Have
you ever heard of Iskenderun? Just in case you haven’t it’s in Turkey. If
you have seen the Indiana Jones movie ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ the station
at Iskenderun is featured. I bought a Meeshum pipe there and lost it somewhere
between Israel and Gibraltar. That is all I have to say about Iskenderun, except
that it begins with the letter ‘I’. When we did the 3I’s run on the
Galatea we visited Iskenderun followed by Izmir then Istanbul. Iskenderun was
105 degrees in the shade when we left there to go to Izmir, where we were going
to go on a WILD BOAR HUNT with real rifles and bullets. The Jimmy usually went
on anything that was free but he gave this one a miss, I wonder why?
All
of us were issued with rifles, the professionals, officers and senior rates got
SLR’s with big bullets, the erks got .22’s. The guides (not Girl) thought
the .22 bullets were hilarious, “for baby boars, eh? Ha Ha!” - In Turkish.
We
assembled extremely early, (with extreme hangovers) because we had quite a long
way to go up country. After about two hours travelling we disassembled at this
mountain village. “Now we walk”- In Turkish! We eventually got to where we
didn’t know we were going to in the first place. The Beaters set us up in a
semi-circle at the bottom of this hill and told us to wait - “in Turkish”,
while they made a lot of noise and chased the wild boar down into our guns where
we were to shoot them! Then they had another laugh about our .22 rifles “for
babies, eh? We find you some babies, no problem”. In Turkish!
After
about half an hour, we heard this racket coming down the hill, dogs barking,
bells ringing, people shouting, sounded like a cocktail party! Then suddenly
three baby boars broke cover. Well, all hell broke loose! About a thousand
rounds were fired at these three little porkers, and we got only one of them.
“Never mind, said the chief beater” - in Turkish, “We do it, one more
time, this time we get some big Boar, just don’t break the circle, stay where
you are, these big boar very dangerous, no shite!” In Turkish!
Well the beaters went off up the hill again, and once more the bells, and dogs started up and we could hear the wild boar (I think I would be pretty wild getting chased down a mountain in this heat) bounding down the hill. What we hadn’t seen was one of the stokers breaking the circle and nipping behind a bush to answer the call of nature! Murphy’s Law then came into play; this huge Boar broke cover and ran straight into the bush where the stoker was doing his business. Well, about another thousand rounds peppered that bush until there wasn’t an effing leaf left on it! Next thing we see is a white baseball cap being waved from the bush, “I Surrender, I Surrender” said the voice from the bush. It was one very lucky stoker, the Boar had been hit by about ten shots, and landed on top of him and every other shot had missed him! There wasn’t much left of the boar either, but never mind. Just as well the Jimmy wasn’t with us. We spent the journey back on board trying to think of what charge he would have come up with for our ashen-faced stoker! This is a true story, not a porky pie, Honest!
The first of many fishing dits. Most who know me are aware of the fact that I did like to fish. Those from the Diomede will remember fishing in the Indian Ocean and my amazing catch, honestly it was this big……. honest!
We
were anchored off somewhere around Diego Garcia (another Brown Hatters Paradise)
it was so hot we were cooking breakfast on the upper deck. It was my 26th
birthday, and (not that I needed a reason) we were having a few cans, and being
Sunday most of the ship’s company were on the upper deck fishing and
sunbathing. We had been catching a few yellow-fin tuna when they suddenly
shoaled and disappeared. To a fishing boffin like what I am, this meant there
were sharks about. So I dived down below and got a huge hook and scrounged a
great big chunk of beef off the galley, baited the hook and heaved it out on a
hand line. Well would you believe it? No sooner had the bait hit the water than
it got grabbed, by what at the time seemed like an effing monster! Not having a
rod to control the catch, my hands were being cut to ribbons just trying to hold
on to it. The fish or whatever it was fought like hell for about half an hour,
until it eventually surfaced, and then our knicks changed to brown when we saw
it was an effing shark!
| There was no way I was going to lose this fish, but I’d had a few cans, and I had to haul it up by hand about thirty feet up to the gun deck. Someone had the presence of mind to go and get a pair of deck gloves and hauled it up the side of the ship where it was promptly despatched! My hands were bleeding and blistered, but the sheer euphoria as we hauled it down to the galley and throwing it at the duty Chef’s feet, and saying “Comms Mess with chips!” And he did, and it tasted great! Now that’s what I call a birthday! As I said in my letter to mummy, “had a few drinks with the lads, did a bit of sunbathing, had breakfast on the upperdeck, it was 104 degrees, Oh, and I caught a Shark!” |
Hugh's Catch
|
My
Mother said that I never should,
Play with the naughty rude girls in the wood,
Their giggling talk I could never understand,
And that’s why I fell in love with my right hand,
I’m a wanker, I’m a wanker etc…..
