Stories

…How many stories of this kind will still come to mind.
One leads to the other.
 

Many are personal or the subject is irrelevant, but still entertaining for a willing ear.
With all these chronicles, I have attempted to create a picture of what life was like on board a sea tug.

You were sometimes at sea for weeks, huddled together; space on board a tugboat was limited.
Busy with your duties, and you tried to do them as well as possible.

You only found relaxation when you came ashore somewhere.
Discovering another world.
When you went out.
What could happen to you and what could you experience there?
In Dunkirk, Penzance, Gibraltar, Larne, Venice, Bermuda, La Plata, Piraeus, Bremen, Emden, Durban, Dakar, Valletta, Holmsund, New York, Baltimore, Dublin, Singapore, Hamburg, Ceuta, Tarragona, Hamilton, Kiel, Delfzijl, Catania, Kaohsiung or Cherbourg…. the list of port cities is long.
All names with memories and exciting events.
Music snippets that remind you of certain situations.
Moments you are better off keeping to yourself.

The demise of Dutch ocean towing hurt; how proud we were of our work.
The big names disappeared from the world’s oceans.
You become jealous or melancholic when you see photos of foreign shipping companies towing larger and more powerful ships than I ever sailed on.
Shipping companies that could not compete with us back then.
Where have the days gone when a Greek captain with his ship in trouble only wanted a Dutch tugboat?

You were sometimes amazed by the living conditions, in other countries, but also on foreign ships, and you went along with it.
That was the adventure.
Many of those stories originated from that, sometimes a bit embellished.
For now, that seems enough to me; there must be something left for myself.
I enjoyed reliving them and writing them down.

As with everything, it also has its downside, and fortunately, you usually forget that side.
Above all, it was a time of work with many remarkable moments.
The lid of my drum of memories is going back on.
I have described a part of my life; that is enough.

The story has come to an end: acta fabula est.

Lectori Salutem