Party Pooper

We had to postpone our x-mas party by a day.

This party was held tonight .

The unanimously held opinion on board was that this party was the worst
x-mas party ever to be held in the history of Clipper Sun.

The food was not so bad-Malai Kofta, Fried Rice, suckling pig , some
Filipino chicken leg thingy, a few pakoras,veg pulao and soft drinks .That
was our fare for the day.

But something was missing.

We all felt dry.



The problem with most tankers is that they are Dry Ships.

Dry in the sense that there is not a drop of alcohol on board.



The cargo (33000 Tons of Butane and propane in this case) is deemed to be
far too precious to be put in the hands of inebriated sailors.

Thus alcohol of any kind is not allowed by company policy.

Now for a non-drinker and non-smoker, vegetarian -bean-sprout eating health
nut-exercise freak like me, this poses no problem, but to many others still
not habituated to lack of alcohol ,it does .



They crib all day about the lack of alcohol, but know that violating company
policy is grounds for immediate dismissal.



So we had a very dry x-mas.

We sang a few carols, and then bims and goc-ong (we call him Goku-The super
saiyyan) played a few of their favorite x-mas songs and then we ate plum
cake and that was it.



But then we had a Party pooper.



An emergency !



I was summoned to the bridge as we had received a distress message from a
yacht nearby.



There was a Yacht race going on and one of the boats started flooding and
they had initiated a mayday call.

We were nearby and so bound by the Sydney Coastguard and by Maritime laws to
assist the sinking yacht.

We made all preparations but then another yacht nearby had provided
assistance to the sinking yacht and we were released from our obligation and
allowed to continue our voyage.



Now we are on our way to south korea. The last I heard about the boat was a
message on the VHF radio by the coastguard warning all sailors about the
boat being awash at so-and so position.

The crew of the boat were rescued with no loss to life.





Well, I just felt like telling this to someone else before going to sleep.

Good Night.










Received: from C6XB2 at Globe Wireless; Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:45 UTC
Message-id: 709685818S24