Black Sea Bounty

 It was early in June 1975 and unseasonably cold even for that part of the world. A low pressure just to the north of Scotland had moved southwards introducing a band of Arctic air that left snow lying over hills and heavy drifts in parts of the Highlands.

With mixed feelings, Pauline and I boarded the Loganair Trislander at Lerwick’s Sumburgh Airport for the two hour flight to Aberdeen, the first leg of our journey to our next ship, Lindinger Gold waiting for us on the other side of the continent three plane trips and a car journey to Turkey’s Sea of Marmara.

The little 16-seater was fully loaded with heavily built men looking more like the Scottish rugby team than a group of oil industry workers. There was no aisle, just double bench seats each accessed with its own door. Pauline and I were squeezed into the rear seat just in front of the luggage compartment. I’ve flown on the Trislander many times since that day, and I have no doubt that its description as one of the most reliable and durable commuter aircraft is well deserved. On that day however, and in that miserable weather, feeling already quite disappointed at the early end to our North Sea interlude, it was a most uncomfortable and unpleasant experience.  It was with shaky legs that we climbed out of the aircraft at the terminal at Aberdeen’s Dyce Airport to transfer to a hopefully more comfortable flight.

We had originally expected to travel from Aberdeen directly to Heathrow to connect with a flight to Istanbul, but the need for clothing more suited to a Mediterranean summer diverted us instead to a brief overnight stop and unanticipated family reunion at Pauline’s home in Nottingham. The next leg thus saw us aboard a more comfortable HS 748 for the two hour Danair flight to East Midlands.

The next morning feeling a little subdued after perhaps one too many pints of Courage Best, we were on the same train to London and tube trip to Heathrow that we had followed less than a month earlier on our frustrated expedition to Norway and Lindinger Surveyor. This time there was less haste as our four hour flight to Istanbul was not leaving until early that evening.

It was decidedly warmer than Lerwick when we finally arrived around 1.00 am at our Istanbul hotel. Lindinger Gold was still enroute to her destination, so we would have the full day tomorrow to acclimatise and perhaps do a bit of shopping before a car was due to take us the following day across the Bosporus to our ship.

Our hotel was big, but at one o’clock in the morning it was as though we were entering a mausoleum. A smartly dressed uniformed doorman relieved us of our bags and led us toward a huge reception area empty save for a sole desk clerk who greeted us as though he had been long expecting us, and we were his only guests. Huge revolving fans wafted warm air down on us from a high vaulted ceiling as we searched for our travel papers and passports for the third or fourth time that day. We were booked in for two nights, breakfast included, but we would have to fend for ourselves for lunch and dinner. This was all fine by us, at this point, all we wanted was sleep.

We eventually arrived at our room, accompanied by an aging hotel porter who looked as though we had disturbed his sleep, which we possibly had. I gave him what was left of the few lira I had in my pocket and judging by the look of indifference on his face, it was evidently not enough. I smiled encouragingly, thanked him as warmly as I could muster, and waited for him to shuffle out of the door.

The room was large, with an iron balcony overlooking a quiet street. A smaller relative of the giant fan in the hotel lobby, turned slowly above our heads. The bathroom was spacious, but the green tiles covering the walls from floor to ceiling made me think more of a public bar in an outback pub than a upmarket Middle Eastern ensuite.

Did I mention the cockroaches? As big as anything the North Queensland tropics could offer, these huge black creatures didn’t bother to scurry away – they stared boldly as if saying, “I’d like to see you try!”

We’d had a couple of long and tiring days, so we went to bed. Nothing was going to get in the way of a decent sleep and a good lie in before strolling down in the morning for a relaxing breakfast.

In the Islamic world, there is a widespread saying that the Qur’an was “revealed in Mecca, recited in Cairo and written in Istanbul”. I have since read a version of this regarding the call to prayer which says that it was born in Medina and recited in Istanbul.

We were in no position to doubt this statement when an amplified call from the minaret of a nearby mosque woke us with a jolt at 4.45 am. In Turkish culture the adhan is referred to as the chants of the nightingales of Allah and His messenger. It is an inseparable element of the city of Istanbul.

It was at this point that we also became aware that the quiet street of last night was slowly coming to life and within the next half hour evolved into a cacophony of car horns, motorcycle engines, reversing trucks and loud voices. Maybe leaving the window open had not been such a great idea.

The lie-in and the leisurely stroll to breakfast was out of the question – but we were hungry, and with that in mind we rose, braved the cockroaches and got ready for the day.

The dining room was a vast white tableclothed chamber, with a steady thrum of busy diners and rushing waiters. The ever present giant fans spun gently at us as the desk waiter led us to an unoccupied table.

I was ready for a coffee but was unprepared for the thimble-sized container of thick black syrup which was placed in front of me. There was going to be no cappuccino here. Pauline asked for tea, and when a milky sweet lukewarm substance arrived, we both decided to stick to water.

It was also our first experience of goat cheese. At first we thought the butter was rancid, but we soon got used to it, and it went very well with the Turkish bread of which there was ample supply. Breakfast was on the whole an enjoyable affair, with coddled eggs, a wide selection of cheeses, jams, cured meats and olives.

We decided not to be too adventurous for the rest of the day. It was hot and humid, and we were not inclined to stray too far from the hotel. We were informed that we were within a few minutes’ walk of the Grand Bazaar and with that in mind we ventured out into the streets. Having spent time in many of the world’s major cities including Paris, New York and Tokyo, I was still completely unprepared for the intensity of this overwhelming metropolis. It truly was a confluence of east meets west with wonderful old buildings with towering turrets and minarets hemmed in on all sides by high density three and four storey apartments, shop front workshops, barber shops, rug merchants and tailors. Wall mounted air conditioners dripped condensate on to the heads of passers-by (at least I hope that is what it was). Wires were strung haphazardly from building to building and trucks and delivery vans negotiated narrow streets accompanied always by honking horns and much waving of arms and loud voices.

We didn’t get to the Bazaar. We wandered around browsing for perhaps an hour and then returned to the sanctity of our hotel to check out the swimming pool. Perhaps it was the disinterest of our relative youth, or the weather, or the prospect of the job ahead, but neither of us were in the mood for being tourists.

We ate in the hotel that night and were collected the following morning at an early hour for the two hour car ride to the ship.

Suddenly, we were part of that throng again, as our driver honked his way north through the morning traffic toward the main boulevard and the road leading to Asia.

In 1975 there was only one road route across the Bosporus. Built two years earlier the single span suspension bridge was at the time the world’s fourth largest. Today there are two additional bridges plus a highway tunnel; but back then the Bosporus Bridge was the highway to Asia. It turned out to be the highlight of a singularly unappealing journey as the sprawl of Istanbul continued on the other side of the bridge and soon merged into further industrial areas as our driver, clearly on a mission to break the speed record between the two points hurtled towards our destination.

It was thus with a genuine feeling of relief that we farewelled Turkey’s answer to Niki Lauda and made our way up the gangway of Lindinger Gold as she lay alongside the wharf at Derince. It was like coming home.

Gold was less than two years old with a gross tonnage of around 2,000 tonnes and in almost every way identical to her sister ships in the fleet. Our little cabin was the same – starboard side main deck, a window looking forward on to the main cargo deck and another one looking seaward just above the lifeboat.

She’d had tied up in the early hours that morning having arrived overnight from Constanta, about 18 hours away on the Black Sea coast of Romania. My predecessor had been hospitalised in Constanta and the ship had travelled with two engineers instead of the normal three, so, if nothing else, from that respect they were happy to see me.

The holds were loaded with machinery. We were due to spend another day in port before returning to the Black Sea and the Bulgarian port of Burgas.

We settled in. I re-familiarised myself with the lovely 18-cylinder B&W main engine, introduced myself to the ship’s cook (always someone to stay on the right side of), checked that the spare parts were all in order and, as far as I was concerned we were good to go. Looking back nearly 50 years later, I will say this about the Lindinger company – they knew how to build reliable, comfortable seaworthy ships – some of those ships are still in service today.

There was a period during the 1960s and 1970s when it was a great time to be an engineer or a deck officer in the Merchant Navy. Positions were plentiful particularly for engineers and the pay and conditions had improved considerably. Lindinger was a good company who generally seemed to employ good, competent people.  Unfortunately these golden days were not going to last.

I recently came across an article in the Danish maritime magazine Søfart (Shipping) which is worth sharing.

Lindinger’s owner, Asger Lindinger, was a businessman, mountaineer, skydiver and adventurer who ran a successful and profitable business importing agricultural chemicals. In order to reduce taxation he took advantage of a Danish government aided scheme which involved him launching a shipping company. He began by buying a fleet of small coasters and ferries.

In 1971, he increased the size of the company and started building his own ships. He brought in other investors, but unlike most companies who profited by selling the ships at a price higher than the construction cost, Lindinger offered the equity at the newbuilding price.

Eight ships suitable for general cargo were built in Germany with the first ship, the 3,000 ton Lindinger Amber delivered in 1972. He started a naming system where subsequent ships were delivered in alphabetical order with names of gemstones. In the first series, were Brilliant, Coral, Diamond, Emerald, Facet, Gold and Hyacinth. Then in 1974 a new series of twelve larger ships began. Lindinger Ivory came first with Lindinger Unique in 1977 the last in the series. Then the money ran out.

The ships were popular and flexible and were widely used for sailing to the newly oil-rich countries of West Africa who were importing a lot of building materials and other goods.

After the oil crisis in 1973, the ships became more expensive to operate.  The market for these type of ships became less favourable with most cargo now shipped in containers. Lindinger's finances took a turn for the worse and in 1978 he filed for bankruptcy and the company closed down.

But this was 1975 and from our perspective, it was a Goldilocks age. We left Derince early the next morning and within a few hours were back within sight of the Bosporus Bridge, this time from below as we sailed under it, through the straits and into the Black Sea.

Burgas is a large seaport in Bulgaria about a half a day’s sailing away and we arrived later that evening.

The following morning was a day off for us and Pauline and I left early to explore what the town had to offer. The ship was sitting low in the water as we wandered down the gangway, through the docks area, across the railway line and towards the town centre. It was oppressively hot and humid with the mercury in the high 30s and barely a breath of wind. We were soon out of the docks area and found ourselves in a wide avenue walking past some serious architecture with monuments and sculptures presumably honouring the wars against oppression and the success of collective socialism. Aging single deck buses rumbled by alongside Ladas and Moskvitchs and the occasional Renault or Fiat.

We eventually came to a road sign which pointed straight ahead to “плаж” (plage). Thoughtfully, as well as the Cyrillic text it also had written beneath it the simple word “beach”. We continued on and soon came to a white pavilion and a wide beach teeming with locals enjoying their Black Sea Riviera. I have since learnt that Bulgaria has many highly popular tourist destinations, notably Sunny Beach resort some 30 or 40 km to the north of Burgas, but I would be lying if I said that Burgas Beach brought immediate visions to mind of our two weeks on the Barrier Reef in North Queensland less than 12 months earlier.

The sand was fine but quite discoloured, probably from organic matter. It was not the most appealing body of water that I had seen. Hopefully it is much improved today, but in 1975 The Black Sea received pollution from at least four major rivers disgorging a significant level of contaminated water into this deep and cold sea.

We didn’t stay long. We were getting hungry and were ready for a cold drink. We made our way back through the city and came upon a pleasing little café just off the main road with a shaded outside eating area. We sat inside by the window, away from the street noise, and where it was somewhat cooler beneath the customary large fan. We asked for wine and were brought a bottle of white Dimyat the mostly widely produced wine from this area of Northern Thrace. It was light and dry and went down handsomely with the bread and olive oil which had been put before us.

We had not been there long when a familiar face came into view. It was Jens, our blonde and bearded chief mate who walked into the café looking for all the world like he too was ready for a drink. He saw us, flashed his wide Scandinavian smile and said, “Just what I am looking for, can I join you?” – and he did.

The next few hours passed quickly and pleasantly. There was more white wine consumed. Food arrived consisting of white cheese, pickled vegetables and a local salami and at Jens’ insistence, a round (or maybe two) of a local highly potent fruit brandy called rakia. “Nazdrave!”, we all cried, more than once as I recall.

We were due to sail in the morning so eventually, Pauline and I decided to make our way back to the ship leaving Jens and our Bulgarian hosts to continue to share toasts and enjoy the fellowship.

This is where things took a turn for the worse. As we walked out of the bar and into the evening air, we soon realised that what five minutes ago promised to be a pleasant early evening stroll back to our ship, had become a task more challenging than expected. It may have been the pickled cucumber, or perhaps the lukanka, but I would be lying if I said that we were not just a little less than steady on our feet. We weaved our way, in what we hoped was the direction we had travelled earlier in the day. The task was not improved by my wise choice of purchasing a half dozen bottles of the fine Bulgarian wine we had enjoyed so much that afternoon.

It was indeed quite an effort. I may have tripped once or twice, and to this day, I maintain that there was much debris on the ground, particularly as we crossed and recrossed the railway siding that seemed to take up a lot more of the dock area than it had earlier in the day. Even Pauline lost her footing once or twice, which was made all the more difficult by the need to keep putting my case of wine carefully down, before helping Pauline to regain her footing.

Eventually we arrived at our ship and stood at the foot of the gangway. Something had changed since we left the ship sitting low in the water with a horizontal gangway a few hours ago. Now with the tide having risen, and the ship having discharged its cargo, we were staring up at a gangway at an impossible angle. How on earth was I to get myself, Pauline and the case of wine, up that steep incline.

My fears were alleviated as a uniformed guard, our knight in shining epaulettes, looking like he had just come from a session guarding Lenin’s tomb, swiftly came down from the top of the gangway where he had been keeping vigil. He gently placed Pauline over one shoulder, with his Kalashnikov still slung over the other, and with no more effort than if were carrying a small roll of carpet, bounded up the gangway and deposited her safely on board. I bravely followed, bearing my goods, and with as much dignity as I could marshal, stepped over the gunwale and on to the deck. I thanked him for his help and offered him a bottle of wine to which he politely declined with a smile and held open the watertight door as we entered the passageway to our cabin and home.

We sailed at dawn the next day, and I confess, that I was feeling just a little frail all through my 6 to 12 watch that morning. Pauline was still sleeping, so I left her to her own devices and spent the afternoon on the wing of the bridge, watching as we approached again the entry to the Bosporus and made our way into the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles. We had a week of hopefully fine weather sailing ahead of us to our next port of call at the other end of the Mediterranean.

That evening a very subdued Pauline joined everyone in the Officer’s Mess for the evening meal.

Jens beamed across the table at her, “Velbekommen Pauline. You will be excited to hear about our next destination. We’re going to Cartagena, and they have the most excellent red wine there – you’ll love it!”

Pauline looked across at him, looked back down at her plate and very softly with more than a touch of irony in her voice returned the traditional Danish greeting. “Velbekommen”, was all she said.

 

Footnote: For some unaccountable reason, the white wine didn’t quite live up to expectation once we had left the Black Sea  - maybe it just didn't travel.

 

North Sea Interlude

The bright red intra-city train slowed gently to a stop at Skoppum Station.  With a sigh the doors effortlessly slid apart, and a handful of Monday lunchtime travellers began to disembark.

In stark contrast to the haste earlier that morning of hurrying to catch the first flight from London Heathrow, the smooth journey from Oslo Central had been a pleasant and relaxing interlude. As the train meandered south, we watched impeccable red and orange and yellow two storey homes with inviting balconies and steeply slanted roofs slide past our window while Oslofjord lay tranquil to the east and the craggy snow-tipped peaks of Vestfold looked down at us from the west.

We recovered our bags, made our way on to the platform and out into the street and were very soon in a taxi headed for our ship waiting for us at Horten Harbour.

Half an hour later, we stood on the quay staring at what would be our home for the next few months not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Unlike the alphabet of Lindinger cargo vessels I’d served on over the previous two years, there wasn’t a lot of ship to look at.

At just 50 metres long and 300 tonnes dead weight, with a ungainly radio tower reaching as high into the sky as her length, Lindinger Surveyor looked like she might have trouble staying upright in a mild breeze, let alone the charms that the North Sea was sure to offer in coming weeks. Sharply decked out in the now familiar navy blue and black Lindinger colours, she bobbed up and down in the water when anything larger than a small motor launch came within a few metres.

But, for all that, there was something workmanlike about her appearance. A pair of squat oval smokestacks took up much of the space on her after deck and just below on the poop deck was a long red horizontal cylinder which I would soon learn was a hyperbaric chamber, used by the on-board divers.

Acquired in the 1970s from shipping company DFDS, Lindinger Surveyor was on charter to BP with the task of surveying the route for a 36-inch diameter pipeline being constructed to deliver crude oil from the Ninian Platform in the North Sea, 175 kilometres to Sullom Voe Terminal on Shetland Island. The job was to be carried out by the laybarge, Viking Piper and we would be meeting up with her at Lerwick later that month.

Apart from the excitement or apprehension (depending upon your perspective) of pottering around in the North Sea for a few months, it was a step up for me. Lindinger Surveyor carried only two engineers, and my role as “Maskinchef” (Chief Engineer) included the responsibility of looking after the 800 HP German-built MaK and rest of the auxiliary equipment. Anyone who has been paying attention to my maritime experiences up to this point may have noticed my fondness for a dependable supply of spare parts. The only place I could imagine being worse than the North Atlantic for a steering gear failure was likely to be the North Sea. It was pleasing therefore to note that Surveyor appeared to be well-endowed in this area.

Innovative navigation technology was a prerequisite for the critical tasks which faced the industry in the hostile environment of the North Sea. Navigation by sextant and dead reckoning wasn’t going to cut it here. A state of the art computerised Decca Navigation System was in the process of being installed on Lindinger Surveyor. A similar system was also installed on Viking Piper. This answered my question as to the rationale behind the huge radio mast.

Although clearly not my field of expertise, I was informed that the system being installed was among the world’s finest in high end navigation technology allowing the position of the pipeline to be determined within a few metres as it was being laid on the ocean floor. During the first few days as the tests were being carried out in Horten Harbour, all I could see on entering the wheelhouse were yards of perforated paper tape strewn over the bridge deck. I’m told that our early location tests had Surveyor positioned everywhere from the middle of the fjord to downtown Oslo.

It was a thorough process which included test runs offshore where the system was fine-tuned to the required limits. During these seagoing tests, we were continually shadowed by a nondescript fishing boat, identified by those in the know as a Soviet trawler. Oddly however, the trawler never seemed to have any fishing poles or nets in view and the consensus was that our navigation systems were of interest to governments other than ours – paranoia perhaps, but this was the height of the Cold War.

A couple more days were spent in Horten while the specialists worked at perfecting the system and those of us not involved in the process, sought in vain to find somewhere in Norway a reasonably priced glass of beer.

At the end of the week we left Horten on what was a relatively short 500 mile trip northwest to Lerwick. The sea was surprising calm, Pauline was only slightly sick, and the MaK engine performed as I had come to expect from German marine engineering – beautifully. Despite her ungainly appearance, or perhaps because of it, Surveyor acted impeccably, and I was looking forward to getting to know her better.

During the three days it took us to arrive at Lerwick, I had the opportunity to learn a little more about the role of the divers. In these first few days they were doing little more than checking and testing equipment, but over the next few months their saturation diving activities would include long hours in a pressurised atmosphere either in the deep water of the pipeline route or in the hyperbaric chamber between dives. It was a dangerous, but critical role, and one that I suspected fluctuated widely between high adrenaline activity and long periods of boredom.

Our first stop was in the north of Shetland at Sullom Voe terminal where we had our first encounter with Viking Piper. This would allow the telecom specialists to finish the process of synchronising the positioning system and for our skipper and chief mate to get to know at first hand their pipelaying partners.

As we came around the headland at Sullom Voe, the world’s newest and biggest laybarge was at anchor in the middle of the sound about 100 metres offshore. She was enormous and I would have given my eye teeth to have been one of the party who went on board her for a few hours that afternoon – sadly that was never to happen.

Viking Piper was to provide a pipelaying service in many parts of the world over the next 40 years or so and her story is a tale of excellence in maritime engineering. On this day however, she was brand new and yet to lay her first pipe.

The idea of semisubmersible laybarge which would manage the challenges of undersea pipe laying in North Sea weather began in the early 1970s. Viking Piper became the largest and most modern lay vessel in existence. Built over two years in the Netherlands utilising innovative construction techniques she was designed to lay what was described as the mother of all pipelines – the 36-inch line across the terrifying Norwegian Trench from the oil field at Ninian to the terminal on Shetland. She began operation later that summer and completed 40% of the project within its first two months of operation.

There is an excellent documentary showing her in operation here and I urge anyone with the slightest interest to look at it – you won’t be disappointed.

After overnighting at anchor in Sullom Voe, we travelled the few miles south that morning to Lerwick where we received, what was for me at the time, unwelcome and disappointing news.

The operator of the Ninian pipeline project, and Lindinger’s client, was BP Oil. On learning that the new Chief Engineer of Lindinger Surveyor, (me) had his wife on board, the charterer was insistent that since it was BP policy not to have women on their ships in any part of the world, Pauline would have to leave. Their policy extended to vessels under charter to BP. The policy was reversed several years later, but at that time, if I wished to remain on board the ship, I would have to do so alone.

I loved my job and didn’t want to enter into a dispute with my employer, and I also didn’t want to lose the opportunity to be part of this milestone project, but most importantly the idea of Pauline going home was not something either of us wanted to consider.

Lindinger’s marine superintendent, Fru Bielefeld (yes, a woman) had travelled with us from Horten and was thus on hand to represent the company’s interests. She made it clear that the company valued my services and didn’t want to lose me, but they were not going to damage the relationship with their new client over a personnel issue. This was a lucrative long-term charter. I quite understood their position.

A compromise was proposed. Owing to an untimely illness, there was a requirement for a first engineer on one of the other vessels in the Lindinger fleet and a replacement had been scheduled to head out within the next day or so. If I was willing to take his place and be relocated (with Pauline), he could be reassigned to Surveyor and would travel to Lerwick within two days. We agreed.

A few days later, having enjoyed a brief but very pleasant pause in Lerwick, (absolutely on our list of “must go back someday”) and with a new and slightly bemused Maskinchef installed on Lindinger Surveyor, Pauline and I left from Lerwick’s Sumburgh Airport for Aberdeen, the first leg of our journey to our next ship, Lindinger Gold.

She would be waiting for us in Izmit in the Sea of Marmara about 100 km east of Istanbul.

Now if only we had thought to bring summer clothing!