Salad Days.14

If I thought of the Panama Canal as the stairway to heaven, the Suez Canal was the gateway to hell, at least it felt that way for me. I was fascinated by Egypt and the ancient monuments such as the Sphinx and pyramids. Port Said had none of those. I would find out on later voyages it was a very typical North African port. One point of interest however, is the fact Port Said is one of only two cities in the world that span two continents as Africa meets Asia. The other is Istanbul spanning Europe and Asia.

The overall memory of Port Said wasn't a particularly good one for me. I went ashore with four others and almost immediately a gang of kids followed, just as they had in South America. These were more vocal though and knew a little English. Maybe they only knew one phrase which they repeated over and over "Give me money, give me money". There were about a dozen kids ranging in age from about 6 to 14 years old. I could see the guys I was with getting agitated, so I stepped in.
"I know a trick to get rid of them" I said softly and collected all the coins we had between us.

Throwing the coins in the air, we hurried away. When we looked back I was shocked at what I saw. In Peru as soon as a kid touched a coin it was his, regardless of age or size. These Egyptian kids were punching and kicking each other, the bigger kids taking the coins from the smaller ones. We watched the mass brawl I had inadvertently sparked with the gesture and the guys I was with looked at me in disbelief.
"Wow! You are ruthless" one said.
"But I.... but...." I struggled for words as I realised the other crew members thought I knew a mass brawl between the kids would take place.

In Suez we had to take the 'bum-boats' on board. I asked an AB why they were called 'bum-boats'
"Because the Suez Canal is the arsehole of the Mediterranean" he said.
"And we're just passing through?" I ventured but he didn't get it.

I'm not really sure what purpose the bum-boats were as I was never on watch to actually see them serve any purpose. I was told they were something to do with the pilotage through the Canal. All I knew was the ship had been taken over by Egyptians trying to sell all manner of things. There were copper looking ash-trays but in time the sheen wore off. All the goods were poor quality but for us younger crew members they were invaluable mementos. We were told to keep the Egyptians out of the accommodation because they would nick anything that wasn't nailed down.

Walking past the deck-boy's cabin we looked in and saw the boy with his trousers round his ankles and an Egyptian guy with a tape measure knelt in front of him.
"What's going on?" the AB I was with asked.
"He's measuring me up for some underpants" the deck-boy replied.
"He's feeling you up for a cheap thrill" the AB snorted then turned to the Egyptian "Fuck off, not allowed here!"

The Egyptian guy made a hasty exit and the AB told the boy to pull his pants up and get up on deck.
"And lock your door unless you want to lose all your stuff"

It was about an hour later we went back into the accommodation and saw the deck-boy had not only forgotten to lock his door, he left it wide open.
"Give me a hand" the AB said.

We stripped the deck-boy's cabin, even taking his mattress and the light bulbs, and stowed all the stuff in the laundry room locker. When the deck boy saw his cabin had been ransacked he burst into tears and I started to feel sorry for him but was stopped from telling what really happened. 'It will do him good' the AB had assured me and we kept it up for two days before giving the boy his stuff back. He didn't thank us.

One Egyptian guy who was allowed in the accommodation, under supervision, was the Gilly-Gilly man who called himself Jock McGregor. He could mimic Scottish, Scouse and Cockney accents depending where the ship was registered. 'Jock' showed us magic tricks involving chicks and cups similar to a cup and ball routine. He was very good and the whole time he performed he repeated 'gilly, gilly, gilly'.

The journey through the Canal was fascinating in its own way but didn't have a patch on Panama. It felt odd sailing through the middle of a desert. and I saw a few burnt out tanks but there was very little else to see. At the time the only place for northbound and southbound traffic to pass was in the Great Bitter Lake about two thirds of the way through the Canal. The convoys would pass and continue their journey north or south.

As we came out the other end, the waters of the Red Sea gave no indication of what was to come. Up to this point the crew were almost tolerable, all that was to change quite quickly. After stopping for bunkers in Jeddah we found out what the orders were. Most had been expecting to go to the Far East, when it was announced we would be going to the Persian Gulf the mood changed significantly.

I was unconcerned, I'd been there before, it wasn't that bad. If  I knew then what I know now my mood would have changed too.