It struck me today, while I was trying to hammer a chisel in between the sea chest lid and the main sea chest body, that there are lies, damn lies, and yacht lies (I replaced that last bit – it should have read ‘statistics’ as my old mucker Barrie Woolford used to say).

Normally, It’s the captains that bullshit you, like ‘Secret Love’ – ‘yeah yeah old systems but in great order – just sailed through our 20 year survey’  – FUCK OFF!  or Kimberly II – ‘I keep my staff for a long time, because I am a good captain’ – which later transpired to ‘ I am a functioning alcoholic (his words not mine), and ‘ I am unaware the vessel is a masterpiece of festering Italian engineering which is likely to completely shit itself at a moments notice even though it is only 6 years old’.

Today, I realised my first case of ‘Engineers talk bollocks too’. Never in my life have I needed to chisel the lid off of a sea chest on a vessel that is still floating. I did begin to wonder when the lid was last removed and the filter cleaned.

In all honesty, that was a mild mishap.  I also looked at the sewage treatment system today.  The outgoing engineer admitted to using so much calcium hypochlroride that the whole boat smelled like the trenches of WWI.  The captain had told me about this experience too – the whole boat being consumed by chlorine gas at noxious levels.

Imagine – the 20 litre drum would need not much more than a table spoon of powder added to it, but today when I looked at it there was around half a kilo of the stuff still in the bottom of the drum.  I was amazed, I chuckled to myself, and also wondered how the old engineer had managed to mix this stuff, breathe in the fumes and still be alive to tell the tale.

Don’t even get me started on the two bilge pumps in the forepeak – both completely wanked out!  Now, here’s the fun part – when I asked if the boat was in good order before I joined, I was told ‘Yes!’.  I was even told that all of the pumps had been serviced too.  That is, until i noticed a leak on the toilet flush pump and asked why it was leaking. Of course that was ‘the only pump’ that he hadn’t got around to servicing yet.

Realistically though – am I bothered ???

No.  Salary in US dollars at a time when the euro is dodgy, a bunk longer than anything I have ever slept in before – and for a lanky twat, that is important, enough storage space for my dive gear and my new super lush mountain bike and on top of all of that, there is room too for a surf board if I do so please. Here’s the important bit – a captain that wants me to get on and deal with the engineering, he wants nothing to do with it so long as everything works.  I have my own credit card to buy shit with and a phone that the boat pays for so I am about as happy as a big filthy fat pig in a pile of freshy laid cow shit – I kid you not!

My biggest concern with going back to work was the fact that work may consume my life and I would not have the chance to exercise any more.  Ha!, well, it’s just not the case.  I still have the exact same exercise regime now as I did when I was ashore.  This clearly has to be good for my ability to return as lean as Willem Dafoe.

So impressed am I with all things good at the moment that on Thursday, I intend to push my long distance run out to 7 miles or maybe  a little more – time will tell.

And if that hasn’t pissed you all off – I am sitting here writing with a glass of chilled red wine that the boat has provided too.

As my sister has said on many many occasions ‘Wayne could fall into shit and come out smelling of roses!’

Shitty Roses