Hurrah! Day 4, we arrive
somewhere! My memory of this day is
quite clear yet the log is surprisingly bland.
This is called "lying by omission." I've left out that on the main street, my group
of five uniformed schoolgirls was stopped by a group of young Gibraltarian men who
engaged us, teased us and reminded us of why we were on this cruise in the
first place, i.e. multicultural exchange, a.k.a. meeting boys. We'd been warned to steer clear of playful
apes; no one mentioned playful boys. A
curly-headed heart-throb in tight jeans and granddad t-shirt tried to give me
the cross from around his neck in exchange for...today I remembered what...phone
number, address, a kiss? No, he wanted a
badge from my grey school blazer. Why
didn't I give it to him? I could've
displayed his cross later like a badge of honor. What a pipsqueak I was then. We got told off later for flirting. Miss Rowe, our prehistoric headmistress (40), had
seen us, said we were naughty. She was not a nice person. She was once disrespectful to my mother; I
loathed her. When I think about those
from my past I'd like to forgive, her face often appears. Hm, I guess I haven't forgiven her yet. According to the Navigational Log, I brought the ship into harbor
without incident.
29/10/71
Gibraltar
Personal Log: Fourth Day
The first lesson this morning, we went up to the
bridge. I found this very interesting
and took several photographs. The wind
was gale force 3 and made life very difficult!
We then proceeded to the assembly hall for an extremely enjoyable talk
by Miss Salter on the geography of the Mediterranean. Today we went ashore to Gibraltar. We were late disembarking because Miss Rowe
forgot her camera. We managed to get a taxi,
after some trouble bartering with other drivers, with a driver who was terribly
sweet. He took us to the caves, the apes
dens, the Moorish castle, the Catelene fishing village, the huge water
catchments and finally, the main street. It had a very pleasant shopping centre and I
had great fun bartering with shopkeepers.
They got very annoying when they kept trying to impress us and show us
more goods that we were not interested in.
The leather was very cheap. In
the evening, after having re-embarked there was a dance with a good group
called "The Moking Birds." All
in all, it was an enjoyable day.
Navigational Log:
0400-0800 Morning Watch
7:42 Sunrise. Navigation lights off. Look outs dismissed.
0800-1200 Forenoon Watch
0900 vessel passing c. Trafalgar; 10:00 vessel passing
through Gibraltar Straights; 11:15 vessel approaching Gibraltar. Vessel to commanders orders and vessel to
hand steering.
1200-1600 Afternoon Watch
12:12 Stand by below.
12:18 Stations fore and aft.
Pilot on board. 12:30 Tugs fast
fore and aft. Vessel approaching berth
starboard side. 12:40 Lines ashore fore
and aft. 12:42 lines and one spring fast
for and aft. 12:50 Run off main
engines. Let go tugs.
I'd have given up a pinky finger to have made such a trip as a young person. Didn't make it overseas until I was 39. Thanks for the vicarious trip to the past.
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