Diary of a Deckhand - March 2008

Sat pondering things, as I do, I started to feel the guilt about not blogging very much lately. Life has taken on a strange pace of work work work, with the boat taking up so much of our time and the sheep the rest. A typical day is now get up, sort the sheep, get to the boat and work like the blazes, get home, sort sheep, cook dinner and then collapse in a heap in front of the telly until I realise its 3am and scenes of “railway viaducts of mid-Wales” flash across the screen as that is the kind of stuff discovery show at that time.

We are off to London on Wednesday night to go to the London International Dive Show to try to entice people to Orkney. Hazel is having to drive all the way there as we have too much stuff to carry to fly and I am yet to learn to drive – actually, that’s a lie. I can drive, I just can’t park to save my life. So, anyone out there with the patience of a saint who wishes to let me practice, get in touch hehehe.

Oh yeah, and I have had my hair coloured. I think little old ladies might faint at the sight of it. A clue as to what colour it is....

The car rolls into the gaping mouth of the ferry and we park up inside alongside lorries smelling of fish. Our cabin is an outside berth with a window, and as the juddering of the engines going astern ceases we glide past the blinking red light of Theives Holm and into the night. Aberdeen appears as a glut of orange sodium lights on the steely blue gray horizon and soon enough we drive off into the morning and south.

Stress levels are high with the task ahead of us so clearly embedded in our minds. Had we remembered everything? Had we got enough of the things we had remembered? Would the traffic be bad? However, by the time we reached Birmingham insanity had taken hold and the conversation descended to unfortunate dog breeds. A Labrador and a Poodle - Labradoodle, or the other way around - a Poodor. Imagine the fun we had when we discovered what happened when you crossed a Shitzhu with practically anything canine. The Leonberger cross Shitzhu and the Doberman Pincher cross made us have to pull over to mop up the tears of laughter.

Arriving at my friends house in Oxford we are fed and watered with a fantastic roast chicken dinner, superb wine and with that Hazel retired to her bed and me to mine. The following morning was spent debating when the best time was to venture into the throes of London traffic (the answer is never) and raiding the Maplins, army surplus store and a Currys on the trading estate not far from the house. An interesting time was spent looking at cookers in Currys. I must be getting middle aged - shopping for cookers. I hope my hair cancels it out....

The Nag Nag (sat nav) was trying to send us directly through the middle of London, so we annoyed it a fair bit by ignoring it totally. Im sure she got a bit fed up of saying "re-calculating" when the car sailed past the junction she wanted us to turn off at. Why is it so satisfying to ignore it? Maybe its the school teacher voice effect?



Getting to the Excel centre was slightly stressful, but only because of the other 10,001 people on the road wanting to be in exactly the same bit we are currently sat on. On arrival bits of paper are collected and little blokes in yellow jackets and with walkie talkies jabbering point us towards the loading doors. Dive shows on Fridays are manic. There are the smug stands already set up and snoozing under their tarpaulins complaining about the noise. Other stands look like an anthill with bodies climbing all over them to cable tie dive gear to unimaginable heights. Floor space costs, headroom is free. Our stand is bare, simply a carbon copy of our order sellotaped to the wall. Slowly we carry all of our boxes and bags to the stand and begin the process of transforming something this blank canvas into a stand that will entice people to come to Orkney and dive with us. Rob arrives and delivers the four scooters - a Diver Propulsion Vehicle - to the stand. These are diver bling. Expensive toys, hilarious fun and the preserve of pretty much technical divers. However, we have three of them onboard the boat, hence them being at the show to catch peoples attention.

Saturday dawns and we are stood ready when the booming voice announces that the show is now open. Slowly divers trickle in and soon i feel like some weird magnet we we seem to have so many people coming over to say hi. I see people i haven't seen in ages and many many hugs are exchanged. I tootle over to see Monty Halls (swoon) and get a quick chat with him before the deluge starts again. The end of the day arrives and a quick drinkie is had with the Dive Girl crowd before we go our seperate ways and to bed.

Sunday and its not good. My feet hurt and its only 10.30am. There are fewer people today, and i get more of a chance to go off for a wonder around the other stands. I even manage to find an icecream stall outside the main exhibition. When i get back holding two rapidly melting tubs of tiramisu icecream Hazel is still talking to a small group of divers. The look on her face was priceless as she couldnt grab her treat until she was done hehehe.



Slowly the crowds thin, and the announcement is made that the show is now closed. The frenzied activity begins again and stands dissolve like paper in the rain.

One more night with the forecast of the end of the world arriving in the form of a high tide and a bit of wind. I wake up to find the world still intact but a nice Orkney Breeze blowing. We make our way north passing heavy traffic heading into London and soon the Nag Nag has us zooming up the motorway towards Huddersfield to pick up the new trailer. After getting a little confused as to why we were suddenly driving along tiny roads and not motorways or even main roads the chequered flag appears on the LCD screen and the trailer factory appears in the maze of an industrial estate. Once again we are heading north again and find that the trailer (designed to hold two horses) really does not like being empty. A hair raising couple of hours are spent heading towards Gateshead and Ikea, where we raid the matress department and buy their entire stock of memory foam matresses for the boat. A quick call into see my mum and dad, a rootle around in the boxes of my stuff left from when i split with the ex and we are off again.

The velvet arms of the night close around us, willing us to sleep. Midnight comes and goes and still we plough northwards. Rain turns to snow, and soon there is snow on the ground at the sides of the road, the snow poles an indication of what can happen up here. Soon the blinking lights of the oil rigs in the Moray Firth are to our right, and i play spot the deer at the side of the road. The last stretch is the hardest, and Billy Connolly keeps us both in good spirits until the welcoming sight of the lights of Thurso appear on the horizon. The Hamnavoe arrives and the small stream of cars disembarks, soon we are driving up its rear end, only to be spat out in Orkney. We get back to the farm mid morning and collapse into bed, little else being of any interest other than the duvets. Tuesday is a missing day. I know it happened, but i wasnt there. My eyes might have been open, but there was no way i was awake.

Miles driven by Hazel - 1461
Miles driven by Helen - 0
Number of times sat nav told to shut up - 10,000 at least
Calories consumed in junk food - 3000ish
Number of ferries - 2
Matresses bought - 12
Number of times Dido CD was listened to - 2
Number of wine glasses bought from Ikea - 6
Number of wine glasses intact in Orkney - 3
Most random thing seen - going along one of the inner motorways in London i catch a glimpse of green where i hardly expected there to be one. Growing between the barriers of the central reservation was a tree, perfect in minature in leaf. Every passing truck was a small gale of particulate and pollution, and yet, despite all of this it had grown to a height of maybe 3 or 4 feet. Maybe mother nature giving human beings the subtle hint that no matter what we cover in concrete it will ultimatley revert to trees.