NAUTICAL LOG

Sometimes life comes at one a bit fast with interesting results. The Holiday season is coming and a house full of visitors are due. We are a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-gender, multi-racial family and it all takes a bit of organizing. So it was that we moved things around and cleared closets to accommodate their kit. As a result I discovered a valuable nautical collection, - but one digresses. On getting my British 2nd. Mates Certificate of Competency and starting to sail as a full-time Deck Officer I decided to head for New Zealand. In those days the Union Steamship Company of NZ had three and then two year contracts. Quite often the idea was to join a new vessel in UK and take it from the builders yard to NZ then remain until completing the contract term. In my case there was not a vessel ready and so the USSCo. sent me out as a passenger in the TSS "Rangitiki" of the New Zealand Shipping Company. As you can imagine one was quite disappointed in not being able to w...

Previously PETERSPOINTS but now under a new name NAUTICAL LOG we are back again. After some months away due to a great big computer virus which wiped out all our work. It took some effort to get it together and start writing. That's the American spirt at work. Already one feels better expressing thoughts and making comments. Now that Winter is here in many parts of the country South Florida looks quite attractive. The milder weather means the A/C is mostly shut off. This has two big advantages first peace and quiet to hear the outside noises and secondly lower power bills. This latter being no mean advantage to a retiree on fixed income. At present our country is going through a very difficult time as we all know only too well. There is great uncertainty and a new and completely untried President-elect. His first press conference today was not very impressive but as he pointed out there is only one President at a time and he is not it--yet. When that time comes on January 20, 2009 ...