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.