A little fill-in story while I work on another:

Part of the mentality of seaman in general is that if somebody from the company comes on board and is not a crew member, then he MUST be part of management and therefore fair game for complaints, whingeing, favours and a host of other things!

As it became better known what I was doing it became less of a problem in my case, although there is still one outstanding debt owing for booking and paying a deposit for an air ticket that I never was repaid for. The poor bugger is dead now, so I guess the only recompense that I have is that I had booked him on Aeroflot to Europe from Singapore!

It was not always technical reasons that I went to a tender. If I was in the area for whatever reason I would try and visit just to keep up morale, especially in SE Asia, as those crews were working an 8 week cycle, as against the Australian normal 5 weeks on and 5 weeks off.
Mail is always a good morale booster, so I was very often called on to be a mailman.
No internet or Sat phones in those days.

A couple of funny episodes come to mind. We did have a second tender working in the area, I just cannot remember which one, maybe "Lady Vilma", or exactly when and where it was.

I remember flying into Sandakan and from there to some long forgotten small airport on a beat up old Fokker F27. I remember this part as it appeared that the expat pilot was on his own. The cockpit door kept swinging open and closed as he was manoeuvring to line up to land. Where we landed there was just the proverbial "tin shed" acting as the terminal.

I guess an agent picked me up and took me to the tender that was alongside in a small port.

There were several exploration drilling rigs working in the area, and as Singapore was the nearest main base for drilling material supplies, an old cargo ship had been set up as a local warehouse and anchored out in the oilfield. This field was in East Malaysia and nothing to do with Brunei.

Sandakan-map.gif

The next thing that I recall was a couple of bods coming on board the tender in the evening with a strange request. It appeared that the captain of the warehouse ship had thrown a wobbly and was refusing to hand over ANY material to the supply boats when asked!

"NO, you can't have any", apparently was his answer to all requests! "Go away!"

So, it was decided that a couple of medics, maybe doctors, needed to be taken out to the ship along with a straightjacket!

I don’t recall how long it took, or whether it was day or night, but I do recall the poor bugger sitting quietly in the messroom on the way back to port. He was probably the only expat on board the ship, and could have been there for several months with only local crew to talk with. It also may have been his only option to get off the thing!

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Not sure if it was on this occasion or another, but on one of these excursions I was asked to take one of the Australian seamen back to Singapore with me, his excuse being that he was sick. He was a young hippy type with long hair and had probably been consuming something that he should not have been.

This was in the mid 1970's and Singapore had strict rules about long hair and hippy appearance. Arrival in Singapore was at the old Paya Lebar Airport, complete with its cockroaches and general scruffy condition.

Young mister budding Captain was pulled out of line at Immigration and told he could not enter Singapore because of his long hair! So, I explained where he had come from and why he was there, all to no avail. But they had an answer:

They bundled him into a small room, on to a chair, and promptly cut off his long locks!

And then; FINED HIM, I think it was $10, for LITTERING!
He was then allowed entry!

That type of thing did not happen very often to me, as I was pretty much left to make my own decisions about how best to proceed!