Tampa, Florida

Tuesday 10^th February

Billy and I were given today off to get up to date with our correspondence work etc.

Wednesday 11^th February

This morning I had to go down into the engine room at 08.10. When we started the deceleration programme I was shown how to change from heavy oil to diesel. The rest of the time I just watched the engineers go about their business. By the time we were finished with engines it was mid afternoon. Outside it was fantastic weather, Billy was on the first cargo watch starting at 19.00 so I went ashore with the 4^th Engineer (Mike and Lesley) and wife. We ended up at the annual fair. The fair was by far the best I had ever been too. It had everything from roller coasters to freak shows. My favourite was the ‘Wall of Death’ motorcycle stunt riding.

Thursday 12^th February

I volunteered to work all day today so as Billy could go and see the famous Disney World. We were loading radishes, cabbages, celery and various fruit juice concentrates (frozen), offal (frozen) and fruit essences. The crew were busy painting the ship’s side. Just before dinner time a load of stores for the galley arrived. The lift down to the store room was malfunctioning, so after helping carry the food on board I found the Bosun’s mate and soon we fixed it and lowered all the provisions down into the storerooms. At tea time I drove the winches when we closed the hatch lids. In the evening they only worked No. 3 hold until 23.00. Meanwhile there was a party on board so I missed most of that.

Friday 13^th February

I had the day off today so I went into Tampa again in the morning. I bought a new shirt and some jeans. We found a shop which sold hand made cigars. On enquiring we were allowed to go in and watch them rolling the cigars, very interesting, but think they were a bit disappointed when we didn’t buy any. We got back to the ship to find the sailing time had been put back from 16.00 to 18.00. After writing a couple of letters I had tea before duplicating a number of cargo plans for the Chief Officer. We sailed at 18.05 and I did the first hour on the wheel. Later the pilot was delayed in disembarking as the pilot boat which was standing off could not get its engine into gear and so we had to slow down whilst it caught up!