Saturday 13th November, 1971
Day 1 at sea. I will be a workaway, and will have a cabin to myself. I don’t pay anything, and they don’t pay me.
I just have to be useful—do a bit of derusting and painting outside when the weather is okay, and inside when it’s not, plus a bit of housekeeping, both inside and on deck.
The ship is the Livanita. It’s Norwegian, and one of only two in the world of this design and engine, which is too small for the size of the ship. It’s 2-stroke, 4-cylinder, and 8-piston.
The crew are a mixed bunch. The captain is an ex-World War II German U-Boat commander. The first mate is Scottish, the crew, Norwegian and Portugese. All speak English and are short of a proper chef until they get back to Europe.
The ship is empty, so it’s doing a bit of rocking and rolling, which doesn’t make me feel the best. I’m missing Sharron already.
I work in the morning, from 8:00 to 12:00, tidying up ropes and deck.
Sunday 14th November, 1971
Day 2 at sea. We sail through the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The sea’s settling down a bit. I have no work to do, so I do a lot of sleeping.
Monday 15th November, 1971
Day 3 at sea. I work out on the cold deck, opening and painting hatches. In the evening, we have a bit of excitement: one of the turbines in the engine room goes up in smoke and blackens the whole room about seven stories high.
“No,” I’m told, I don’t have to clean it.
Later, a piston has to be changed. When the ship isn’t under power it really starts to wallow in the waves.
Tuesday 16th November, 1971
Day 4 at sea. I write letters for posting. We arrive at Sept-Îles early in the afternoon. I go ashore with Scottie, the first mate, and have a bit of a shopping spree. We come back to the ship with bags of pancake mix, and then go back out to town on a pubcrawl. This isn’t the norm for me, but, “When in Rome.”