really your foot works better.” He was at the fifth swing or ‘plunge’ and I was starting to wonder if I should continue my search, when vroom, the engine burst into life. I knew then the boat was mine!
In the meantime, Betty had been discovering the disastrous mess in the rest of the boat. Eventually we were sitting on shore, with Mobbs continuing to expound on the virtues of the boat. I suddenly stood up, grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously, saying:
“We’ll take it!”
The expression on Betty’s face was something between panic, fear and downright horror. She said nothing at the time, but I realized it would not take long. I gave Mobbs some cash for a deposit and he wrote out a receipt on a scrap of paper. I was over the moon as I gazed out at the Noble Venture – my boat. I was the owner of a fifty-two-foot motor cruiser. All the mess, the grease, the mildew, all gone as I visualized us cruising to our new life, our gentle, tree-lined mooring. Mooring! I realized I had to find a place to keep her, as the present berth had to be vacated. Ah, well, I had my boat, and that was the important thing.
“Well,” said Betty, “At least it won’t have cost much.” I agreed that a bit of elbow grease would make her right tiddley. “No,” she said, “I mean, to get out of the deal. He has some money so he won’t mind, and he doesn’t know where we live.”
I had no intention of getting out of the deal, this was my boat!
“You don’t really intend to buy that awful mess?” Knowing that her protest was useless, through a flood of tears she stammered that there was no way she was going to live on that awful thing, and that if I wanted to, I would have do it alone. My reply was simply:
“Fine. You live where you want to live, I’m moving onto the Noble Venture just as soon as I can.” So, in true chauvinistic manner, I declared my intention!
The timing was perfect, since our landlord had already given us an ultimatum to leave. I described to Betty the ideal lifestyle of living on a boat. Once she was fixed up we would have a place of our own, in idyllic surroundings, with the added opportunity of meeting some interesting people. I showed her some colourful books about the Thames River, borrowed from our local library, and eventually brought her round to my way of thinking. Then began the frantic scramble. We had to dispose of furniture and bits and pieces ‘not wanted on the voyage.’ I had to get the boat into some sort of liveable comfort. A new set of windows in the wheelhouse brought a new dignity to the boat. Unfortunately these were not to last long, as two days after the fitting, they were all smashed again – the Putney brick throwers had done their work well. This time my father came to the rescue; he had a good friend in the glass business, who supplied us with a set at cost, of toughened glass. And this time, as I installed each one, I covered it with plywood, much to the chagrin of the local yobs, who jeered and yelled and threw rocks to show their displeasure at having one of their sporting events curtailed. Help came in that instance, in the form of a train driver, slowly crossing the bridge with the 9:00 a.m. goods train, with whom we had developed a waving acquaintance. He saw what was happening, and somehow got word through to the police, who arrived in time to arrest the offenders.
It was three days before we had to vacate our apartment or pay another week’s rent, which we neither wanted nor could afford to do.
“Where are we going to move the boat to?” asked Betty, with her usual practicality.
Of course, this thought had gone through my mind a few times, but somehow another project always seemed to get in the way of making those essential phone calls. That, and the fact that I secretly looked forward to just exploring our new ‘street’ – the River Thames. Anyway, I started making phone calls up and down the river. If they could take the length, she was too deep; if they could take the depth, she was too long. In those days there were very few mooring places, and no marinas as we know them these days. In the mid nineteen-fifties, living aboard boats was for a limited number of people – the rich and famous, artists and actors. It was not quite acceptable for the rest of us, but we enjoyed being rebels and trying to escape society with all its rigours.
Thirty phone calls later, and a gruff voice growled:
“What kind of bloody boat is it? I won’t have any floating crap on my moorings.” I quickly described the sleek lines of the Noble Venture, explaining that she was an ex-Navy boat built of double diagonal teak on oak beams. “If she’s ugly or unsound you can’t stay on the mooring,” he went on, adding “Two miles up from Chertsey lock on the left bank.” He hung up.
“We’ve got a mooring,” I called to Betty, “A place called Laleham Reach.” Of course, her practical mind came to the fore, with such questions as:
“Is there electricity? What about drinking water? Did you tell him we are living on board?” And a dozen other questions I hadn’t even thought about. I mumbled something and kept my head down. She also wanted to know where it was. All I could tell her was that it was somewhere near Chertsey, and nobody was going to be throwing rocks at us.
The morning of our departure from beneath the railway bridge was bright and sunny. Mr. Mobbs was there to wish us well, and to warn us that it may be busy on the river around Henley, as it was the day of the Head of the River Race. The master of understatement had struck again! I had completely forgotten about Oxford and Cambridge doing battle once again with their rowing eights and single sculls. There was bound to be extra traffic on the water. Ah well, we were getting away on our adventure, and Henley Regatta would only add to the excitement.
Now we were ready to go! The engine started on the second kick, seeming to feel the adventure. I rowed Mobbs ashore, went back aboard, slipped the mooring line, and we were off. As I removed the last of the plywood from the windows, a farewell brick came flying from the bridge, and passed well away from us. A small group of lads waved, as if in appreciation of the entertainment we had afforded them. As we headed up river, the Noble Venture was like a greyhound unleashed, surging along as if glad to be free of perpetual moorings and disrespect. She was feeling good, a proud ship once more, who could still show off as an ex-Naval vessel.
As we proceeded further up river, we got a view that was new to both of us, as we passed huge factories, industrial sites and docks. We also realized that we were passing through history, of which the Thames abounds. On the right bank just below Teddington (an abbreviation of Tide-end-Town) a white stone topped with a ball marked the boundary of the two authorities governing the waterways – the Port of London for the tidal part of the river, and the Thames Conservancy for the non-tidal stretch above Teddington to Lechlade, the furthest navigable point of the river for boats.
Once through the lock, which raised us up beyond the tidal river, the scenery started to change – less and less commerce and more and more green spaces. The lock keeper told me that in 1830 the keeper was frequently being robbed of his toll money, so his request to keep a blunderbuss and bayonet was granted. So much for peaceful Old England!
Kingston presented a conflict of interest, not being quite able to make up its mind whether to be Town or Country. The ornamental bridge gave the feeling of country, but the massive power station made up for that! The King’s Stone, from which the town takes it name, still stands, where no less than seven Saxon kings lost their lives in battle.
As we approached Hampton Court, with sheep and deer quietly grazing, it was not difficult to imagine Samuel Pepys drifting on the calm water composing some masterpiece, or King James I enjoying an afternoon ride along the river, perhaps reflecting on the responsibility of his accession in 1603.