Falkland Islands Deployment

1. This deployment has been 193 days long. Or 4,648 hours. And that's more than half a year, folks
2. Since I couldn't mention this back in the first week of deployment, thought I'd mention it now; the ME department had a huge problem in the port drive train within weeks of the deployment starting, and so have had to complete our tour without one of our 2 cruising engines! Hard times...
3. We've used the same amount of fuel that you would use in your 2-litre car to circumnavigate the globe 1,392.8 times. I'm not going to tell you the cost if we'd have bought that fuel from Texaco...
4. The Captain is the only member of the crew to have had a bath onboard in the last 6 months.
5. The ship's company have consumed more than 24,000 potatoes since leaving Portsmouth back in June!
6. The ship has travelled a distance of over 30,000 nautical miles this deployment.
7. My parents have been updated on Royal Naval life 37 times more often than in any of the previous 7 years!

Aside from the blatantly obvious things like family and friends, these are the things over the last 6 months that I've missed the most (starting with the most):

• Pasteurised milk
• A Bath
• A big comfortable bed with a silent night's sleep
• A big comfortable sofa which you can sink into!
• Mother's home made apple crumble
• Lack of routine
• No daily orders!

Not long before this becomes reality! But, back to professional blogging, We've just left Madeira. Madeira was just not important. OK, so it was great to taste some incredible fortified wine, and I perhaps had a glass too much... though that ended up being a good thing, since there was a tattoo parlour looking increasingly beckoning outside... fortunately I just missed the opening times. Phew! When we parked up actually, we were completely dwarfed by this big cruise liner called "Panama", made by MSC Fantasia. It brought a brilliant comment from Nath who in response to my bewilderment at it's size, stated "Yeah we'd still take that out..." -yes, very true, we would. One missile. Well folks, look out for a Captain N. Sawtell in the next few years, I wouldn't go planning any cruises!

Madeira, from my pretty pathetic experience of it, is like a classy island where you can be completely English because everyone speaks English. Which, in my opinion, is highly irritating, especially after coming from Brazil where you have to learn a bit of Portuguese, which I far prefer (yeah, you heard that right- I'd ACTUALLY prefer to LEARN). But with people's mood at the moment, we couldn't care less. I pretended I was a wine connoseur for the afternoon, and contemplated buying a bottle of Madeira which was made in 1908. It only cost £950, which is er... nothing. To be honest though, all this stop is here for, is an excuse to have a meal, a few drinks and get some duty free while the ship refuelled in the port. The mood is simple. Get Home, don't die. We're now carrying out "OP HOUND" which is a very cleverly named operation derived from 2 words. See if you can guess what the 2 words are. Golly, this Royal Navy hierarchy really knows how to have a jolly old laugh! Actually they do appear to have gone mad. I mean, the DMEO is directing our weapons, and the Logistics officer is running the Operations room!?

Currently, I am over 1200 miles north-east of Brazil, fairly close to Africa, somewhere.

Since I last wrote, the sun has come out, burnt the crew alive, and is now just going back in as we head to Madeira. Infact, I am the only person to have retained my perfectly white complexion. This photo of me is the only time I have sunbathed in the last 3 weeks. I decided it wouldn't actually be a good idea to come home tanned at christmas.

So, last monday, we left Fortaleza, which had been absolutely unforgettable for me.

The first day we got in, I blew off a bit of steam by going out to Club Amazeun- but it seemed that everyone from the Gloucester decided to turn up, and it didn't take long for the place to suddenly feel very un-original! The next day, the stokers went ashore for the ME department barbeque on the beach- and it was really good fun. Larking about in the sand, drinking beer, eating burgers, paddling in the surf- I also went and got a really soothing massage some way down the beach! In the evening I saw some live music at a beach tourist resort too.


But day 3 was significantly better. First, I decided to abandon the usual 'drink beer all day at the beach' routine to go to a shopping mall which was basically like West Quay or any fairly decent shopping outlet in the UK. I don't know why I did this at all. There wasn't much reason. I guess, as we were originally only staying in Fortaleza for 2 days, the extra 3 days seemed like they needed a bit more adventure. So it was in there that I met Dany and her cousin Livia, (the actual story of how I ended up meeting them is long, hard work and you'll have to ask me some other time!), and I asked them to come out with me to meet all the lads at "Club Mucuripe", (Which was gigantic and completely awesome) after work. They did, and Dany and I got on incredibly well.
Now you have to note at this point, that Dany speaks no word of English, and I only know "Compreendi". So communication was not what you might call normal! BUT, it was amazing. We basically communicated through made up words, actions, and drawing pictures on pieces of tissue or paper or anything we could find (and she loved my beard!)
I learnt a whole load of Portuguese in that one evening, and the girls enjoyed themselves so much they asked to meet up again the next evening- which I did, and it was the same sort of affair. The following (final) night, they took me to a bar playing Samba music and a lot of dancing (I'd been after this all week since my experience in Rio earlier in the deployment)- and by this time I had my phrase book working overtime! It was amazing to immerse myself in with the brazilian culture so literally, with not a sailor in sight... I headed back after a brilliant night out, walked straight onboard for the forenoon watch, ready to set sail at 10am! OK so I did almost have a mental breakdown half way through the morning due to lack of sleep, but it was definitely worth it!

Since then, we've been really earning our "sweat pay", as the engine rooms are barely habitable in this kind of heat! We had to complete the 1500-hourly maintenance on one of the diesels, which was no easy task. The picture is me pretending to make adjustments to a diesel cylinder head. My overalls are not the cleanest of things generally, and most of the grease and oil on them has been transferred to my face- or worse still, my beard- when I wipe away my facial sweat with them... .

Other than this we've also had captain's rounds of the department, which has kept us very busy, and I've recently been called "Dweeb with the Beard" by Ted.

Still, it's not long now. Not long till a good 'ol british burger on south railway jetty. Roll on December 21st!