Diary of Richard Kellie
May 8th, 2009- Hodeidah
Time flies when you’re rigging a sailing ship! I thinnk I’ve lost track of the actual days. I think it was the 6th when we found out our agent was in jail. So, apparently was the tug boat captain who had given Nigel, Philip and John a ride out to go shopping.
I personally think it’s because Mohammed, the agent, had received a lucrative contract from a ship that had docked to take on diesel, of which there was none in the port, and as a result of the deal, he bought himself a beautiful, fairly new Tiburon sports car. The flaunting of this newly gotten wealth probably rubbed everyone in security the wrong way. I am sure there is some profit sharing scheme at work here, and if he has been rather frugal in his sharing, a sports car would be rubbing salt in someone’s wounds. He is now banned from the port until Saturday.
We have to tighten up the pumps and we can start the engine today. I guess that will be my first task after breakfast. We are also installing the rudders (two Phoenician side oars, and a conventional rudder to use when the engine is running).
Philip and Nigel worked on the generator which won’t start. A Sumerian artifact, I think. John and I tightened the mast stays, and began work on the halyard (which lifts the yard arm up on the mast.We have to drill out the Knight which is a post behind the mast so we can pass the halyard through it.
Good sign as we bedded down on the deck last night, though it wasn’t strong, the wind had shifted 180 from a Norwester to a Southeasterly. The terms confuse me as a South Easterly wind is blowing towards the north west. I guess I prefer to look forward than look back. Or my brain is scrambled. Mum always mixed up left and right and as a consequence, I have always had to think about which way is which and often have to hols up my hands in front of me to figure out which is which (this is a distinct disadvantage for a taxi or truck driver…
So we spent the day rigging the ship, and stowing the main spar. It is quite huge, and they only use a smaller storm sail to sail with. We started the rudders but the rigging was not quite right, and Philip had to leave a couple of times to see if we could get a pass to leave the port. It’s Friday, so everything was closed. Even the cafeteria.
I was in the hold most of the day tightening up the water pumps. There are two: One for sea water that gets pumped into Nigel’s heat exchanger and the other for the engine coolant. I had trouble with refitting the altenator and broke the oil line into the compressor. Nigel came down and finished the work, getting the bolt for the altenator fitted. It really is a poor piece of engineering. The Altenator is butted up against the compressor and the engine block, and to slack off the fan belt, we had to actually remove it from its bracket to get the belt on. The pump is slightly out of line, and though I thought we should cut away part of the angle iron supporting the pump we didn’t do that.
Left to my own, and with more time, I think it would be a good idea. Still, it’s ALMOST RIGHT!
It was quite hot in Hodeidah, and I used the time to improve my tan. Only because the sun is so strong, you need a lot of sinscreen to keep from lobsterfying. John and I went inside the cabin to rub on some more sunscreen and as we were lathering ourselves in cream, one of the dock guards (armed with machine guns) came aboard and caught us in our shorts rubbing in the cream. “What the hell’s going on, here?” were the first words out of his mouth. They have a weird attitude to skin in Yemen. One guard accused Nigel of being naked. This was in the middle of the night when Nigel stood up to rearrange his mosquito net. There was NOBODY around! (except Nigel and the guard).
I cut a piece of copper tubing over the broken oil line and epoxied it in place. I am keeping my fingers crossed as we start the engine tomorrow morning! Hopefully we can get our passes tomorrow nd be ready to sail on Sunday. The wind has shifted two nights in a row in our favour and the local opinion is that it will change on Sunday, and sail on the full moon!
We were trapped all that time on the dock, unable to go into town for supplies. Not only that, the crows had me marked out as a home wrecker and baby killer. Whenever I walked out onto the dock by myself, a murder of crows flapped about over my head (at a distance, as they obviously knew I could turn nasty at any moment).
We finally got our shore passes and John and I went into town to get supplies. Just after we finished at the supermarket, they close the store for lunch, and they invited us to eat with then which we did. We had a fantastic meal of turkey (or a really large chicken. I haven’t seen any turkeys in Yemen (of course that doesn’t mean they don’t exist). The food was great and they even gave us bottled water from the fridge. It was excellent. Completely nourished, we left our shopping at the supermarket, and bought loads of fresh fruit (mangoes, apples, oranges and bananas) and veggies (potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers an squash). Some hadware stuff.
The boat itself is covered in a brown pine tar that gets everywhere. The tar is used to help prezseerve the wood, and the ship turns black from it. It actually is a dark brown. If this was the state of most sailing ships in the old days I can see why old salty sea dogs were called old tars. I was filthy, and showering just doesn’t seem to get rid of the dirt.
Also, the smell of the tar is fairly strong, and was the main reason that I slept on deck (We all did), which would have been great except for the mosquitos. I ran out of repellent and found some stuff that the Indonesian sailors (from the previous leg of the trip) had left in my bunk. As my mosquito net didn’t stay put, they were able to bite me through the net wherever the net sat on my skin. So, I was looking forward to getting out to sea so I could sleep without the net and free of mosquitos.
We had intended to sail on Sunday, but the ship wasn’t ready. The Yemeni crew arrived (Fadil, Ali and Abdul, and promptly demanded double their wages for the week. Or actually Abdul insisted on $200 USD for the week. We spent most of Sunday finishing off the rigging and making sure everything was stowed. Our agent brought our passports back, and the stoopid Customs guys in Hodeidah had stamped us out of Yemen! This was really frosting as the Visas are $60 USD each, and as we weren’t leaving Yemeni coastal waters, there was no need to stamp our passports. So, that meant to get from Aden back to Sanaa we would have to spend another $60 each!
Richard Kellie
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