Don't forget to hover your mouse/cursor over the following image to the right of this page → → →

 

Australian Federal Police Investigations-1

A few months ago, I shared my reflections on this homepage regarding a significant and widely discussed case: that of Ben Roberts-Smith. He is not only a decorated soldier in the Australian Special Air Service (SAS) but also a recipient of the Victoria Cross for his acts of bravery during his service in Afghanistan. However, his reputation has become clouded by serious allegations, portraying him in the media as a perpetrator of murder against innocent Afghan civilians. Beneath all this turmoil, I sensed a deeper, unexamined dimension to his story, one that calls for a more nuanced understanding.

My perspective on this issue is not rooted in politics or sensationalist narratives, but rather in a deeply personal remembrance. I spent a significant part of my life as a merchant seaman from 1960 until 1987. Throughout my voyages, I encountered numerous former service members who struggled profoundly to reintegrate into civilian life. Their transition was fraught with challenges, and often, the shipping companies and crews chose to overlook the signs of their psychological distress. We referred to this troubling condition as Combat Stress Reaction, or CSR; older terms such as “battle fatigue” and “shell shock” also come to mind. 

The men I sailed with carried invisible burdens: chronic exhaustion, persistent anxiety, uncontrollable sleep deprivation, and a readiness to react defensively at even the slightest provocation. This defensiveness could inexplicably erupt into violence, leaving those around them bewildered and frightened. It is essential to clarify that these individuals were not inherently monstrous or evil; rather, they were profoundly damaged by their experiences. At the time, society lacked the proper language to articulate their pain and the psychological scars they bore.

In May 2026, I speed-read Kerri Rogan’s thought-provoking book, 'After The Noise'. While my partner read it in full, I went through it a second time more slowly to gain a deeper understanding. From the very first chapters, I sensed an internal shift as the book explores the complex topic of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain condition that has gained increasing recognition in recent years. This condition particularly affects athletes in contact sports—such as boxing, rugby, and American football—as well as soldiers exposed to blast waves and repeated trauma.

This discussion compelled me to revisit my thoughts about Ben Roberts-Smith. It is important to clarify that I am not seeking to justify his alleged actions or minimize the profound suffering experienced by Afghan families impacted by the conflict. Instead, I want to pose a crucial question—one that our government has been reticent to address: Could some of the actions attributed to Ben Roberts-Smith be potentially linked to CTE? This question is not only significant for understanding his behaviour, but it also stands as a broader inquiry into the psychological aftermath faced by veterans who have served in our name.

We owe it to Ben Roberts-Smith, to every veteran, and, ultimately, to the truth itself to investigate where this question might lead us. Only by exploring this unexamined dimension can we hope to grasp the full scope of their experiences and the complexities that come with service in armed conflict.

The People’s Republic of China

Two incidents occurred during my time in China that made it seem as though I was an agitator rather than just a concerned Australian seaman. 

First, while we were at sea, I faced an unexpected challenge: I was unable to urinate. To resolve this, I confidently decided to be hosed down at the back of the ship. I held onto the chains on either side of the railings for stability, and with the pressure of the water, I was finally able to relieve myself. 

I had consumed four flagons of red wine we picked up in South Australia while the Hopepeak was loading supplies in Adelaide, and the sediment must have caused an obstruction. However, the Chinese authorities saw things differently. They jumped to the conclusion that I had syphilis—a venereal disease—and prepared to jab me with an unsterilized needle. 

I refused to comply. The doctor hadn’t even washed his hands; he had just been cleaning the floor. When he grabbed a needle that looked more suitable for a horse than a human, I became alarmed. As they attempted to hold me down, I fought back and pushed two Red Guards away from me. I wasn’t trying to cause trouble; I was terrified.

As I stood my ground against the guards, a woman in a loose-fitting boiler suit smiled at me from her kneeling position. Suddenly, the guard farther away struck her with a baton, smashing her nose in a swift motion that took only about twenty seconds. I sensed that the guard who had just hit her might turn his attention to me next, so I braced myself, preparing to drop to my knees—a defensive manoeuvre my Welsh boxing friend and I had practiced on board the Brisbane Star years before. I planned to strike him in the kneecap, if necessary, but fortunately, the guard’s advance turned out to be more a figment of my imagination than a reality. 

I doubt I would have made it out of the hospital without severe injuries had I gone through with my plan to defend myself.

The second incident occurred later when some crew members pointed out that the wheat from our ship was being bagged and sent to North Vietnam. At that time, Australia was at war with North Vietnam, so I wanted to see for myself if their claims were true. I approached an old cargo ship docked nearby to investigate.

That was a mistake. I was caught, grabbed, and frog-marched up and down the wharf under armed guard. They yelled at me, waving sticks and shouting words I didn’t understand. I shouted back, not in aggression but in shock, yet it didn’t matter—they had already decided who I was.

After that, I faced letters, interrogations, and sleepless nights under guard. Those two events snowballed into something far larger than I could have imagined. I had tried to understand what was happening with our cargo but ended up feeling isolated, frightened, and pushed to my limits, with the captain and officers unable to assist me. 

The Letter, the Truth, and the Waiting

In August 1967, after the hospital fiasco, I stepped into a chapter of my life that still tightens my throat when I think about it. Our cargo ship lay docked in China, but it might as well have been moored on the edge of another world. Red Guards patrolled the decks day and night, spaced no more than thirty paces apart, rifles slung casually but never carelessly. Their eyes followed every movement. You didn’t scratch your nose without feeling watched.

I had already been coerced into writing a confession — a declaration that I was a U.S. aggressor and a supporter of Chiang Kai-shek. I was eighteen, a cook, a boy who barely understood the politics of his own country, let alone China’s. Yet here I was, forced to sign my name to a lie that could cost me my life.

The second steward, who handled the ship’s correspondence, pulled me aside with the kind of quiet urgency men use when they know they’re risking their own skin. He told me I had about two days before a response to my confession would reach the ship. And that response would come from the head of the Red Guards himself. He didn’t need to say what that meant. I could see it in his face.

Then he said something that changed everything: “You should write to your parents.”

So I did. I wrote as if the paper itself were a lifeline. Twenty-two-two foolscap pages poured out of me — not neatly, not thoughtfully, but with the raw panic of someone who believed he might not live to see the end of the week. I told my churchgoing parents the truth I had hidden from them for years. I told them I was not the saintly boy they imagined. I told them that the woman they had thanked in their letters — believing her to be my landlady or carer — was in fact my lover. She was -going parents the truth I had hidden from them for years. I told them I was not the saintly boy they imagined. I told them that the woman they had thanked in their letters — believing her to be my landlady or carer — was in fact my lover. She was forty-two. I was eighteen when we met. From 1963 to 1967, she had been my anchor, my warmth, my truth.

I wrote about the sea, about the chaos and the camaraderie, about the loneliness that crept into your bones on long voyages. I wrote because if the Red Guards decided my confession was insufficient, I wanted my parents to know who I really was — not the version the authorities might invent after I was gone.

As ship’s cook and duty mess room steward, I had a vantage point no one else did. I watched the crew eat their meals on deck, plates balanced on the handrails. We were carrying grain to China on humanitarian grounds, yet the irony was suffocating. Food was being wasted while the people we were meant to help were starving.

Sausages, half eaten steaks, baked potatoes — they’d slip from plates and tumble into the sea. But there were no seagulls to swoop down and claim them. They’d-eaten steaks, baked potatoes — they’d slip from plates and tumble into the sea. But there were no seagulls to swoop down and claim them. They’d been eaten too. The food floated aimlessly, untouched even by fish, which had grown scarce in the harbour.

Starvation wasn’t an idea. It was a presence. It hung in the air like humidity. It stared back at us from the hollow eyes of the Red Guards who watched us eat. It was in the silence that followed every wasted bite. It was in the knowledge that we were surrounded by hunger so deep it had stripped the harbour of life.

And all the while, I waited for the head of the Red Guards to come for me.

That week — the waiting, the watching, the writing — became a blueprint for the decades that followed. It was the first time I understood how institutions can twist truth, how a signature can be weaponised, how a young man can be forced to confess to things he never did. It was the first time I realised that if I didn’t tell my own story, someone else would tell it for me — and they would get it wrong.

That lesson would return years later in the arbitration battles, in the government files that vanished, in the lies talked about me by people who never knew me. But in 1967, all I knew was this: I had two days, a pen, and the truth. And I wasn’t going to leave this world without putting my name to the right version of it.

A Tray of Leftovers and a Silent Exchange

After my arrest, I was placed under house arrest aboard the ship. One day, I took a small metal tray from the galley and filled it — not with scraps, but with decent leftovers. Food that would have gone into the stockpot or been turned into dry hash cakes. I walked it out to the deck, placed it on one of the long benches, patted my stomach as if I’d eaten my fill, and walked away without a word.

Ten minutes later, I returned. The tray had been licked clean.

At the next meal, I did it again — this time with enough food for three or four Red Guards. I placed the tray on the bench and left. No words. No eye contact. Just food. I repeated this quiet ritual for two more days, all while waiting for the response to my letter. During that time, something shifted. The Red Guard, who had been waking me every hour to check if I was sleeping, stopped coming. The tension in the air thinned, just slightly. And I kept bringing food — whenever the crew was busy unloading wheat with grappling hooks wrapped in chicken wire, I’d slip out with another tray.

To this day, I don’t know what saved me. It was certainly not the letter declaring myself a U.S. aggressor and a supporter of Chiang Kaishek, the Nationalist leader in Taiwan. Maybe it was luck. Or perhaps it was that tray of food, offered without expectation, without speech, without condition. A silent gesture that said, “I see you. I know you’re hungry. I know you’re human.” -shek, the Nationalist leader in Taiwan. Maybe it was luck. Or perhaps it was that tray of food, offered without expectation, without speech, without condition. A silent gesture that said, “I see you. I know you’re hungry. I know you’re human.” And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

 

--------------------------------------

STORM WATCH

There are storms you forget, and storms that stay with you for the rest of your life. The small ones blur together — the choppy seas, the stiff winds, the nights when the ship rolled just enough to make carrying a tray a gamble. But then there are the real storms, the ones that come at you like a living thing, roaring out of the horizon with a kind of ancient fury. Those storms mark you. They carve themselves into your memory like scars.

My first real storm at sea came without warning. One moment the Pacific was calm, a wide blue sheet stretching to the edge of the world. The next, the sky darkened, the wind rose, and the ship began to move in a way that made every man aboard stop what he was doing and listen. You could feel it — that shift in the air, that tightening in the steel, that low, uneasy groan from deep in the hull. The old hands knew what was coming long before the first wave hit.

“Storm watch,” someone muttered in the alleyway, and the words carried through the ship like a whisper of bad news.

The galley was already in chaos. Pots were lashed down, trays secured, anything loose tied, stacked, or stowed. The Chief Cook barked orders like a man preparing for battle. The heat was intense, the air thick with steam and tension. Even the cook’s voice had a different edge to it — sharper, faster, as if he knew the storm would test every one of us.

As a steward, you didn’t get the luxury of hiding below. Storm or no storm, the officers still expected their meals, their tea, their routines. The ship could be rolling like a drunk in a back alley, but the saloon had to run as if nothing was happening. That was the unspoken rule: the sea might rage, but the service never faltered.

When the first real wave hit, it felt like the ship had been punched by a giant. The deck tilted violently, sending a stack of plates sliding across the counter. I lunged, grabbing them just before they shattered. The impact jolted up my arms, but I held on. The Assistant Steward gave me a quick nod — approval in the middle of chaos — and then we were both moving again, bracing ourselves against the next roll.

The storm grew quickly, the wind howling through the vents, the ship shuddering with each blow. The lights flickered. The floor tilted so steeply at times that you had to plant your feet wide and lean into the angle just to stay upright. Carrying a tray became an act of faith — faith in your balance, your grip, and the ship’s ability to right itself before you went flying.

I remember stepping into the saloon with a tray of tea just as the ship lurched hard to port. The world tilted. The tray slid. My stomach dropped. For a moment, I thought I was going down with it. But instinct — or luck — kicked in. I shifted my weight, bent my knees, and rode the roll like a surfer catching a wave. The tray steadied. The officers barely looked up. To them, this was just another day at sea.

But to me, it was a baptism.

Later, when my shift finally ended, I made my way to the boat deck. The wind hit me like a wall, cold and fierce, tearing at my clothes. The sea was a boiling mass of black water, waves rising like mountains, crashing against the bow with a force that made the whole ship shudder. Spray flew through the air like shards of glass. The sky was a bruised, angry grey, lit now and then by flashes of lightning that turned the ocean into a white, writhing beast.

I gripped the rail, feeling the ship rise beneath me, then plunge down the face of a wave so steep it felt like falling. My heart hammered in my chest. I wasn’t afraid — not exactly — but I felt small, insignificant, like a speck on the back of something vast and ancient. The sea didn’t care who I was. It didn’t care about my ambitions, my fears, my place on the steward’s ladder. It could take me in a heartbeat if it chose to.

And yet, standing there, soaked to the skin, the wind roaring in my ears, I felt something else too — something fierce and electric. I felt alive. More alive than I had ever felt on land. The storm wasn’t just a threat. It was a teacher. It showed you what you were made of. It stripped away the bravado, the nerves, the uncertainty, and left you with the truth of yourself.

When the storm finally passed, the ship was battered but intact. The crew was exhausted, bruised, and quiet. But there was a look in their eyes — a shared understanding, a kind of respect that only comes from surviving something bigger than all of you.

That night, lying in my bunk, listening to the calmer rhythm of the sea, I realised something important: you could learn the plate sequence, the timing, the hierarchy, the routines. But you weren’t truly a seafarer until you’d stood in a storm and felt the ship fight back.

Storms were the great levellers. They didn’t care if you were a pantry boy or the captain. They didn’t care about rank or experience. They tested everyone the same way — brutally, honestly, without mercy.

The Galley 

The Galley is like the kitchen at home. After most, if not all, storms, when they have eyed themselves, and the crew can walk without appearing drunk, it is the cook, who is usually cheerful and truly engaged, who makes the entire crew flourish in an uplifting environment. Conversely, if a cook faces personal challenges or feels overwhelmed, it can dim the mood, casting a shadow over our collective spirit. It’s remarkable how these dedicated individuals tackle the demanding task of preparing nourishing meals three times a day, every day of the week. Rising before dawn, they fill the early morning hours with warmth and sustenance, setting a positive tone for the day ahead.

The crew lights up with joy when our favourite cook steps aboard, their presence radiating not just the promise of good food but a genuine sense of happiness and camaraderie that permeates the ship.

Spotting My First Albatross

Within three weeks of leaving England behind, I was already seeing signs and omens in every winged shape over the sea. One morning, convinced I’d spotted an albatross, I shouted out to the deck, “Albatross to starboard!” My voice carried along the Brisbane Star’s steel plates, and a few heads turned — some curious, some amused, some wary in that old sailor’s way.

“Starboard,” of course, meant the right-hand side of the ship when facing forward toward the bow — a term as old as seafaring itself, used on every vessel afloat to avoid confusion. On the Brisbane Star, like all the older ships, the starboard side was marked by a green navigation light, while the port side — the left when looking forward — carried the red light. At night, those colours weren’t just tradition; they were survival.

Tending those lights fell to the lamp trimmer, a seaman whose job was to keep the navigation lamps burning true. On some ships, the carpenter — the “chippy” — shared the duty, especially when the weather made climbing out to the lamp housings a risky business. Between them, they kept the ship visible and honest in the dark, a small but vital part of the rhythm of life at sea.

When I called out that albatross, I wasn’t just pointing at a bird. I was stepping into the long line of sailors who believed the sea spoke through its creatures — and that an albatross, if you were lucky enough to see one, carried the souls of the lost and the promise of safe passage.

Whether it truly was an albatross or just a gull riding the wind, I’ll never know. But in that moment, I felt the weight of the old myths settle around me, and I knew I was no longer just a boy from England. I was becoming a seaman.

---------

STEWARD

I was sixteen when I first walked through the dock gates, a skinny lad with a cardboard suitcase, a borrowed tie, and a stomach full of nerves. The air smelled of diesel, salt, and the kind of danger that makes a boy feel older than he is. Ships towered above me like steel cities, their funnels breathing out slow clouds of exhaust, their hulls streaked with rust and stories. I didn’t know it then, but I was stepping into a world that would shape me more than any school or street ever could. I was about to become a steward — though at that moment, I was barely anything at all.

They didn’t ease you into the life. You were thrown into it, swallowed whole by the ship’s routines, its moods, its hierarchy. My first job was as a pantry boy, the lowest rung on a ladder that stretched all the way up to Chief Steward, though that seemed as distant to me then as the moon. The pantry was a cramped, stainless‑steel cave tucked between the galley and the saloon. It was always hot, always noisy, always smelling of steam, soap, and whatever the cook was shouting about.

My day began before the sun even thought about rising. I’d stumble out of my bunk, pull on my whites, and make my way down the alleyway, the ship groaning and shifting beneath my feet. The galley would already be alive — pots clanging, knives chopping, the cook barking orders like a drill sergeant who’d been woken too early. I’d slip into the pantry and start the ritual that would become second nature: laying out the plates in the exact sequence, polishing cutlery until my fingers ached, filling water jugs, wiping down surfaces that never stayed clean for more than a minute.

The plate sequence was the first real test. Soup plate, entrée plate, dinner plate, sweet dish — always in that order, always stacked just so. Get it wrong and you’d feel the heat of a senior steward’s temper before you even realised your mistake. Timing was everything. The galley, pantry, and saloon had to move like gears in a clock, each one turning the next. If I hesitated, if I fumbled, if I carried the wrong plate at the wrong moment, the whole rhythm faltered. And on a ship, rhythm was survival.

I learned quickly. You had to. The sea didn’t wait for you to catch up.

There were characters everywhere — men who’d been at sea since before I was born, men with tattoos that told stories they’d never speak aloud, men who could terrify you with a look or teach you more in a sentence than a schoolteacher could in a year. The Second Steward ran the catering department like a military unit. The Chief Cook was a force of nature, a man whose moods could make or break your day. And then there was the Ship’s Tiger — the captain’s personal steward — who walked with a quiet authority that made every pantry boy dream of one day wearing that title.

But before you could dream, you had to survive.

The ship itself was a teacher. You learned to carry trays across a rolling deck without spilling a drop. You learned to keep your balance when the floor tilted beneath you. You learned to sleep through storms, engine noise, and the thump of boots in the alleyway. You learned that the sea didn’t care who you were or how scared you felt. It could lift you up or swallow you whole, and you had no choice but to respect it.

When I finally earned the title of Assistant Steward, it felt like a medal pinned to my chest. I’d survived the pantry. I’d proven myself. Now I served officers directly, carried meals to cabins, handled complaints, and learned the quiet diplomacy required to keep peace in a confined world. I was no longer invisible. I was part of the ship’s rhythm.

A steward wasn’t just a server. He was a waiter, a cleaner, a diplomat, a runner, a problem‑solver, a confidant, and a witness to everything that happened aboard. We saw the best and worst of men. We learned to read faces, voices, footsteps. We knew who was lonely, who was angry, who was hiding something, who needed a quiet word or a strong cup of tea. We were the ship’s unofficial psychologists long before anyone used that word.

By the time I reached Senior Steward, I wasn’t a boy anymore. I’d been shaped by the sea, by the work, by the men who’d shouted at me, taught me, tested me, and trusted me. I’d learned discipline, precision, and pride. I’d learned that a steward’s job was never just about plates and trays — it was about keeping the ship’s heart beating, keeping its people fed, calm, and cared for, even when the world outside was nothing but wind and waves.

And that’s why this story matters. Because no one else wrote it down. Because the world remembers the captains and the engineers, but not the boys who scrubbed the plates and carried the trays and learned the craft the hard way. Because the steward’s life was a world of its own — demanding, exhausting, and full of characters who shaped you forever.

This is the story of how a boy became a steward. And like every steward who ever walked up a gangway with a suitcase and a dream, I earned it one plate, one shift, one storm at a time.

THE PANTRY BOY’S BAPTISM

You never forget your first morning as a pantry boy. Not the smell, not the noise, not the way the ship seemed to breathe around you like some great animal deciding whether to spit you out or swallow you whole. I remember stepping into that pantry for the first time, still half‑asleep, my whites creased from the night before, my hands trembling with the kind of nerves you can’t hide no matter how hard you try. The alleyway outside was dim, lit by a single flickering bulb, and the floor vibrated with the deep, steady thrum of the engines. I felt like I’d stepped into the belly of something ancient.

The pantry was already alive. Steam drifted out of the galley like fog rolling off a river. Pots clanged. Someone shouted. Someone else swore. The cook barked orders with the authority of a man who’d seen a thousand boys like me come and go. I stood there for a moment, taking it all in, trying to look like I belonged, though every fibre of me screamed that I didn’t.

“Move, lad!” That was the first thing anyone said to me. Not a welcome. Not a greeting. Just an order — sharp enough to slice through my hesitation.

I moved.

The pantry was a narrow, stainless‑steel corridor of heat and pressure. Plates were stacked in towers that looked ready to topple. Cutlery gleamed in rows like polished weapons. The air smelled of soap, steam, and the faint sweetness of last night’s custard. My job was simple, they told me — keep the plates coming, keep the cutlery shining, keep out of the way, and don’t make a mess of anything. Simple, yes — until you tried doing it at sea.

The first lesson came fast. The ship rolled gently, nothing dramatic, just a slow, lazy sway. But to a boy who’d never worked on a moving floor, it felt like the world was tilting under my feet. I reached for a stack of plates, misjudged the angle, and nearly sent the whole lot crashing to the deck. A hand shot out — the Assistant Steward — steadying the plates and glaring at me like I’d just insulted his mother.

“Keep your knees loose,” he growled. “The ship moves. You move with it.”

It was the first piece of real advice I got. And it saved me more times than I can count.

Breakfast service was a blur. Officers wanted their meals hot, fast, and without fuss. The galley shouted. The pantry echoed. The saloon buzzed with the clatter of cutlery and the low murmur of men waking to another day at sea. I ran trays back and forth, my heart pounding, my shirt sticking to my back, my hands shaking every time I approached a table. One spill, one mistake, one wrong plate, and I’d feel the sting of a senior steward’s temper.

And then came the plate sequence — the pantry boy’s rite of passage.

Soup plate. Entrée plate. Dinner plate. Sweet dish. Always in that order. Always stacked just so. Always ready before the galley called for them.

I must have checked that sequence a hundred times that morning, terrified I’d get it wrong. The Second Steward hovered nearby, watching me with the cold, assessing eyes of a man who’d seen boys fail before. When he finally nodded — just once, barely a movement — it felt like I’d passed some ancient test.

But the sea wasn’t done with me yet.

Mid‑morning, the ship hit a swell. Nothing major, just enough to remind us who was in charge. The floor tilted. The pantry lurched. A stack of plates slid toward the edge of the counter. Without thinking, I threw myself forward, arms outstretched, catching them just before they shattered. The impact jolted up my arms, but I held on. When I straightened, breathless, the Assistant Steward gave me a look that wasn’t quite approval but wasn’t contempt either.

“You’ll do,” he muttered. And that was high praise at sea.

By lunchtime, I’d learned more than any training manual could teach. I’d learned that the galley was a kingdom ruled by the cook, and you entered it at your peril. I’d learned that the pantry was a battlefield where timing was everything. I’d learned that the saloon was a stage where mistakes were noticed, remembered, and rarely forgiven. And I’d learned that a pantry boy’s baptism wasn’t a ceremony — it was a trial by fire, steam, sweat, and fear.

But I’d also learned something else — something quieter, something that settled deep inside me as the day wore on. I learned that I wanted to belong here. That I wanted to master this world. That I wanted to climb the ladder, rung by rung, until I could walk the ship with the confidence of the men who’d shouted at me that morning.

When the day finally ended, I stumbled back to my bunk, exhausted, aching, and soaked in sweat. My hands were raw. My feet throbbed. My head buzzed with the noise of the galley. But as I lay there, listening to the ship hum through the night, I felt something I hadn’t expected.

Pride.

I’d survived my first day. I’d earned my place — just barely, but enough. And I knew, even then, that this was only the beginning.

 

THE VOYAGE TO NAURU

There was something different about the Nauru run. Even before we cast off, you could feel it in the air — a kind of slow, heavy anticipation, as if the ship herself knew she was about to settle into a long, steady rhythm that would carry us thousands of miles across the Pacific. The voyage wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t the kind of run that made for heroic stories in dockside pubs. But it had its own pulse, its own moods, its own quiet beauty. And once you’d done it, it stayed with you.

We sailed from Geelong, the cold Victorian wind biting at our faces as we slipped past the heads and pointed the bow north. The sea changed first — the grey chop giving way to a deeper blue, the swell smoothing out, the air warming day by day. The ship settled into her long stride, the engines thumping their steady heartbeat through the decks. Watches blurred into each other. Meals came and went. The days stretched out like a long, unbroken line.

For a steward, the Nauru run was a test of endurance. Not the frantic, high‑pressure kind you got on short coastal trips, but a slow, grinding test of routine. Every day was the same — breakfast, lunch, dinner, officers’ tea, cabin service, pantry work, cleaning, polishing, carrying, balancing. The sea might change, the weather might shift, but the work never did. You learned to find your rhythm, to pace yourself, to let the days roll over you like waves.

The heat crept up on us as we moved north. At first it was pleasant — a soft warmth that took the chill out of the steel. Then it became heavy, thick, the kind of heat that clung to your skin and made your shirt stick to your back before you’d even started your shift. The galley became a furnace. The pantry felt like a steam bath. Even the officers, usually so composed, loosened their collars and wiped their brows.

But there was beauty too. Sunsets that bled orange and purple across the horizon. Nights so clear you felt you could reach up and touch the stars. Flying fish skimming across the bow. Dolphins racing the ship, weaving in and out of the wake like children showing off. And the sea — always the sea — stretching out in every direction, endless and alive.

The crew settled into their own routines. The deckhands worked the cargo gear, chipped rust, painted, smoked, told stories. The engineers lived in their hot, noisy world below, emerging for meals with faces streaked in sweat and oil. The officers paced the bridge, their eyes always on the horizon. And we stewards kept the ship fed, watered, and running smoothly — the quiet machinery behind the scenes.

There were moments of humour, too. The cook swearing at the heat. The Second Steward lecturing a pantry boy for polishing cutlery too slowly. Someone playing a harmonica on the boat deck at sunset. Someone else telling a story so outrageous it had to be true. Life at sea had a way of creating its own entertainment.

But the voyage wasn’t without its dangers. The Pacific could turn on you without warning. One moment the sea was calm, the next it was heaving, the sky darkening, the wind rising. I remember one storm in particular — the one where Sam Perry, our Senior Ship’s Cook, stepped out onto the deck and was taken by a wave so big it swallowed him whole. One second he was there, the next he was gone. We thought we’d lost him. But the sea, in one of those strange twists of fate, threw him back onto the stern, battered, bruised, his arm and collarbone broken, but alive. We hauled him in, half‑drowned and cursing, and the ship carried him to Brisbane, where he healed and — unbelievably — went back to sea.

That was the Pacific for you. Cruel one moment, generous the next.

As we neared Nauru, the air changed again. A faint, chalky smell drifted across the water — phosphate dust. You could smell the island before you saw it. Then, one morning, it appeared on the horizon: a low ring of land rising out of the endless blue, white surf breaking against the reef, the loading cantilevers jutting out like metal arms.

Nauru wasn’t a glamorous port. It was hot, dusty, and busy. The phosphate dust clung to everything — your clothes, your hair, your skin. The loading could take days, sometimes longer if the weather turned. But there was a strange charm to the place. The locals were friendly. The sea was warm. The nights were soft and still.

For us stewards, the work didn’t stop. Officers still needed their meals. Cabins still needed cleaning. The pantry still needed running. But there was a different energy in the air — a sense of arrival, of purpose, of being part of something bigger than ourselves.

When the holds were full and the paperwork done, we’d cast off again, turning south for the long run home. The outward voyage was anticipation. The homeward voyage was reflection. The sea was the same, but we weren’t. Something about the Nauru run changed you — slowly, quietly, without you noticing until you stepped ashore and realised you were not the same boy who had walked up the gangway weeks earlier.

The voyage to Nauru wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t heroic. But it was real — a long, steady journey that shaped the men who sailed it. And for me, it became one of the defining rhythms of my early life at sea.

Sam Perry

There are moments at sea that stay with you long after the voyages blur together — moments that cut through the routine and the monotony and remind you, with brutal clarity, that the ocean is always in charge. The day Sam Perry went over the side was one of those moments. Even now, all these years later, I can still see it as clearly as if it happened yesterday — the sky, the swell, the shout that tore through the ship like a warning bell from another world.

We were somewhere between Brisbane and Nauru, deep in the Pacific, the kind of stretch where the sea feels endless and the days roll into each other like waves. A tropical storm had been building since dawn, the sky darkening, the wind rising, the air thick with that electric tension that tells you the weather is about to turn mean. By mid‑morning the ship was already pitching hard, the swell running high enough to make even the old hands plant their feet a little wider.

Sam Perry, our Senior Ship’s Cook, was one of those men who seemed carved out of something tougher than the rest of us. He’d been at sea longer than I’d been alive, a big, broad‑shouldered bloke with hands like shovels and a laugh that could shake the galley walls. Nothing rattled him. Nothing slowed him down. He moved through storms the way other men walked down a quiet street.

But even Sam wasn’t a match for the Pacific that day.

I was in the pantry when it happened, trying to keep the plates from sliding off the counter as the ship rolled. The galley was a furnace of heat and noise, pots clanging, the cook’s mates shouting over the roar of the storm. The whole ship felt alive, straining, groaning, fighting the sea with every bolt and rivet.

Then came the shout.

It wasn’t a normal shout — not the usual galley bark or deckhand curse. It was sharp, panicked, ripped straight from the gut.

“MAN OVERBOARD!”

Everything stopped. The clatter, the shouting, the movement — all of it froze for a heartbeat. Then the ship exploded into action. Men ran for the deck. Someone hit the alarm. The engines throbbed harder as the bridge swung into emergency manoeuvres. I dropped what I was doing and followed the rush, my heart hammering, my legs shaking as the ship lurched beneath me.

When I reached the deck, the storm hit me like a wall — wind screaming, rain slashing sideways, the sea heaving in great black mountains. The deck was slick, the railings dripping, the air thick with salt spray. Men were shouting, pointing, scanning the waves.

And then I saw him.

A flash of white against the dark water — a shirt, an arm, a body tossed like a rag doll in the swell. Sam Perry. One moment he’d stepped out onto the deck to check something — a lash, a vent, no one knew for sure — and the next, a wave the size of a house had come out of nowhere, smashed into the side of the ship, and taken him clean off his feet.

We watched helplessly as the sea swallowed him, the waves rising and falling, hiding him, revealing him, hiding him again. The ship turned hard, the bow cutting through the swell, the engines straining. A lifebuoy was thrown, but it vanished into the chaos. Men shouted his name, but the wind tore the words away.

I remember thinking, He’s gone. No one survives that. Not in a storm like this. Not in seas like these.

But the Pacific, cruel as she can be, has her moments of mercy.

As the ship swung around, a massive wave rose behind us — a towering wall of water that lifted the stern high into the air. For a moment, everything seemed to hang suspended — the ship, the storm, the breath in my chest. Then the wave crashed down, slamming into the stern with a force that shook the entire vessel.

And when the water washed away, there he was.

Sam Perry, sprawled on the afterdeck like a man spat out by the sea itself. Bruised, bleeding, his arm twisted at an angle no arm should ever be, his collarbone clearly broken — but alive. Alive in a way that defied every law of nature and every story ever told about men lost overboard.

The crew rushed to him, hauling him away from the rail, shouting orders, calling for the medic. Sam tried to stand — typical of him — but his legs buckled and he went down again, cursing through clenched teeth. Even then, even half‑drowned and broken, he managed a grin.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, “that was a big one.”

We carried him below, the storm still raging outside, the ship still fighting the swell. The medic set his arm as best he could, strapped his shoulder, cleaned the cuts. Sam winced, swore, laughed, swore again. He spent the rest of the voyage in his bunk, battered but breathing, the ship carrying him back to Brisbane where the hospital took over.

Most men would have left the sea after something like that. Not Sam Perry.

Once he healed, he signed on again. And again. And again.

He sailed for years after that — a living reminder that sometimes the sea takes, and sometimes, for reasons we’ll never understand, she gives back.

That day changed me. It changed all of us.

Because when you see a man disappear into the Pacific and return from it in the same hour, you realise something profound: Life at sea is never guaranteed. Every voyage is a gamble. Every day is borrowed time.

LIFE ASHORE IN NAURU

Stepping ashore in Nauru after weeks at sea was like walking into another world — a world that felt half‑forgotten by time, half‑claimed by the Pacific, and entirely unlike anywhere else I’d ever been. The island rose out of the ocean like a ring of coral and limestone, small enough to walk around in a day, yet big enough to hold its own mysteries. You could smell it before you saw it — that dry, chalky tang of phosphate dust drifting across the water, clinging to your clothes, settling into your hair, working its way into every corner of the ship.

When we anchored off the loading cantilevers, the heat hit us like a hammer. It wasn’t the gentle warmth of the northern run or the dry heat of Australia. This was tropical heat — thick, heavy, pressing down on you like a hand on your chest. The air shimmered. The steel burned under your palms. Even the breeze, when it came, felt like someone opening an oven door.

But there was something strangely peaceful about it too. After the long voyage, the endless horizon, the rolling swell, the island felt still — solid, grounded. A place where the world slowed down.

The loading could take days. Sometimes longer. Phosphate dust drifted through the air like pale smoke, coating the decks, the railings, the men. The deckhands worked under the cantilevers, their skin turning white with dust until they looked like ghosts moving through the heat. The engineers stayed below, grateful for the shade. And we stewards kept the officers fed and the cabins clean, the routines unchanged no matter where the ship lay.

But when your shift ended — when you finally stepped down the gangway and set foot on the island — that was when Nauru revealed itself.

The first thing you noticed was the quiet. Not silence — the island had its own sounds: the surf breaking on the reef, the distant hum of machinery, the chatter of locals — but a kind of stillness that wrapped around you. After the constant vibration of the ship, the solid ground felt strange under your feet, as if it might shift at any moment.

The second thing you noticed was the heat. It wrapped around you like a blanket, thick and unrelenting. Sweat ran down your back before you’d taken ten steps. Your shirt stuck to your skin. The sun felt close enough to touch.

But the third thing — the thing that stayed with you — was the people.

The Nauruans had a calm, easy way about them. They moved slowly, spoke softly, laughed often. They lived with the heat, the dust, the isolation, and they carried it with a kind of grace. When we walked through the settlement, children waved, women smiled, men nodded in greeting. There was no rush, no urgency, no sense of the frantic pace that ruled life aboard ship.

Sometimes we’d head to the little shops near the harbour, buying cold drinks or tinned fruit or whatever treats we could find. Other times we’d wander further inland, past the coconut palms and the simple houses, into the heart of the island where the phosphate fields stretched out like a scar — jagged limestone pinnacles rising from the ground, white and sharp under the sun. It was beautiful in its own harsh way, but it carried a sadness too — a reminder that the island was being carved away piece by piece.

Evenings were the best. The heat softened. The sky turned gold, then orange, then a deep, bruised purple. The sea glowed. The air cooled just enough to breathe easily again. We’d sit on the seawall or wander along the reef edge, watching the waves break in white bursts against the coral. Sometimes the locals would fish with handlines, their silhouettes dark against the fading light. Sometimes music drifted from the houses — soft, rhythmic, carried on the breeze.

And always, the ship waited offshore, her lights flickering like a floating town, her shape familiar and comforting. No matter how peaceful the island felt, the ship was home. She was where we slept, where we worked, where we belonged.

There were nights when a few of us would find a bar — nothing fancy, just a small room with wooden tables, a fridge humming in the corner, and bottles of beer sweating in the heat. We’d drink, laugh, swap stories with whoever wandered in. The air would be thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of coconut oil. The ceiling fans would turn lazily, doing nothing to cool the room. And for a few hours, the world felt simple.

But Nauru wasn’t all calm and charm. There were moments of tension too — drunken arguments, misunderstandings, the occasional scuffle. Isolation does strange things to people. But those moments were rare, and they passed quickly, swallowed by the island’s slow rhythm.

When the loading was finally done — when the holds were full and the paperwork signed — we’d cast off again. The island would shrink behind us, the phosphate dust still clinging to our clothes, the heat still lingering in our bones. The sea would open up ahead, wide and blue and endless.

And as the ship settled into her homeward run, I’d always feel the same thing — a quiet gratitude for the days ashore, for the stillness, for the people, for the strange little island that had become a familiar stop in the long rhythm of my early life at sea.

Nauru wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t exotic in the way travel posters promised. But it was real — raw, honest, unforgettable.

And for a young steward finding his place in the world, it was a chapter all its own.

THE LONG RUN HOME

The homeward run from Nauru always felt different from the outward voyage. The outward leg carried a kind of anticipation — the slow climb into the tropics, the heat building day by day, the sense of heading toward something. But the run home was quieter, heavier, as if the ship herself knew the journey was shifting from discovery to reflection. The holds were full, the paperwork signed, the island shrinking behind us until it was nothing more than a smudge on the horizon. And then it was just us and the Pacific again — wide, blue, endless.

The first day out was always the same. The deckhands hosed down the phosphate dust, turning the scuppers white with chalky water. The galley scrubbed every surface until it gleamed. The engineers checked the engines, tightening bolts, wiping oil, listening to the heartbeat of the ship. And we stewards slipped back into our routines — meals, trays, cabins, tea rounds — the familiar rhythm settling over us like a well‑worn coat.

But beneath the routine, something shifted. The laughter was softer. The conversations shorter. The men quieter. It wasn’t sadness — not exactly — but a kind of inwardness, as if each of us was carrying our own thoughts, our own memories, our own private reckoning with the weeks behind us.

The sea changed too. The tropical blue deepened, the swell lengthened, the air cooled by degrees so subtle you only noticed them when you stepped out on deck at dawn and felt the faintest hint of southern wind. The sunsets lost their tropical fire and became gentler, softer, the colours fading into the kind of twilight that made you think of home.

I always found myself drawn to the boat deck on the homeward run. There was something about standing there, leaning on the rail, watching the ship carve her way through the swell, that made the world feel both enormous and intimate. The sea stretched out in every direction, but the ship — our little floating world — felt close, familiar, almost comforting.

Sometimes I’d see the old hands up there too, smoking quietly, staring at the horizon with the kind of expression that only comes from years at sea. They didn’t talk much on the homeward run. They didn’t need to. The sea had a way of speaking for them.

The officers changed too. The captain walked the bridge with a different posture — not relaxed, but settled, as if the hardest part of the voyage was behind him. The mates checked their charts with a little more ease. Even the Chief Cook, who never seemed to slow down, moved with a slightly softer edge, his voice less sharp, his temper less quick.

But the homeward run wasn’t all calm and reflection. The Pacific had a habit of reminding you that she was still in charge. Storms could rise out of nowhere, the sky darkening, the wind howling, the ship rolling so hard you had to brace yourself against the bulkheads just to stay upright. I’d carry trays through the saloon with my knees bent, my feet wide, my heart pounding every time the ship lurched. The officers would eat as if nothing was happening, their forks steady even as the world tilted around them.

And then, just as suddenly, the storm would pass. The sea would flatten. The sky would clear. And the ship would settle back into her long, steady stride.

Nights on the homeward run were something else entirely. The stars seemed brighter, sharper, as if the southern sky was welcoming us back. The air cooled enough to make you breathe deeper. The ship’s lights glowed softly against the dark water, and the wake stretched out behind us like a silver ribbon. Sometimes I’d stand there for an hour, listening to the hum of the engines, the slap of the waves, the quiet murmur of the ship moving through the night.

It was on those nights that I felt the weight of the voyage most — the storms we’d weathered, the heat we’d endured, the long days of work, the moments of laughter, the moments of fear. The sea had a way of stripping you down, showing you who you were, and then building you back up again. And the homeward run was when you realised just how much you’d changed.

As we moved south, the air grew cooler, the swell shorter, the sky greyer. The first sight of land — even just a faint outline on the horizon — always sent a ripple through the crew. Men stood a little straighter. Voices grew louder. The ship seemed to move with more purpose. Home was close enough to taste.

And yet, there was always a part of me that felt a quiet ache as the voyage neared its end. Life ashore was different — louder, faster, more complicated. The ship, for all her storms and routines and hard work, was simple. Honest. Predictable in her own unpredictable way. At sea, you knew your place. You knew your job. You knew the rhythm of your days.

But the long run home was a reminder that nothing lasted forever — not the voyage, not the calm, not the quiet moments on the boat deck. Soon we’d be tying up, stepping ashore, scattering to our own lives until the next call‑up, the next voyage, the next horizon.

And yet, as the ship eased into the southern waters and the coastline grew clearer, I felt something else too — a warmth, a pull, a sense of belonging that stretched between the sea and the land like a rope tied to both ends of my life.

The long run home wasn’t just a journey. It was a transition — from sea to shore, from routine to uncertainty, from the world we lived in to the world we returned to.

And every time, without fail, I knew I’d be back. Because the sea, once she has you, never really lets you go.

Geelong LEAVE

Geelong always hit you the same way — a blast of warm river air, the smell of mangroves and diesel, and the sudden, dizzying realisation that the world was bigger, louder, and brighter than the steel corridors you’d been living in for weeks. After the long run home from Nauru, the ship would ease up the river, the water turning brown and sluggish, the city rising around us like a promise. The crew would line the rails, leaning out, squinting at the skyline, each man already halfway ashore in his mind.

Geelong meant leave. Leave meant freedom. And freedom meant trouble if you weren’t careful.

The moment the gangway dropped, the ship emptied like a punctured drum. Deckhands, engineers, stewards — all of us spilled onto the wharf with the same hungry energy, pockets full of pay, legs unsteady on solid ground, hearts beating faster than they should. The first few steps ashore always felt strange, as if the earth itself was moving under you. After weeks of rolling decks, the stillness felt unnatural, almost suspicious.

But then the city pulled you in.

Geelong in those days had a rough charm — not polished, not pretentious, just alive. The pubs near the docks were already buzzing by the time we arrived, their doors open, their windows fogged, the sound of laughter and clinking glasses spilling into the street. You could walk into any of them and find a mix of seamen, wharfies, locals, and the occasional character who seemed to live permanently at the bar.

The first beer ashore was always the best. Cold, sharp, alive on the tongue. You’d take that first long swallow and feel the weeks at sea fall away — the storms, the heat, the routines, the endless blue horizon. The ship became a distant thing, a steel memory tied up at the wharf.

But Geelong leave wasn’t just about drinking. It was about feeling human again.

I’d wander the streets with a few of the lads, taking in the sights — the trams rattling past, the shop windows full of things we didn’t need but wanted anyway, the girls laughing in groups, the smell of bakeries and fruit stalls and hot pavement. Everything felt louder, brighter, more vivid after the quiet discipline of shipboard life.

Sometimes we’d head to the cinema, sinking into the plush seats, letting the cool darkness wash over us. Sometimes we’d find a café and order food that didn’t come from a galley — steak sandwiches, milkshakes, pies, things that tasted of land. Other times we’d just walk, letting the city carry us wherever it wanted.

But there was always a moment — usually late in the evening, after the noise and the laughter and the beer — when the mood shifted. When the city felt too big, too fast, too full of people who didn’t know you, didn’t care where you’d been or what storms you’d weathered. That was when the loneliness crept in, quiet and sharp.

You’d find yourself standing on a street corner, watching the traffic, feeling the weight of the world pressing in. And in that moment, you realised something important: the ship wasn’t just where you worked. It was where you belonged. The men aboard weren’t just crewmates. They were your world.

Still, Geelong had its magic.

There were nights when everything clicked — when the beer flowed, the music played, and the city felt like it was made just for you. Nights when you danced with girls whose names you never learned, laughed until your ribs hurt, and walked back to the ship with the warm glow of youth and freedom wrapped around you like a blanket.

And there were mornings — rough, bleary, sun‑struck — when you’d wake in your bunk with the taste of beer still on your tongue and the faint memory of a night that felt half‑real, half‑dream. The ship would be quiet, the crew scattered, each man nursing his own hangover, his own stories, his own regrets.

But Geelong's leave always ended the same way.

The whistle would blow. The gangway would rise. The ropes would be cast off. And the ship would ease away from the wharf, turning her bow toward the open sea once more.

As the city slipped behind us, shrinking into the haze, I’d stand on the deck and feel that familiar pull — part sadness, part relief, part anticipation. The land was exciting, unpredictable, full of temptation. But the sea… the sea was home.

And as the river widened and the Pacific opened before us, I always felt the same thing: I was exactly where I was meant to be.

CHAPTER TWELVE — THE CHARACTERS OF THE TRIASTER

(Told in your voice, as a memoir chapter)

Every ship has its characters, but the Triaster had a full cast — men so vivid, so unforgettable, that even now I can see them as clearly as if they were standing in the alleyway with a mug of tea in their hands. A ship wasn’t just steel and engines and cargo. It was the people who lived inside her, the voices that echoed through her passageways, the footsteps that thudded along her decks, the laughter and arguments and stories that filled the long days at sea. And the Triaster, God bless her, had some of the best.

Take Sam Perry, for a start — our Senior Ship’s Cook, the man the sea tried to claim and then spat back onto the stern like a half‑chewed bone. Sam was built like a brick wall, with a chest like a barrel and arms thick enough to lift a full pot of stew without breaking a sweat. He had a face weathered by years of heat and steam, and a voice that could cut through the roar of the galley like a ship’s horn. But beneath the bluster was a heart as big as the Pacific. He’d shout at you one minute and slip you an extra bread roll the next. After the day he went overboard and lived to tell the tale, he carried a kind of myth around him — the man the sea couldn’t keep.

Then there was Harris, the Ship’s Tiger — tall, lean, and quiet, with a presence that made you straighten your back without thinking. He served the captain with a precision that bordered on artistry. Harris didn’t waste words. He didn’t need to. A raised eyebrow from him carried more weight than a shouted order from anyone else. He moved through the ship like a shadow — calm, steady, unshakeable. If Sam was the storm, Harris was the stillness that followed.

The Chief Cook was another force entirely — a man who ruled his galley with the authority of a king and the temper of a man who’d seen too many boys drop plates in rough seas. He had a booming laugh when he chose to use it, but most of the time he barked orders like a drill sergeant. Still, he fed the ship, and that made him indispensable. You could measure the mood of the crew by the sound of his voice. If he was calm, the ship was calm. If he was angry, everyone walked a little faster.

And then there were the old hands — men who’d been sailing since the days when ships were slower, storms were harder, and discipline was something you felt across your backside. They carried stories like scars. They’d sit on the boat deck at sunset, smoking quietly, their eyes fixed on the horizon as if they were reading something written in the waves. They taught you things without ever calling it teaching — how to carry a tray on a rolling deck, how to read the weather by the smell of the air, how to keep your head when the sea tried to take it from you.

One of them — Old Charlie, a deckhand with a face like dried leather and a laugh that rattled like loose bolts — used to tell me stories about storms that made my hair stand on end. He’d lean back against the rail, squinting into the wind, and say, “Lad, the sea’s got moods. You treat her right, she’ll carry you. Treat her wrong, she’ll put you on the bottom faster than you can say your prayers.” He’d survived things that would have broken lesser men, and he wore that survival like a badge.

There was Mick the Greaser, who lived in the engine room and came up for meals with his face streaked in oil and his hair plastered to his forehead. He spoke in short bursts, as if every word cost him effort, but he had a wicked sense of humour that surfaced when you least expected it. He’d sit in the messroom, wiping his hands on a rag, and say something so sharp and funny that the whole table would erupt in laughter.

And of course, there were the stewards — my own tribe. Young lads like me, trying to find our place in the world, learning the hard way how to balance trays, polish cutlery, and keep our tempers when the officers were in one of their moods. We were a mixed bunch — some shy, some cocky, some dreaming of promotion, others just trying to survive the voyage. But we stuck together. We had to. The pantry was a battlefield, and camaraderie was the only armour we had.

There was Billy, who could carry three trays at once and never spill a drop. Tommy, who sang while he worked, his voice echoing down the alleyway like a radio tuned to a station only he could hear. Reggie, who always had a story about a girl in some port or other, though none of us ever believed a word of it. And Derek, the steward with the camp name “Stella,” who could make the whole messroom laugh with a single raised eyebrow and who carried himself with a confidence that made even the toughest deckhands tread lightly.

These men — their voices, their habits, their quirks — were the heartbeat of the Triaster. They were the ones who turned a steel hull into a home, who made the long voyages bearable, who taught me what it meant to be part of a crew. They shaped me in ways I didn’t understand at the time. They taught me discipline, humour, resilience, and the strange, unspoken code of life at sea.

Looking back now, I realise something simple and profound: A ship is only as memorable as the men who sail her. And the Triaster — with her storms, her heat, her long runs to Nauru — was unforgettable because of them.

They were rough, flawed, funny, stubborn, loyal, and larger than life. They were the characters of my youth. They were the men who made me a seafarer.

And I carry them with me still.

-------------

To add in the Nauru section:

I first met Hammer DeRoburt in 1968, the year Nauru stepped out from under the long shadow of colonial administration and declared itself an independent republic. I was young then, still forming my own understanding of the world, but even at that age I recognised a man who carried himself with quiet authority. He wasn’t loud, he wasn’t theatrical, and he didn’t need to be. There was a steadiness about him — a gentleman’s calm, the kind that comes from knowing exactly who you are and what you stand for.

Nauru was celebrating its independence when I first shook his hand. The island was small, the population smaller still, but the pride in the air was enormous. DeRoburt had been the driving force behind that moment. He had spent years pushing back against the Australian administration and the British Phosphate Commission, insisting that the Nauruan people deserved control over their own land, their own resources, and their own future. When he spoke, he did so with a clarity that made you listen. He didn’t waste words. He didn’t need to.

That first meeting stayed with me. I didn’t know then how deeply his leadership would shape the Pacific, or how fiercely he would fight for his people in the years ahead. But I knew I had met a man of substance.

From 1968 onward, DeRoburt carried the weight of a new nation on his shoulders. Independence was not a ceremonial ribbon‑cutting; it was a daily grind of building institutions from scratch. Nauru had no long‑established ministries, no deep bench of bureaucrats, no blueprint for governance. What it had was phosphate — and the scars of decades of exploitation. The interior of the island had been carved out and left barren, a reminder of how little the colonial powers had cared for the land or the people who lived on it.

DeRoburt understood that independence meant nothing without economic sovereignty. The phosphate belonged to Nauru, and he intended to reclaim it. Those early years were consumed by negotiations with the British Phosphate Commission, a battle of wills between a tiny island nation and three powerful governments. But DeRoburt was not intimidated. He had a way of speaking plainly, almost softly, but with a firmness that left no doubt about his resolve.

By the time I met him again in 1973, the transformation was already underway. He remembered me — or at least he made me feel as though he did — and he greeted me with the same gentle dignity I had seen years earlier. But there was something different in him too. He carried himself with the confidence of a man who had won battles most people never even saw.

In the years between our meetings, Nauru had taken control of its phosphate industry. It was one of the most remarkable economic turnarounds in modern history. A nation that had been stripped of its wealth for decades suddenly found itself in command of its own resources. The revenue poured in, and for a brief moment Nauru became one of the richest countries per capita in the world.

But the victory was not just financial. It was moral. For generations, Nauruans had watched foreign powers profit from their land while leaving behind environmental devastation. DeRoburt’s achievement was a reclamation of dignity as much as it was a reclamation of wealth.

Yet even as the island prospered, the pressures on him grew. A younger generation of Nauruan leaders began to challenge his authority. They were educated abroad, ambitious, and impatient for change. They accused him of holding too much power, of centralising decision‑making, of failing to prepare the nation for a future beyond phosphate. Some of their criticisms were fair; others were born of political rivalry. But DeRoburt, who had spent his life fighting external forces, now found himself fighting internal ones.

By 1974 and 1975, the cracks in Nauru’s political landscape were widening. The economy was strong but vulnerable, tied almost entirely to a single resource. The environmental damage was irreversible. And the political unity that had carried the island through independence was beginning to fracture.

Through it all, DeRoburt remained the same man I had met twice — calm, dignified, and quietly determined. He was not a perfect leader, but he was the leader Nauru needed in those years. Without him, independence might have been delayed or diluted. Without him, the phosphate industry might never have been reclaimed. Without him, Nauru’s brief era of prosperity might never have existed at all.

When I look back on those years now, I see a man who carried an entire nation on his back. He was a negotiator, a statesman, a strategist, and above all, a gentleman. The world may remember him as the founding President of Nauru, but I remember him as the man who shook my hand twice — once at the dawn of independence, and again at the height of his power — and left me with the unmistakable impression of a leader who understood the weight of history and bore it with grace.

Those seven years, from 1968 to 1975, were the defining chapter of his life and of Nauru’s. And I count myself fortunate to have witnessed even a small part of it.

By the time I did my third long voyage to New Zealand and Australia, something had shifted inside me. I wasn’t just surviving the work anymore — I was settling into it, understanding it, even enjoying parts of it I hadn’t noticed before. The rhythm of the ship, the long days at sea, the quiet moments before dawn when the galley was mine alone — these things had become part of me. I didn’t say enough about that the first time around.

So I’m adding this now, not to repeat myself, but to fill in the gaps. To give the reader a clearer picture of what those voyages really were: not just hard work and long hours, but a kind of education the sea gives only to those who stay long enough to listen. These trips taught me patience, taught me resilience, taught me how to read a ship and a crew and myself. They were my favourite voyages for a reason, and I want the reader to understand why.

And with that in mind, I return to the moment when we were closing in on New Zealand…

My day always started before anyone else on the ship had even begun to stir. Long before the first boots hit the alleyway or the first curse drifted up from the engine room, I was already in the galley. Half past five. The sky outside still a dull smear of grey. The sea carrying that heavy, early‑morning weight I came to know so well.

I’d be tying down flour bags so they didn’t slide across the deck, bracing myself against the roll while mixing dough for forty hungry men. The ovens rattled when the ship pitched. The mixing bowls had to be wedged with damp cloths to stop them wandering. And I moved with the instinctive balance you only learn after years of working on a floor that never stays still.

There was a rhythm to it — the thump of dough on the bench, the hum of the engines, the hiss of the first kettle boiling. The smell of yeast drifted slowly through the ship, and even the blokes who pretended not to care would lift their heads in their bunks and breathe it in. Bread mattered out there. It could turn a bad day into a tolerable one, a long voyage into something bearable, and a miserable crew into something slightly less murderous. I knew that better than anyone.

I also knew the other economy that kept a ship running — the one no one wrote down. Slush, the rendered fat skimmed from roasting pans, was worth more than gold in certain corners. Engineers wanted it for machinery. I wanted favours: a light replaced, a fridge latch fixed, a bit of extra cold storage space. Quiet deals over the galley counter kept the whole ship moving. Diesel, sweat, and slush — that was the real fuel.

On long-haul trips between the UK, Australia, and the Americas, food became the emotional weather. A good meal lifted the whole ship. A bad one could sink morale faster than a storm. When the fresh meat ran out — and it often did when port delays dragged on — I had to face the crew with tins of bully beef and apologies. I still remember one voyage in the sixties when the Sunday roast was replaced with salted tinned meat. The crew refused to work until someone explained why their dinner tasted like it had been stored in a lifeboat for a decade. The bosun stormed into my galley, waving a fork. I pointed to the empty, cold room. The ship slowed to a crawl until the next port. Not a mutiny, not officially — but close enough that the logbook politely skipped the details.

In the tropics, the galley turned into a furnace. Heat pressed in from all sides, thick and relentless. My shirt would be soaked through before breakfast was even served. Fresh vegetables wilted within days. I relied on tins, salt, and whatever ingenuity I could muster. The “salads” were a joke — canned beetroot, tinned peas, onions drowned in vinegar — but the men ate them anyway, grateful for anything that wasn’t beige or boiled.

The second cook peeled potatoes until his hands cramped. The baker wiped flour from his eyebrows. The steward carried trays through a doorway that swung like a pendulum. The galley smelled of boiling cabbage, diesel fumes, sweat, and the faint metallic tang of tinned peas. It was unbearable at times, but it was also the heart of the ship. News travelled through my galley faster than through the radio room. Tempers flared there, but so did laughter.

The requests were endless and often ridiculous. The engineer who wanted porridge thick enough to stand a spoon in. The deckhand who said the tea was “too weak to drown a fly.” The West Indian AB who begged for Scotch bonnet peppers I had no hope of finding in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And yet, whenever we reached port, I’d head straight for the markets, hunting for spices, fresh herbs, anything to break the monotony. In Aden, I’d haggle for coriander. In Colombo, I’d buy turmeric by the handful. In Fremantle, I’d return with bags of onions and whatever else I could carry. These small victories mattered. A pinch of something new could lift the whole crew.

Shore leave never lasted long enough, but it gave me a chance to breathe air that didn’t smell of steam and diesel. I’d return to the ship with pockets full of spices and a grin that told the men they were in for something better than tinned peas. That night, they’d gather near the galley door, pretending they weren’t checking what was for dinner, sniffing the air like hopeful dogs.

Life aboard wasn’t romantic, no matter what the brochures claimed. It was hard, hot, relentless work. The steward was polishing cutlery at midnight. Me, the cook, who hadn’t had a day off in months. The second cook is learning to chop onions on a rolling deck without losing a fingertip. These were the truths that never made it into official histories. But they were the truths that mattered. The camaraderie in the mess room. The quiet pride in a well‑cooked meal. The unspoken rules that kept the ship running. These were the things that held a crew together.

And somewhere in the middle of all that heat and noise and barter and bread, I was living a story no one thought to write down — the story of men who kept ships moving across the world, one meal at a time.

New Zealand

 

 

By the time we were closing in on New Zealand, I could feel the change before I ever saw it. The men were restless in that way crews always get when land is close enough to smell but still too far to touch. The sea told me first. The long Pacific swell eased into a steadier rhythm, and the colour shifted from deep blue to a greener shade, as if the coastline was already bleeding into the water.

I noticed it while cracking eggs into a bowl. The light coming through the porthole had softened — not the harsh, white glare of the tropics, but something gentler. I stopped for a moment, wiped my hands on my apron, and leaned closer to the glass. There was nothing to see yet, just the faintest smudge on the horizon, but I felt it. Land always made itself known long before it appeared.

Word travelled fast. Someone on the bridge had spotted the first outline of the North Island, and within minutes the men were drifting toward the deck, pretending they had business topside. The steward, carrying a tray of mugs back to the galley, lingered by the open doorway, letting the cool air wash over him. After weeks of heat and tinned vegetables, the promise of fresh produce and a night ashore felt like a blessing.

I finished breakfast service quicker than usual, driven by the same anticipation that had hold of the rest of the crew. Once the last tray was stacked and the bench wiped down, I stepped outside for the first time that morning. The wind carried the scent of pine and damp earth — a smell I didn’t realise I’d missed until it hit me. The sea was home, but land had its own pull.

As we drew closer, the coastline sharpened into view: rolling green hills, white‑tipped waves breaking against dark rocks, and the faint outline of a harbour town tucked into the curve of the bay. Fishing boats dotted the water like scattered toys, and gulls circled overhead, their cries cutting through the engine noise. The men leaned on the rails, pointing out landmarks, arguing over which port we were entering, even though most of them had been there before. It didn’t matter. The excitement was always the same.

I headed back to the galley to prepare the arrival meal — something simple but hearty to keep the men going until they could get ashore. I fried onions in a pan, the smell drifting through the ship and mixing with the scent of land. The second cook peeled potatoes with a bit more enthusiasm than usual, humming to himself. Even the baker, who was normally grumpy after a long morning, seemed lighter on his feet.

When we finally eased into the harbour, the engines throttled back and the deck vibrated with that familiar shudder of docking. Lines were thrown, orders shouted, and the gangway clattered into place. The steward was one of the first ashore, carrying a list of supplies I’d scribbled in pencil: fresh vegetables, fruit, spices — anything green. I stayed aboard a little longer to oversee the unloading, but my eyes kept drifting toward the town.

New Zealand ports always had a charm of their own — rugged coastline mixed with small‑town warmth. Weatherboard houses with overflowing gardens, shops that smelled of fresh bread and damp wool, locals who greeted us with a mix of curiosity and familiarity. I made my way to the market with a canvas bag over my shoulder and began my ritual of choosing produce with the care of a jeweller examining gemstones. Carrots still dusted with soil. Cabbages crisp and cool. Apples that smelled like orchards, not storage rooms. I bought more than I needed, knowing the crew would devour anything fresh.

I lingered at a spice stall, running my fingers over jars filled with colours I hadn’t seen in months. The woman behind the counter — silver hair, sharp eyes — watched me with amusement. “Ship’s cook, are you?” she said. I nodded. She handed me a small packet wrapped in paper. “Try this. Good for stews.” I didn’t ask what it was. I trusted the look in her eyes. I slipped it into my pocket like a secret.

By late afternoon, the crew had scattered across the town — some to the pubs, others to the shops, a few just walking along the shoreline, breathing in the cool air. I found myself in a small café overlooking the harbour, sipping strong tea and watching the ship from a distance. From shore, she looked smaller, almost fragile — a reminder of how much the sea demanded from those of us who worked upon it.

As evening settled, the men returned in groups, laughing, carrying parcels, cheeks flushed from drink and fresh air. I went back to the galley and unpacked my treasures with the satisfaction of a man who knew he’d make the next week’s meals something worth remembering. I washed the vegetables, lined them up on the bench, and began planning dishes in my head. The galley felt different now — cooler, brighter, filled with the promise of flavours I hadn’t been able to offer in weeks.

We stayed in port overnight. The town lights reflected on the water like scattered stars. Some men slept aboard, others found rooms ashore, but I stayed in my cabin, listening to the quiet hum of the harbour. It was a different kind of silence than the open sea — softer, more forgiving.

At dawn, the engines rumbled back to life. The crew returned, some bleary‑eyed, others refreshed, all carrying the faint scent of land on their clothes. I served breakfast — eggs, fresh fruit, bread still warm from the oven — and the men ate with the enthusiasm of those who knew it would be a long time before they tasted such things again.

By mid‑morning, we slipped out of the harbour, the coastline shrinking behind us. I stood on deck for a moment, watching New Zealand fade into the mist. Ahead lay the long stretch toward the Dutch West Indies — weeks of open water, unpredictable weather, and the relentless routine of shipboard life. But the galley was stocked, the crew was fed, and I felt ready.

I went back inside, rolled up my sleeves, and started preparing the midday meal. The ship creaked and groaned as it settled back into its ocean rhythm, and the familiar sway returned beneath my feet. The sea had reclaimed us, and the journey carried on.

En route to the Dutch West Indies

Once we cleared the last of the New Zealand headlands and the coastline slipped behind us like a page turning, the ship settled into that long, steady rhythm only the Pacific can give. There’s a moment on every voyage when you feel the land fall away from you, not just physically but in your bones. The air changes first — it loses the smell of soil and trees and becomes clean in a way that’s almost sharp. Then the swell stretches out, long and lazy, as if the ocean is taking a deep breath before deciding what mood it will be in for the next few weeks.

I remember standing on deck that first morning, the sun just lifting itself over the horizon, the sea flat as hammered tin. I leaned on the rail with a mug of tea, still half asleep, and watched the wake stretch out behind us like a white scar. Ahead of us was nothing but blue. Behind us, New Zealand was already a memory. And somewhere far beyond the curve of the world lay Curaçao — a place I’d never seen, only heard about in stories from older hands who spoke of it with a mixture of heat, colour, and trouble.

The galley became my world again. Once we were clear of land, the routine tightened around me like a belt. Breakfast, clean‑up, prep, lunch, clean‑up, baking, dinner, clean‑up, collapse. The sea was kind at first, giving me a few days of calm to settle into the rhythm. I used the fresh vegetables I’d bought in New Zealand like a man guarding treasure. The crew devoured them, knowing full well it would be weeks before they saw anything green again.

By the fifth day, the weather began to shift. The swell grew steeper, the wind picked up, and the ship started that slow, rolling dance that makes pots slide and knives wander if you’re not careful. I tied down everything that could move and braced myself against the bench as I worked. There’s a strange comfort in cooking during a storm — the noise, the heat, the constant need to adjust your balance. It forces you into the moment. You can’t think about home or the next port or the endless stretch of sea ahead. You think only about the next pan, the next tray, the next wave.

One night the storm hit properly. The kind that makes the whole ship shudder like it’s alive and angry. I was in the middle of stirring a pot of stew when the ship lurched so violently I had to grab the rail with both hands. The ladle flew across the galley and clattered against the bulkhead. The pot slid an inch before the rope stopped it. I swore loud enough for the engineers to hear me two decks down. The second cook, who’d been chopping onions, ended up on the floor with the chopping board on his lap. We looked at each other and burst out laughing — the kind of laughter that comes from knowing you’re completely at the mercy of the sea and there’s nothing to do but ride it out.

The storm lasted two days. The crew staggered through the alleyways like drunkards, grabbing at handrails, cursing the weather, cursing the ship, cursing the owners. I kept the meals simple — stews, soups, anything that could be ladled into a bowl and eaten with one hand while the other held onto something solid. When the storm finally eased, the sea flattened out again as if nothing had happened. That’s the Pacific for you — unpredictable, unforgiving, and utterly indifferent.

A week later we hit the doldrums. The air turned thick and heavy, the sea smooth as glass. The ship crawled forward, engines labouring in the heat. The galley became a furnace. I’d stand over the stove with sweat running down my back, the air so still it felt like breathing through cloth. The crew moved slowly, their shirts sticking to their skin, their tempers short. Even the officers looked wilted.

Flying fish began landing on deck at night, their silver bodies scattered like coins tossed by a careless god. The deckhands collected them in buckets, and I fried them up for breakfast. They tasted of salt and sunlight, and the men ate them with the enthusiasm of people desperate for something different.

The nights were the worst. The heat didn’t lift, not even after sunset. I’d lie in my bunk with the porthole open, listening to the low thrum of the engines and the occasional slap of a wave against the hull. Sleep came in short bursts. Sometimes I’d get up and walk the deck, the sea glowing faintly under the moon, the air thick enough to chew. Those were the moments when the loneliness crept in — not sadness, just the awareness of how small we were out there, a single ship in an ocean big enough to swallow continents.

But there were good moments too. The camaraderie that only comes from shared discomfort. The jokes in the mess room. The way the crew would gather near the galley door when they smelled something promising. The satisfaction of pulling a tray of bread from the oven and hearing the men fall silent as they tasted it. Those small victories kept me going.

As we pushed further east, the weather shifted again. The heat remained, but the wind picked up, carrying with it the faintest hint of something different — a smell I couldn’t place at first. It wasn’t land, not yet, but it was a change, and after weeks of sameness, any change felt like a gift.

I remember the morning I realised we were getting close. I was standing at the galley porthole, peeling potatoes, when I caught a scent on the breeze — spices, maybe, or flowers, or just the warm breath of a different sea. I stopped peeling and leaned closer to the glass. The horizon looked the same, but something in the air had shifted. Curaçao was still days away, but the ocean was already whispering its approach.

I finished the potatoes, washed my hands, and stepped out onto the deck. The sun was rising, the sky streaked with orange and gold. The crew moved about their duties with a little more energy, as if they felt it too. The long haul was nearly over. Ahead lay the Dutch West Indies — heat, colour, noise, and whatever trouble we’d find waiting for us.

I took a deep breath, wiped my hands on my apron, and went back to the galley. Breakfast wasn’t going to cook itself.

Arriving at Curacoa 

I knew we were getting close to Curaçao long before anyone on the bridge said a word. There’s a particular feel to that part of the Caribbean, a thickness in the air that settles on your skin like warm oil. Even before the island shows itself, the sea changes colour — a deeper blue, almost too blue, as if someone had tipped dye into it. I’d been there twice before, and the memory of it came back to me in a rush: the heat, the noise, the smell of spices and diesel and fruit rotting sweetly in the sun. I stood at the galley porthole peeling potatoes when the first hint of it drifted in, and I stopped mid‑peel, knife in hand, just breathing it in. Curaçao. I could have picked it out blindfolded.

I wiped my hands on my apron and went out onto the deck. The sun was already high, the sky a hard, unforgiving blue. The crew were scattered along the rails, squinting at the horizon. Someone shouted that he could see land, and within seconds half the ship was leaning over the starboard side, pointing and arguing about who’d spotted it first. I didn’t bother joining the debate. I just stood there quietly, letting the sight of that familiar coastline rise out of the haze.

Willemstad always appeared like a painting — too bright, too colourful, too unreal to be a working port. The buildings along the waterfront were painted in colours you’d never see in England or New Zealand: pinks, yellows, blues, greens, all glowing in the sun like boiled sweets. Even from a distance you could see the red roofs and the white trim, the whole place looking like it had been scrubbed clean for our arrival. But I knew better. Behind those postcard colours was a city that pulsed with noise and heat and life, a place where the air smelled of frying fish, diesel fumes, and spices that clung to your clothes long after you’d left.

As we drew closer, the heat hit us like a wall. It wasn’t the gentle warmth of the Pacific or the crisp air of New Zealand — this was heavy, humid, the kind of heat that wrapped itself around you and refused to let go. Sweat started running down my back before we’d even reached the harbour mouth. The crew stripped off their shirts, laughing and swearing, already remembering what Curaçao did to a man’s body.

The harbour itself was chaos, as always. Tugs darted around like angry dogs, horns blaring, their crews shouting instructions in a mix of Dutch, Papiamentu, and English. Fishing boats weaved between them, their decks piled high with nets and crates of fish that stank even from where we stood. The water was a swirl of oil slicks, floating debris, and flashes of silver as small fish darted away from our bow. The smell was overwhelming — diesel, salt, rotting seaweed, and something sweet and spicy drifting from the market stalls along the quay.

I leaned on the rail, watching it all with a grin I couldn’t hide. I’d forgotten how alive Curaçao felt. Some ports were sleepy, some were grim, some were nothing more than a place to load cargo and leave. But Curaçao… Curaçao had a pulse. It throbbed with colour and sound. Even the air tasted different.

As we approached the wharf, the dockworkers gathered, waving their arms, shouting instructions, laughing among themselves. They moved with a kind of effortless rhythm, their bodies loose and confident in the heat. I recognised one of them — a tall man with a red bandana tied around his head. I’d met him on my last visit. He spotted me leaning over the rail and shouted something I couldn’t hear, but the grin on his face told me he remembered me too.

The captain barked orders from the bridge, the bosun yelled back, and the deckhands scrambled to get the lines ready. The ship shuddered as the tugs nudged us into position. The sun beat down on us, the metal deck hot enough to fry an egg. The smell of the island grew stronger — spices, sweat, frying plantains, the faint tang of rum drifting from the bars just beyond the docks.

When the gangway finally clattered into place, the dockworkers swarmed aboard, laughing, shouting, slapping backs. One of them grabbed my hand and shook it so hard I thought he’d pull my arm off. “You back again, Cookie!” he shouted. “We thought you forget us!” I laughed and told him I’d never forget Curaçao, not in a hundred years.

I made my way down the gangway, the heat hitting me full in the face. The ground felt solid and strange after weeks at sea. The market stalls were already open, the air thick with the smell of spices — cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves — mixed with the sweetness of ripe mangoes and the sharp tang of citrus. Women in bright dresses called out to us, waving bunches of herbs and baskets of fruit. Children darted between the stalls, laughing, chasing each other, their bare feet slapping against the dusty ground.

I headed straight for the spice stall I remembered from my last visit. The woman behind it recognised me instantly. “Ah! The ship’s cook!” she said, her eyes sparkling. “You come back for more?” She handed me a small pouch before I even asked. “This one is special. You use it in stew. Make the men happy.” I thanked her and bought more than I needed, knowing the crew would appreciate every pinch of flavour I could bring back aboard.

The heat was relentless, but I didn’t mind. Curaçao had a way of getting under your skin — the colours, the smells, the noise, the people. It was a place that felt alive in a way few ports did. As I walked back toward the ship, bags of spices and fruit in my hands, I felt that familiar mix of excitement and exhaustion. I knew the next few days would be busy — loading cargo, stocking the galley, dealing with the chaos that always came with a Caribbean port — but I also knew I’d enjoy every minute of it.

When I reached the gangway, I paused for a moment and looked back at the waterfront. The buildings glowed in the afternoon sun, the water shimmered like glass, and the air buzzed with life. I’d been here before, and I knew I’d be here again. Curaçao had a way of calling you back.

And standing there, sweat running down my neck, the smell of spices in my hands, I felt it again — that strange, familiar pull of a place that wasn’t home but felt like it could be, if only the sea would let you stay long enough.

 

Leaving Curacoa 

The nights ashore in Curaçao were something else entirely. No matter how many times I’d been there, the place hit me the same way every visit — like stepping into a furnace full of music. The heat didn’t ease after sunset; if anything, it grew heavier, settling on your shoulders like a wet blanket. The air smelled of rum, frying fish, sweat, and spices that clung to your clothes long after you’d left the bars. The colours of the buildings didn’t fade with the daylight either; they glowed under the streetlamps, pinks and yellows and blues so bright they looked painted on the night itself.

I remember walking down the waterfront road with a few of the lads, the sound of drums and laughter drifting out of every doorway. Women in bright dresses leaned in the doorways calling out to us, their voices warm and teasing. The bars were packed, bodies moving shoulder to shoulder, the music so loud you could feel it in your ribs. Steel drums, guitars, voices rising in harmonies that made the whole street vibrate. I’d been in ports all over the world, but Curaçao had a rhythm that got into your bones.

We ended up in a bar I’d been to on my last visit — a place with a low ceiling, a long wooden counter, and a band squeezed into a corner playing like their lives depended on it. The bartender recognised me straight away. “Ah! English cook!” he shouted over the music, slapping a glass of rum on the counter before I’d even opened my mouth. “You come back for more trouble?” I laughed and told him trouble usually found me whether I wanted it or not.

The rum was strong enough to make your eyes water, but after weeks at sea it tasted like freedom. The lads scattered — some dancing, some drinking, some trying their luck with the local girls. I stayed at the bar for a while, watching the room. The heat was unbelievable. Sweat ran down my back, my shirt sticking to me, but I didn’t care. The music, the laughter, the smell of spices and rum — it was all part of the place.

At one point a man sat beside me, tall, dark-skinned, with a smile that could light up the whole island. He introduced himself as Manuel and told me he worked on the tugs. He’d seen our ship come in earlier and recognised me from a previous voyage. “You always look like you belong here,” he said, and I told him I felt that way sometimes. We talked for an hour about ships, storms, food, and women — the usual topics that keep sailors alive. He slapped my shoulder when he left and told me not to get into too much trouble. I told him I’d try, but I wasn’t making any promises.

Later in the night, the trouble arrived anyway. It always did. One of our lads — a young AB with more rum than sense in him — started arguing with a local over a girl. Voices rose, chairs scraped, and before I knew it the two of them were squaring up. I stepped between them, hands out, telling them both to calm down. The local man looked at me, then at the AB, then burst out laughing. “Your friend cannot even stand straight,” he said, pointing at the lad swaying behind me. He was right. The tension broke, the two men shook hands, and the girl rolled her eyes and walked away. Crisis averted.

We stumbled back to the ship in the early hours, the sky just beginning to lighten. The heat hadn’t eased at all. My shirt was soaked, my head buzzing, my pockets full of spices and fruit I’d bought from a woman outside the bar. I climbed the gangway with the kind of tiredness that feels good — the kind that comes from living, not just working.

The next morning the harbour was already alive with noise. Dockworkers shouting, cranes clanking, tugs blasting their horns. The sun was brutal, the air thick with the smell of diesel and frying plantains. I worked in the galley with the doors open, letting the sounds of the island drift in. The crew were slow to rise, most of them nursing hangovers, but they perked up quickly when they smelled breakfast. Fresh fruit, strong coffee, and a few local spices thrown into the eggs — a small reminder of the night before.

We stayed in Curaçao long enough to load the last of the cargo and restock the galley. Then, as always, the time came to leave. The tugs pulled us away from the wharf, the dockworkers waved, and the colours of Willemstad slowly faded behind us. I stood on deck watching the island shrink, feeling that familiar tug in my chest. Curaçao had a way of getting under your skin. I knew I’d miss it the moment it disappeared from view.

The next leg was long — across the Atlantic toward France. The weather was kinder than the Pacific had been. Long swells, steady winds, days that blurred into each other. I fell back into the routine of the galley, cooking for men who were already dreaming of European ports and cold beer. The butter cargo from New Zealand sat deep in the hold, frozen solid, waiting for its turn to be unloaded.

France appeared out of a grey morning, the coastline rising slowly through the mist. The air smelled different — cooler, sharper, with a hint of something metallic. We docked in a port that felt worlds away from Curaçao. The buildings were pale, the people brisk, the language flowing around us like water. We unloaded part of the butter cargo there, the cranes lifting the frozen blocks as if they weighed nothing. I went ashore long enough to buy bread and cheese, the kind you can’t get anywhere else. The crew devoured it that night, grateful for a taste of Europe.

From France, we headed north to Liverpool. The weather turned colder, the sea rougher, the sky a constant grey. Liverpool was familiar — noisy, busy, full of life. We unloaded more of the butter there, the docks echoing with the shouts of stevedores and the clatter of machinery. I went ashore for a pint in a pub that smelled of smoke and old wood, the kind of place where sailors have been drinking for centuries. It felt like stepping into a memory.

The final leg took us down to London, the Thames winding its way through the city like a living thing. The London docks were a world of their own — cranes, warehouses, barges, men shouting in every accent imaginable. We unloaded the last of the New Zealand lamb there, the cold air biting at our faces as the cargo left the hold. I watched it go with a strange sense of satisfaction. The journey that had begun in the cool air of New Zealand had finally come full circle.

When the last crate was gone and the hatches closed, I stood on deck looking out over the river, the city lights reflecting on the water. I felt tired, proud, and ready for whatever came next. That’s the thing about life at sea — there’s always another voyage waiting, another port, another story.

And I knew, even then, that Curaçao would call me back again someday.

 

The Big Girls 

You arrive on the rig long before you ever touch it. The chopper announces it for you — the thump‑thump‑thump of the rotors beating the Indian Ocean air into submission, the vibration running up through your boots, the smell of aviation fuel mixing with salt. Below you, the gas platform rises out of the sea like a steel city on stilts, a place that looks too fragile to trust and too permanent to ever leave. Thirty days. That’s your sentence and your pay packet.

The landing is always rougher than you expect. The deck crew crouches low, helmets on, hands signalling you forward. The wind tries to shove you sideways as you duck under the blades and hurry toward the safety door. Inside, the noise drops but the feeling doesn’t. You’re offshore now. The mainland is a rumour.

As the cook, you don’t get time to settle. Your twelve‑hour shift starts the moment your boots hit the galley floor. The kitchen is bigger than a tug’s, but not by much, and everything is stainless steel — benches, sinks, ovens, trays — all bolted down, all humming with the vibration of machinery running day and night. The rig never sleeps, so neither do you, not properly. You work in cycles: breakfast for the night crew coming off shift, breakfast for the day crew going on, then straight into prep for lunch, then dinner, then cleaning, then tomorrow’s prep. The clock means nothing. The bellies of a hundred men mean everything.

The noise is constant. Generators. Compressors. The low, endless drone of the platform breathing. Even in the galley you feel the rig shudder when a crane swings a load or when the swell hits the legs just right. The men come in hungry, tired, sunburnt, wind‑blasted. They don’t want fancy food. They want fuel — roasts, curries, fried fish, mountains of potatoes, trays of eggs, bread by the loaf. You learn their faces, their moods, their silences.

Nights offshore are another world. The platform glows like a floating refinery, lights reflecting off black water. You step outside for a breather and the ocean stretches forever, no land, no escape, just the wind and the hum of the rig. You feel small, but you feel part of something too — a machine that needs you as much as it needs gas, steel, and fire.

And when the chopper finally comes to take you home, you leave smelling of oil, sweat, and stainless steel, knowing you’ve earned every cent of your thirty‑day swing.