Fundraising for the RNLI

Not surprisingly perhaps, my charity of choice is the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI). I've always supported them and since I moved to Shropshire 6 years ago I've become more involved with my local fundraising branch.
For the past 2 years I've held a coffee morning for them plus attended other fundraisers too.
During the middle of last year I was approached to become a member of the committee. Apparently they were looking for a younger person with some new ideas! I gladly accepted and have enjoyed being involved in planning our fundraisers and also putting forward some ideas too.

I've recently set up a Facebook page for our branch which has started to have a few hits. It is my plan to advertise all our fundraising events on this page and to keep the more technically minded RNLI supporters upto date with our fundraising news.

Click here for : Our RNLI Church Stretton Branch  Facebook page
Make sure you click that you 'like' the page!
This past Saturday was our latest fundraiser which was in aid of the RNLI annual fundraiser SOS day. We decided to organise a Sing Our Songs event. A local Eukele band called The Shropshire Strummers very kindly offered their services free and came along to entertain us. They bring along songbooks so the audience can join in with the singing. People were in fine voice and although most of the songs did have a sea theme some where a bit more fun and unusual!

Click here for : The Shropshire Strummers webpage


We had between 60 & 70 people come along on Saturday. All committee members brought along trays of food for an interval buffet.

Our buffet

A great evening was enjoyed by us all and we were able to raise £436 for the RNLI.

One chap who was there is going to be doing an epic bike ride in May in aid of the RNLI and  I'm hoping to have more information soon to put on our page.









Our next fundraising event will be a Fish N Chip supper on March 3rd.  Our guest speaker this year will be a lifeboatman from Wales.

As high as a kite

Yesterday was as Pooh would say 'a very blustery day'.
After a mornings work I came home to hubby and stepdaughter, her partner and our new addition to the family.
We headed out up the valley to have lunch. The pub there does lovely food, my husband likes it as they brew their own beer and it's dog friendly so Maisie the dog can come inside too.
After a tasty refuel we headed upto the castle. Sadly not much is left of the castle itself but it's great to explore.
We had brought our rucksack of kites with us and hubby set about getting one of the kites out of the bag whilst I threw a ball for Maisie.
I should explain the castle is built on quite a hill and the river meanders around the bottom of the hill. Maisie runs down to the flat land between the hill and river and waits for me to throw the toy. She then runs straight back up the hill with it and then she's off again back down the hill. How she has the energy for this is beyond me!
Anyway the kite was ready to go so the men started to launch and fly it. Maisie was intrigued by this and was running round looking up at this strange white and purple thing, whooshing around above her.
The wind got stronger and stronger until a huge gust took the kite and it's flyer whiz zing across the grass. I'm sure skid marks must have been left behind.
By now I was beginning to get cold so us girls decided to head back to the car quickly followed by the men.
After a lovely exhilarating hour flying kites a hot coffee and some freshly made scones were the order of the day.

Shipwrecked

Imagine you have just checked into an exclusive hotel............................
                   
You follow the porter as he takes you and your bags to your room, not really paying attention  as you walk down identical looking corridors................................................

Once in your room, you unpack, have a look round the room, locate the fridge and mini bar, see what freebies there are, check out the bathroom,  survey the view from the window.......................

After showering and dressing for dinner you try and find your way back down to the restaurant.

Did you look at the fire exit plan on the door in your room?
Do you know where your nearest exit is?

If all the lights went out would you know where you were and how to get out?

Now translate that scenario onto a ship.............................it gets more complicated because not only are you in the dark but you are also on water.........which way is forward or aft? Do you know where your life jacket is or indeed how to put it on? Do you know where your muster station is and how to get there?
The ship will start tipping shortly and make things even more scary.

This must have been the situation for the 3000 passengers on board the Costa Concordia last Friday. They had only been on board for a couple of hours or so before tragedy struck and their trips of a lifetime became a nightmare.

"On any ship carrying passengers where the passengers are scheduled to be on board for more than 24 hours, a muster of the passengers must take place within 24 hours of their embarkation. Passengers must be given instruction in how to don their lifejackets and the action to take on hearing the general emergency alarm signal" (MGN71)

On Friday, how many people had checked the muster list which by law must have been displayed in their cabin?
This would have told them details of all the emergency signals they would possibly hear such as fire alarm, general emergency alarm (7 or more short blasts on the ships whistle or siren) and abandon ship command (usually verbally by the Captain) and the actions that should be taken if they heard them. They should also have known where their nearest lifeboat was, where their muster station was and how to don a life jacket.

I'm sure many people were saved by the actions of crew members who were able to guide people to lifeboats and help them put on their life jackets correctly.

"Each crew member must participate in at least one abandon ship drill and one fire drill every month. These drills must be held within 24 hours of leaving port if more than 25% of the crew

have not taken part in drills on board the ship in the previous month."(MGN71)

I have taken part in many drills on ships in the 12 years I was at sea, often times thinking 'why oh why are we doing this again?' but I'm sure nothing can prepare you for the real thing. Luckily on the ships I have sailed on the number of people on board was much smaller so mustering and checking if there is anyone missing is a lot easier and quicker than on a cruise ship. And of course our drills are always done during the day, usually during calm weather.

So who is to blame?

Well the buck always stops with the Captain.................he is in charge of the ship.
Even if he is fast asleep in bed at the time of an accident, he is always the one to blame,

In this instance it would seem that the Captain was still on the bridge and was wanting to show off his fancy cruise ship to the people of Isola Del Giglio.  By deviating from the course prescribed by the cruise company he has broken the rules. The ship would have been fitted with an echo sounder which shows how much clearance there is under the ships keel. Navigational charts, paper and on computer, are updated weekly and new clusters of rocks would surely have been noted.

Once the ship had hit the rocks I am sure that a bilge alarm would have sounded and engineers would have gone to investigate.  Once the ship lost power and blacked out, this must surely have been a sign to muster everyone at the muster stations, whilst more investigations were carried out by the ships crew.

The Captain does seem to have had the presence of mind to turn the ship around and bring her nearer into shore, perhaps helping to save lives.
It should always be the last resort to abandon ship, the ship itself being the safest place to be, but once it started listing and taking on more water, this must surely have been the time for the Captain to declare 'Abandon Ship'.

Whenever I go on an aeroplane or stay at a hotel, I do always look at where my nearest exit is......why? No idea, I just like to know how I would escape if the worst came to the worst. 
How many of you can say the same?

Do you spend more time flicking through the in flight magazine than listening and paying attention to the safety announcements?

Do you check out the fire exit plan on the back of your hotel door or check out whats in the mini bar?

It only takes 5 minutes but it could save your life!


Whilst researching for this blog I was shocked to see that on a passenger ship, passengers "should be strongly encouraged to attend abandon ship drills".  They don't have to attend,

If I had to change 2 things it would be that:

1) All passengers must attend an abandon ship drill.
                                                                      
2) An abandon ship/emergency drill on a passenger ship must take place before the ship sails.


Happy Sailing!




Read MGN71

Back home with a cold!

I signed off the ship on Saturday afternoon and drove home to Shopshire. I had a wonderful reception from hubby and my dog, Maisie.
Hubby had cleaned the house from top to bottom, filled it with flowers and cooked a lovely chinese meal, crispy duck pancakes, lemon prawns and sticky ribs all with rice. It was delicious.
I sank into a lovely hot bath and relaxed for a while.
Sadly I also brought home a cold :(
I've been sniffling and sneezing ever since.
Today I got dressed up warm and we ventured out to our local town with the dog. We walked along the river, it was lovely, frosty and crisp.

Once we had had a little walk we ventured up into town to our favourite pub. Its dog friendly and does fabulous homemade soups. So we sat and watched the world go by as we sipped on our tomato soup and dipped in the crusty bread. I was still feeling very sneezy and sniffly so we wrapped up warm again and went back to the car and headed home.

I have decided to cancel my appointments tomorrow.  Many of my patients are elderly and I am very cautious about passing on coughs and colds to them, knowing how vulnerable they can be, especially in winter.

I suppose instead I shall snuffle and sniff at home whilst trying to organise the dreaded tax return!! Its got to be done.

Last Day

Today was my last full day on board. I shall be signing off tomorrow and driving home to Shropshire. I'm surprised that I have such mixed feelings about that too.

My reasons for coming back to sea were quite simple. To be able to revalidate my certificates I need to have done 12 months seatime in 5 years. I've got about 18 months to go until I need to revalidate but not much seatime. As I've been working away from sea for 3 1/2 years I've been a bit undecided as to whether I wanted to revalidate at all.
One part of me still yearns to work on a ship, be part of a crew, navigating around the sea etc. I worked hard to get all my certificates, so figure it would be a shame to lose the certificates.
On the other hand I have a quiet life in the country, working for myself with my dog for a companion and a great husband who I see every 3 weeks as he works at sea too. I don't have to get up at silly hours of the day anymore, I get to belong to clubs/ groups etc and don't miss out on family birthdays/ weddings/ get togethers.
I wanted this trip away to help me decide whether I should bother trying to revalidate my ticket or just concentrate on my 'newer' life.
Of course it is hard to measure it by this trip alone because it has by no means been a 'normal' trip. We have only done 1 cargo and have been in a repair stop for just over a week. Being able to go ashore with other crew, makes a difference. Normally at sea you wouldn't see a lot of other crew members because of doing opposite watches. In a 3 week trip I probably wouldn't go ashore once.
So this has been a refreshing change, I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, I've had a great laugh with the crew and some of the lads working in the dockyard. It's worked out well really that I knew the ship already too.
Another nice thing is that several of the crew have said how nice it has been having me on board. It's made a change to them too.
So will I continue and come back for a few more trips to sea or will I say 'no this isn't for me' and cast away the idea of going back to sea??
What would you do?

Nights out.

Whilst away on a 3 week trip at sea, it is quite rare to get the opportunity for a 'run ashore'. We are never in port very long, maybe 4-5 hours, so when in a repair stop its great to have a night out.
On Saturday, 4 of us (Bosun, Cook, Mr 2/E and myself) went ashore for a few drinks. Our ship is berthed on the River Tees not far from Middlesbrough. We went to a local social club, something which don't seem to exist much anymore where I live.
We had a few drinks, chatted and laughed and had a go at the quiz and stand up bingo. Bosun had been going on for a few days previously about stand up bingo and how good it was. Myself, I'd never heard of it. I'd played normal bingo but never stand up bingo. Basically you buy a single bingo card, so it has 15 random numbers between 1-90. Everyone playing stands up and the bingo caller starts calling out numbers. If the number called is on your card then you sit down. The last person standing wins!
So we all agree to have a go, a £1 a ticket, and Bosun pays for us to play. The first number called was 77, and poor Bosun had to sit down. He was gutted to be sitting down so soon. Anyway I ended up winning- I won £43. I felt so happy but also very sorry for Bosun who had been so excited about playing but had had to sit down so soon.


Last night we went ashore for a meal. It's customary for the shipyard to take a couple of the ships crew out for a meal. I was very lucky to be asked to go too. So Captain, Mr 2/E, Bosun and myself went along with the Ship Superintendent and from the Shipyard, the 2 project managers and one of the Health & Safety guys (MrH&S). We were picked up in a minibus from the shipyard and taken up to a place called Yarm. We all met up in a pub at 7.30pm. We had one drink, then another and one more! I was drinking Gin & tonics (I later found out they were doubles!) and they were slipping down very well. Eventually after an hour we walked down the road to an Italian restaurant. The shipyard people are obviously regulars here as we were all greeted enthusiastically. Our table wasn't ready so, yes we had another drink. I'd decided I would have red wine so a bottle of Barolo appeared and a few of us tucked into that! After 2 large glasses of wine I felt drunk and really hungry. Mr H&S and I were chatting and agreed we needed to eat something soon. Luckily our table came available so we went to sit down. I had a lovely King Prawn starter followed by a pasta dish with Chicken and bacon. By now I was talking and laughing so much that I hardly ate any of my main course really. I was sat next to Mr H&S and unbeknown to me at the time, every time I turned to chat to someone down the table, he was filling up my glass! No wonder I couldn't understand how come I didn't seem to be drinking very much!
I also had a dessert, a trio of puds but to be honest I really don't remember what they were let alone if it was nice or not.
We all had a fabulous night, no expense spared. Great company and such a laugh.
I was still laughing/ giggling when we got back on board and I'm ashamed to admit it took Bosun and I at least 20 minutes to get from the back deck door, up a flight of stairs to our cabins! We were laughing so much, we were holding onto the rail along the alleyway and then when we got to the bottom of the stairs we did that awful thing of loud shushing with our fingers upto our mouths, 'shhhhh, shhhhhh' when really the shushing is probably louder than the laughter.
By some strange miracle, I felt absolutely fine this morning apart from a bit of a sore throat!( too much laughing). I had been up during the night and drunk 2 large glasses of water so maybe that helped me not have a hangover.
Anyway we all had a lovely evening, great food and company.

Shipboard food

A couple of nights ago the Captain cooked our evening meal for us! Very nice you may say, so what!
On my ship there are 11 crew members, Captain, Chief Officer(me), 2nd officer, Chief Engineer + 2 engineers, bosun, 2 able seamen(AB), cargo operator and a cook. Of those 11 crew, 6 are Polish and 5 are Brits.
We're lucky as in some smaller crewed ships one of the AB's would double up as cook.
I've never come across a cook at sea who has been happy for someone else to use his galley. They are usually very territorial beings!
The cook we have now is new to this ship and company, it's only his 2nd trip, but I have to say he's a lovely chap. So he agreed to the Captain cooking a traditional Polish dish. It was really nice actually, a pork steak marinated in salt, pepper and paprika. Then cooked slowly with onions and served topped with tomato ketchup, mayonnaise and cheese. It was really tasty, something I would try and cook myself at home.

The cook that was here before, had been in the company for years working just past his retirement age. He was nice enough but could also be described as cantankerous, rude, militant, opinionated or a miserable old git! I noticed after I had been onboard only a day or so how different the atmosphere on board was to when I had been here 3.5 yrs ago.
A lot of the cooks I've sailed with were older blokes, who have been at sea for years. Their staple evening meal of the day would be a roast dinner with fruit duff ( pudding) and custard.

One cook I worked with was another strange character. He was quite short and fat, a Glaswegian, who looked like a bulldog who had swallowed a wasp. He would stare at you through the hatch between galley and mess room, making sure you were eating the food. You would hope someone else would come along for food, to distract him long enough for you to chuck it in the bin. Then you would wash your plate, pass it back and say thanks.


Years ago, before drinking and smoking was banned on ships, I remember one cook who would be in the galley, can of beer in hand, roll up in his mouth, stirring the food. Goodness knows what happened to the ash!
So for our Captain to get in the galley and do a bit of cooking is something I've never seen before but is a welcome change.

Can you guess what it is yet?

So here are the answers to my previous blog!
The first is a pair of binoculars! Very useful bit of kit for a navigator, help see those dangers for miles!!
Second is a SART (Search And Rescue Transponder). It shows up as a series of dots on a radar screen if any ship nearby once it is activated. Used for emergencies it is triggered by the radar of other ships to help locate a distressed ship/lifeboat/life raft.
Lastly was the ships wheel. Yes it really is that small, no more big wooden wheels! Used to steer the ship when in hand steering.

Hope you enjoyed the quiz!! Perhaps I'll do another one in a week or so.

Been a busy few days work wise. We docked yesterday at A&PTees repair yard for a scheduled repair stop. Within minutes of tying up the ship is swarming with people from ashore, all here to do jobs onboard. As the Chief Officer(mate) you find yourself stretched in different directions. One person will want to be shown where something is, another wants to ask a question and so it goes on plus as the Ship Safety Officer you find yourself writing permits. Today I've been measuring steel thicknesses of various bits around the ship, climbing up into pipes etc. What fun!

SART

Steering Wheel

binoculars

Laughter is a good tonic

I've been feeling reflective today. It's been great this last couple of weeks on board. It's been unusual too as we would not normally have spent so much time alongside as we have. Add to that the repair stop and all the hassle that can come with that.
I've realised that it hasn't all been bad though and I've spent lots of time catching up with people, making new acquaintances and laughing. I've laughed a lot actually, in fact in the last week, I've laughed til I cried more than once! I nearly choked on my steak one time.
Of course when at sea, a lot of the crew are on watches so you don't always get to see everyone. In a repair stop we all work day work 8am -5pm so there is almost always a full table of 6 of us in the officers mess for lunch and evening meal.
Seafarers are always good at telling a good yarn and my shipmates are no different. A lot of the time it tends to be stories about people we know, who we've sailed with. We exchange funny stories about our experiences and encounters. It's made me think a lot about all the people I've met over the years. Here's a story which I have told a few times over the years.
When I was a trainee, I would do 4-6 months seatime usually assigned to one ship and then either move to another ship or go to college. On one occasion I was going to join a new ship in Great Yarmouth. We joined by boat transfer at Great Yarmouth so we all met at the Seamens Mission. Also I should explain that the whole crew would change at the same time so 10 people joined as 10 people left.
When I arrived at The Mission I realised there was only one other person there. So after putting down my rucksack I went over to the bloke. He was quite old, with greying hair and glasses and nursing a pint of beer and a roll up cigarette. This is how the conversation went:
Me: Hello are you here to join the Arco?
Him: Yes
Me: oh hi, I'm Sharla the new trainee
Him: You won't last
Me: oh right...um.... Why not?
Him: oh this is a very very big ship! Lots of heavy things to lift, you won't handle it!
Me: oh well I'll give everything a try and then if I can't do it I'll ask for help
Him: Mmmmm

And so ended our conversation!
As you can imagine I did wonder what on earth I was doing, how was I going to cope? Noone had said this was going to be easy but hey, give me a chance!

It turned out that this Seaman (I'll call him 'Bert') was a real old salty seadog type and had never sailed with women before. Add to this he had not long become divorced and was still having to live in the same house as his ex who made his life very difficult. She had decided to split the house in two even to the point of there being a dividing line down the centre of his kitchen table!
So as you can imagine Bert wasn't too happy to have a female on board. I remember during Smoko ( morning and afternoon tea breaks) he would sometimes start moaning about women, how evil they were and how they should be kept in cages and just let out to breed. Of course I knew very well he didn't mean it and me and
the rest of the crew just humoured him and over time he did soften just a little bit.
I'd like to think that over time I proved that women at sea weren't a burden and that we did pull our weight.
I will never forget his face about a year later. I had done my seatime, been to college and passed my exams. That was the first ship I was sent to as a newly qualified 2nd mate. I walked past the crew mess towards my new hangout- the officers mess. But as I put my head round the crew mess door to say hello, there was Bert, his face fell when he saw me. I could almost read his thoughts, 'Oh my god, she's back!'
In the end I spent almost 2 years on that ship and we got on very well. He even showed me around Hull on one occasion and bought me a pint.

What is it??

I decided to have a bit of fun and I'm setting a challenge to you. I've been round taking close up photos of things on the ship, all you've got to is guess what on earth they are!
Answers in my next post!

First Navigational watch.

It seems odd to name this post my first navigational watch because strictly speaking that happened back in 1999.
But as I haven't been to sea in 3.5 years it does feel like I'm starting again.
Luckily I've had an easy re start to life at sea, with almost a week on board before actually sailing.
My watch started at 2000(8pm) and the first hour we were finishing off loading our sand cargo. We loaded it on an area just outside the Humber Estuary. I should perhaps explain here that the Arco Humber is an aggregate dredger. We load aggregate( sand & gravel) in specific licensed areas off the UK coast.
Once the Captain was happy we had loaded enough, we stowed our gear, switched off the deck lights and set our course north towards Teesport.
I spent quite a while re acquainting my self with all the various controls, lights, buttons and more importantly alarms and most annoyingly rattles!! I found that the starboard bridge door rattles if you close it firmly to, leave it slightly ajar and .....aaah....silence!
I did feel a little flutter of excitement when I saw a few ships on the radar. To me this has always been the most enjoyable part of the job, you can forget paperwork. Plotting a ship, seeing where it is going, how fast, is it on a collision with us? Do I need to do anything? Just like when driving a car you need to follow the Highway Code, when navigating a ship there is a similar set of rules to follow.
I knew that going from the dredging area to the Tees I wouldn't encounter too many ships and any I should encounter would be on a similar north/ south route like me.
I saw a few gas platforms in the distance, their bright lights highlighting their presence from miles away with their familiar light flashing Morse U (••-) meaning 'You are running into danger'. Their guard vessels, float around between a few platforms, like a guard dog making sure you don't get too close.
The navigation bridge is dark except for the glow of radar screens. My only companion is a Polish Seaman watch keeper who sits on the other side of the wheelhouse, keeping a look out. It's strange to think that only us two and the duty engineer in the Engine room are awake. Eight others are fast asleep down in their cabins as I navigate us safely through the night. What a responsibility!
At 0048hrs came the soft lilting tones of 'Sailing By' on 198LW, Radio 4. It is such a soothing tune which lulls you into a false sense of security in a way. As soon as it finishes, there you are all chilled out and then Wham! the weather shipping forecast is coming at you, you have to listen as well as scribble down really quickly what the man is saying about your shipping areas. Tyne,Dogger,Fisher, German Bight, Humber......... Not good news weather wise SW or W 8-10 occ violent storm 11! Expected soon. Luckily as we are creeping up the East coast, only 5-6 miles from the coast we are still fairly sheltered. The friendly lights of Flamborough Head and Whitby are on the port side. It's comforting to know we are not too far away from land!
So after a quiet watch, I hand over to the Second Mate (2/O) at 0400 and go down and curl up asleep for a few hours. The first watch over.

Watch snacks were 2 oranges, a banana and 4 cups of green tea!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   



Arco Humber - Sand cargo

Night time on the bridge





New Year celebrations

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a great evening welcoming in 2012.
Although I did have a bit of a hangover this morning, our shipboard celebrations were good fun!
As is traditional we stood on the bridge at midnight, listening to the radio and waiting for the chimes of Big Ben to start.
Once they did, the Captain started to sound the ships whistle. A loud, throaty whistle which seems to go straight through you.
Standing out on the bridge wing I could hear all the other ships in the docks, replying with their ships whistles. All wishing each other Happy New Year and safe sailing!
We also had a spectacular view of all the firework displays across the city of Hull. It was brilliant.
So although I would have preferred to have been celebrating with my nearest and dearest, this wasn't too bad!

Tomorrow we are sailing mid morning so keep an eye on where we go by clicking the link to Marine Traffic on the right side of this blog. My vessels name is Arco Humber.