Hurrah! Day 4, we arrive somewhere! My memory of this day is quite clear yet the log is surprisingly bland. This is called “lying by omission.” I’ve left out that on the main street, my group of five uniformed schoolgirls was stopped by a group of young Gibraltarian men who engaged us, teased us and reminded us of why we were on this cruise in the first place, i.e. multicultural exchange, a.k.a. meeting boys. We’d been warned to steer clear of playful apes; no one mentioned playful boys. A curly-headed heart-throb in tight jeans and granddad t-shirt tried to give me the cross from around his neck in exchange for…today I remembered what…phone number, address, a kiss? No, he wanted a badge from my grey school blazer. Why didn’t I give it to him? I could’ve displayed his cross later like a badge of honor. What a pipsqueak I was then. We got told off later for flirting. Miss Rowe, our prehistoric headmistress (40), had seen us, said we were naughty. She was not a nice person. She was once disrespectful to my mother; I loathed her. When I think about those from my past I’d like to forgive, her face often appears. Hm, I guess I haven’t forgiven her yet. According to the Navigational Log, I brought the ship into harbor without incident.
29/10/71
Gibraltar
Personal Log: Fourth Day
The first lesson this morning, we went up to the bridge. I found this very interesting and took several photographs. The wind was gale force 3 and made life very difficult! We then proceeded to the assembly hall for an extremely enjoyable talk by Miss Salter on the geography of the Mediterranean. Today we went ashore to Gibraltar. We were late disembarking because Miss Rowe forgot her camera. We managed to get a taxi, after some trouble bartering with other drivers, with a driver who was terribly sweet. He took us to the caves, the apes dens, the Moorish castle, the Catelene fishing village, the huge water catchments and finally, the main street. It had a very pleasant shopping centre and I had great fun bartering with shopkeepers. They got very annoying when they kept trying to impress us and show us more goods that we were not interested in. The leather was very cheap. In the evening, after having re-embarked there was a dance with a good group called “The Moking Birds.” All in all, it was an enjoyable day.
Navigational Log:
0400-0800 Morning Watch
7:42 Sunrise. Navigation lights off. Look outs dismissed.
0800-1200 Forenoon Watch
0900 vessel passing c. Trafalgar; 10:00 vessel passing through Gibraltar Straights; 11:15 vessel approaching Gibraltar. Vessel to commanders orders and vessel to hand steering.
1200-1600 Afternoon Watch
12:12 Stand by below. 12:18 Stations fore and aft. Pilot on board. 12:30 Tugs fast fore and aft. Vessel approaching berth starboard side. 12:40 Lines ashore fore and aft. 12:42 lines and one spring fast for and aft. 12:50 Run off main engines. Let go tugs.
I'd have given up a pinky finger to have made such a trip as a young person. Didn't make it overseas until I was 39. Thanks for the vicarious trip to the past.