Resumption......

It has been a while since I last posted, mainly through inertia and slow Internet connection speeds, very frustrating when you try to post something and your connection resets before you have finished writing and you have to start again.

Done a few things since leaving Misurata last August 1st (2011).

Went ballooning, bought a boat, sailed it down the west African coast, ran it up the Sierra Leone river transferring security guards to/from ore ships at anchor, learnt about diesel engines and generators, done some diving inspecting anchors and sinkers, visited UK and latterly lost my mum

 
 who died recently.

It was after this last event and the family gathering and enough family asking when I was going to post again that I have resuscitated this blog.

More later, and I will add some pictures when I get back home as I am now in Shrewsbury, UK, winding up mum's estate.

Misurata

Still in Libya, now I am in Misurata. This city is very quiet at present as most of the men are at the front fighting the forces of Gadaffi and striving for freedom from tyrany.

Me I'm getting fed up with it and want to move on.I could do with a good meal but restaurants are still closed and the so called chef in the hotel can only cook with lots of oil. He even drowns pasta in oil, really don't know how he manages it but I cannot eat stuff like that. I tried for a while but then my diabetes kicked in and my sugar levels went through the roof so I stopped. The by product of this lousy chef is that I have lost a fair bit of weight in the last 6 weeks.

A BTS shelter

A Tank

Safety first, even in wartime ! 

Molotovs and fire extinguisher.

Nicking Networks.

Been pretty busy these last 3 months stealing GSM networks off of bad guys and getting them working for the people espousing democracy and the power of the ballot box, even though they are using bullets to get that freedom.

Just made the first call in the new xxxxxxxx mobile phone network. 2nd new network brought to this troubled country.

Found this lying in the street.

Found these in the market.

Tried to stop here for a cup of tea, but I guess it is closed for a while.

Xmas

Into another new year and I just hope it will be better than the last one, which was pretty shit in parts.

Over xmas I was busy refloating a ship and securing it to a new mooring and piloting a boat up and down the Sierra Leone river.

Cat 1, 15 passenger capacity, cruising speed 20kn.

 
The ship was the Fotherby, owned by a friend of mine, which ran aground during a storm back in October. luckily for him it managed to hit the only bit of beach in a quarter mile of rocks. had to wait for the spring tide on Dec 23rd to re-float it as in Nov the catamaran we used to tow it had her engines out for service.

Fotherby on the beach.

 

 

 

Cat 1 with tow rope attached.

As the pictures show we tried to do this during the day but failed as the tide was just not high enough. The highest tide was at 9pm so we had to attempt this in the dark which caused its own problems. Fistly we only had a searchlight on the cat and a couple of torches on the Fotherby. Along with this we had a slight language problem with the locals never fully listening to you but guessing what you want and doing what they think you want. i had a Brit driving the cat and a yank on the Fotherby ensuring the rope was tied securely. The problem was with the run around boat which was manned by a couple of local lads trying very hard not to get things wrong. Only they tried too hard and were guessing what was needed and were not always where they were needed. Anyway all came together with a bit of shouting and swearing and we managed to get the Fotherby on the anchorage we set a few days before. This time she will NOT drag or break her moorings as we have her on a half ton anchor and great big heavy chain. now all that is needed is to get the engines checked out and have her back in service.

Fotherby floats.

After this came the back to back thrashing of the Aussies in the Ashes. Don't mind being up all night for 5 days running when England are putting the aussies to the sword with innings defeats.

Have become involved in a new bar project along with driving boats and diving. A bar is being built by the jetty where the cat is docked sitting out over the sea. unfortunately as with everything else here it is a very slow process as there is no sense of urgency in this place. We are hoping to be open before the 50th anirversary of independence in April.

New bar ....... eventually.

Happy new year to you all.

New bar

I am working on the design and build of a new bar. It will NOT be another sports bar but a different sort of place built over the sea and have a nautical theme. At present it is just a bunch of concrete legs sticking up from the beach. We hope to be open sometime in the new year, around March in plenty of time for the 50th anniversary of independence. More later.

Captain Mick

After I finished Ballooning I returned to the UK and went on an RYA dayskipper course to learn how to handle a motor cruiser. The first week was classroom based and should have lasted 5 days but as I was the only one in the class and can pick things up pretty quickly the instructor managed to stretch it to 4 days with lots of inconsequential chatter. Lots of new things to take on board like reading tide tables and tidal stream data from an almanac, navigating in tidal waterways using this data chart plotter and admiralty charts. All good stuff if you can get this information but I seriously doubt that the almanac for Freetown has yet been written.

Managed to get the hang of the navigation bit pretty easily and completed the final exam with only one mistake which was due to poor wording in the test paper.

The second week was much tougher as it meant learning how to control a 40' motor cruiser. Never having been on anything this size, the only boat I has driven prior to this was a 14' Warrior with a 115hp outboard, it proved an interesting new experience. Once I learnt how to manoever this craft at slow speed using just the engines it becane a lot easier. Even managed to drive ir backwards round a slalom course with a strong crosswind. Also had to perform a man overboard recovery and learn piloting during the day and in the dark. Helpful that there are buoys with lights in Falmouth herbour and the Carrick roads although wasted in Freetown as there is only a safe water mark at the mouth of the deep water channel.

Anyway managed to do enough that the instructor signed off on my ticket and therefore I am now a fully acredited captain of a small motor cruiser of less that 24m. Although only up to 20 miles from shore. Will need to get 2,500 hours under my belt before I can go for the full yachtmaster certificate allowing me free reign of the worlds oceans.

Hence the Captain Mick title.

Ballooning.

Am now in the US and again at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Having a great time except for the 3:15am getting out of bed, at least it saves me from trying to beat jetlag.:-)


The weather was predicted to start raining after the first mass ascension on Saturday and last all week. The forecasters are as bad here as they are back in Blighty. We have had a wonderful week flying. Only bad spots were Wednesday when it was my turn in the basket where we put up and then the winds on the field picked up and Keith decided to rip out after we had moved about 4 feet still tethered. Shortest flight of the week. Made up for it an Thursday though when I had a flight of around 70 minuted and flew north west over the Rio Grande and Corales and landed in a vacant lot west of Hwy 528 near the dog spa. Yes here they even have spas for pooches where they can stay for a few days and swim in the pool, get a massage and their skin toned etc just like a spa for people. There are some really messed up people over here who would waste money on that sort of shite.

Friday was the only day we did not try to fly as the winds were a bit strong and a couple of rain showers came across the field with a front that moved from the west and over the mountains.

Did all the usual things, visited Old Town and the Candy Lady for some of the best chocolates around, bought new clothes in the sales, ate lots of food smothered in chillies, made and ate lots and lots of jelly shots.

2 Hours in 5 minutes

In UK

Been out of Africa for a few weeks now and having a great time. Spent two weeks in the UK visiting mum and son whilst having plenty of real ale and some very nice wine supplied by Naked Wines, who deliver.

It is good to be back in a place where everything you always took for granted can be taken for granted. Never a worry about running out into the rain to start a generator, not being stopped by the police for a licence check near the end of the month for no real reason. Being able to buy what you want from the shops and bars rather than what they want to sell you.Good internet speeds and, congestion on the phones and TV that works even in the rain.

Cannot show any pictures yet as I did not manage to get my camera released from police custody as yet. Seems that the case is still ongoing, only been 4 months.

Lorcan is fine and busy working hard. He and girlfriend are in the process of buying a flat in Helston. Managed to spend a day with him which was good.

On Holiday

Left Freetown last Tuesday for England. BMI changed the plane and the departure time without much notice even the check-in staff did not know the layout of the aircraft and even though I asked for and was given a seat by the exit, I ended up stuck near the back with an inconsiderate twonk in front of me. He was the first to lean his seat back and give me even less room. He even complained to stewardess when I kept 'accidently' hitting the seat. Dumb bint then moaned at me even though she could see how little room I had.

Back in London went to get train to Shrewsbury from Marylebone. Odd pricing structure single £39 1 month return £40. Three hours to kill so had bacon for breakfast and found a pub open. Nearly fell over £3.80 for a pint. Savanna cider that I was selling for the equivalent of £1.50 was priced at £3.90

Train was nice, clean, uncrowded and on time.

Off to a beer festival this evening, no real ale for 9 months and now a feast. mmmmmm

restrictions

The reason the blog is now restricted is because somebody, a welsh person I think, has anonymously plastered my blog on a Sierra Leone website and pointed out the bad things that I have said. Unfortunately even though I have only stated what has happened to me and my reading of certain situations it has caused a stir here. I am being told that 'this brit' has slagged off the government and all the government institutions in the country.

Unfortunately before I found out that I could restrict the site I had decided to erase any mention of this country. Well if history can be airbrushed I am sure I can sanitise my blog.

Once I am out of here who knows what will be written! Especially when I find out who is stirring the shit.

Meanwhile invited people only. If you know of someone who reads this but hasn't been invited please let me know or get them to drop me a mail.

End of Fiesta.

Another AIBF comes to an end with all flying cancelled on the last day due to high winds. In all we did not fly on three days due to wind (2) and rain. The rest were great flying days. I managed a flight on Tuesday and had another great one, although the landing was pretty boring, a soft one with a couple of hops and a gentle stand-up landing. I much prefer when we come in at over 20mph and bounce, hit, crash and drag along the ground. When you walk away from those the adrenaline is certainly pumping.


We flew south of the field



past the balloon museum,



Over other balloons,


and little boxes laid out in neat rows, how boring,

Glad I don't live in places like this.

Looking back more were taking off,


Later that day when we were back at the field Keith was approached by a guy who asked if we could fly a banner in memory of a US marine killed in Afghanistan. As Keith and Tina are both ex-marines, and fly a flag from the back of the chase truck, they readily agreed. All we know about the marine is that he was called Sebastian, came from Santa Fe and died about 6 weeks ago. We took some pictures of the balloon flying the banner and Tina will try to find the man's mother who gave the banner to the guy who passed it to us.

In memory of Sebastian USMC, RIP.

The last week seems to have taken a lot longer as getting up hours before dawn, having 2 breakfasts a day as well as multiple naps daily stretches ones concept of time.
It affects some worse that others.

Ray taking another nap!

Sometimes looking out from the field it seems that the whole sky is filled with balloons


Finally the best banner seen on the back of a chase vehicle was this one showing that with age comes enlightenment:

Fiesta

On my holidays again ....... when am I not I hear you ask :-)

Had a few days in England where I visited the Blue Anchor in Helston whilst staying with my friend Robin.

Robin

Fiesta started with a pretty good day. Up at 03:30, to the field by 05:30 for breakfast which consisted of green chillie chicken soup which was very good.

Dawn patrol took off by 06:45 before sun-up and flew in all directions as there was a box forming.

Dawn Patrol

For those who do not know a box forms when the drain winds coming from the mountains are in the opposite direction from the ground winds. Today the ground winds were from the South whilst the winds higher up were from the north. This enabled many balloons to fly over the field a few times.

With The first two days always being mass assencion days, for the weekend crowds, we were in the second wave of over 500 balloons registered.

Mass ascension

After seeing the first wave fill the skies and head off into the distance,

The first wave goes

We inflated and launched Keith in SkyAngel off into the wide blue yonder.

Keith, Dennis and Sandra in SkyAngel

Amost there.

It has finally happened - I have sold the house. Exchanged contracts last Thursday and have to be out by Wednesday 1st July.

Have a busy weekend with the boys coming round and getting what they want in the way of furniture and stuff. Lorcan wants my bed so I will be on the floor for a few days, but so what I have slept in worse situations.

Just have to push her to get the divorce finalised now and I will be free, for a while.

Nearly there...

The house saga is slowly coming to a close. We have agreed a price and signed contracts, although she decided to dig in her heels one more time and threatened not to sign as she would not 'be rushed' into moving out. Can't quite see that one as the house has been on the market for over 30 months and we accepted this offer just after I went to China for 5 weeks.

Anyway we are awaiting contract exchange which hopefully should be this week and completion in a fortnight.

Freedom awaits......

Enough for now, three posts in one morning and my fingers are getting worn out, must away to the Blue for some libation.....

Wembley.... again.

On my return to England I met up with my son in London and we went to the new Wembley stadium for the second time. This trip much more important as Millwall were there in the League one play-off final. (For those unfamiliar with the English football league system this is the old third division).

Anyway who cares why we were there the fact that we were there was enough of a reason for around 48,000 Millwall fans to cross the globe, or venture across the river, to cheer on the lads to a historic first win at the place. Previouse finals were the AWS cup in 1999 (1-0 loss) at the old Wembley and a 3-0 drubbing my Man Utd at the Millenium stadium in Cardiff in 2004.

This time it was going to be different, we were going to WIN, despite not being the in form team, having lost to scunthorpe twice during the regular season, having a young team who had never played there before where the opposition were there earlier this season in the paint pot final (Johnsons paint trophy), or having played in front of such a huge crowd. A record for League one play-off finals 59661.

Crowd segregation - Millwall to the left. Again we completely dominated the crowd with over 80% of the support, like a very big home game.

After going a goal behing against the run op play we hauled ourselves back into it through goals by Gary Alexander,

The first having been described as the best seen at the new stadium to date, a 30 yard screamer into the far top corner, Alexander on right of picture..

The second a header just beating the keeper and crawling over the line.

This was as good as it got. Two silly mistakes at the back, one a goalkeeping howler left us on the wrong end of a 2-3 scoreline.

All in all after wanting to rip northern monkeys to shreds for a few hours, which you will be pleased to hear I did not act upon as I was playing the responsible parent as Lorcan was even worse than me. Probably as I have 30 years more of Millwall letting me down than he has and although it still hurts I am slowly becoming used to it.

Surreal moment of the day came back at the underground station where I found myself going down the stairs side by side with a guy I once spent 29 hours in jail, in Cleethorpes, with. A story for another time, although some may have heard it already.

Roll on next season..........

Journey into the unknown.

Some journeys are real eye-openers!

After finishing in Qingdao we headed for Chongming County, an Island off of Shanghai. A journey of almost epic proportions as it involved travel by car plane and boat. Getting to Shanghai was the easy part, a taxi and a plane, done thousands of times each day.

On arrival at Pudong we, John and I, foolishly went looking for a hotel shuttle bus as we thought the hotel was in Shanghai. John had been told that when the initial install had been done the guys had to get a ferry every day to the site. How wrong can you get!!!

After finding that the only shuttle busses serviced the two hotels next to the airport we secured a taxi only to find that at an international airport they spoke chineese only. This is where mobile phones really come into their own as we gave the driver the hotel details and he just called.

An hour later we were unceremoniously dumped out of the taxi onto the street somewhere in Shanghai. Baffled and confused we watched helplessly as our luggage was transferred to another car. What can one do when language is a barrier but shrug and go with the flow. The second taxi then roared off onto another elevated highway and headed for the industrial part of town. we were full of trepidation with what sort of hotel we were booked into, concerned that it may be a dockside seamans mission type place handy for the ferry and full of working girls!

Fears relieved somewhat as we sailed on past the docks and headed for the power stations. Finally we parked up in a queue of traffic waiting for a ferry, the taxi was taking us across to the island.

Thankfully not by this boat....

...but by this one instead.

Another link to Sierra Leone in that these are the only times I have has to get a boat to a work site yet.

After chugging an hour and a half across one of the busiest waterways in the east, if not the world, dodging an assortment of craft from huge bulk carriers to little coastal tramp steamers we arrived in Chongming which did not look all together too bad as it seemed lively enough and a busy little town.

Didn't really matter what the town was like as the driver drove straight through heading for the countryside as if a brigade of taliban were on our tails. Seems that once you are away from civilisation there are no speed limits except for the vehicle's own limitations. The guy was clearly beyond his and I was just thankful that the taxi wasn't new or we may not have made our destination. Was also pleased that the roads were mainly straight so not too many turns where we were grabbing for the 'fuck' handles, you know the ones above the door you grab and scream 'OH FUCK' when hurtling round corners to stop rear seat passengers from injuring each other.

After what seemed like forever, and at least 5 stops for directions we eventually were dumped out at what must surely be the remotest hotel in China. If you had a map of the middle of nowhere then this place would not even be marked on it, it was beyond there.


If it wasn't for the trees I swear you would be able to see the edge of the world!

To top it off and make it seem even more remote it was a pretty big place,



with its own lake.....


.... empty swimming pool.....


....... gym in a corridor......

.....and one other guest......


...who was a noisy little bugger that was up at the crack of dawn shouting and hollering as if there was no-one else around to disturb.

So if you ever find yourself in the Shanghai Dong Tang International Conference Centre remember the following

1. It is not in Shanghai,
2. It is not international as Chineese is about the only thing spoken
3. What little English is used mainly consists of NO.
4. Take a shotgun for the bloody cockerel.

Spent 10 days there installing equipment in a cable station 10 minutes drive away. Would have been 20 but for all taxi drivers on the island thinking they were competing in an F1 race.

Had fun though as even at world's end one has to make the best of things. The guys, John and Sean, were good to work with but eventually became fed up with my relentless quest for knowlege. After a week of 'why do they do it this way?' and 'Wouldn't it be better if we did it that way?' and other annoying questions I was finally told 'Don't ask why, just install the bloody stuff'. Kept forgetting why I was there.

Qingdao... contiued

Qingdao - pronounced Chin dao - is not as plastic as I first thought. Had the wrong impression as we are staying in the business district. Which is brand new with nice wide streets and plenty of tower blocks, not very interesting.

A couple of days ago we went 'downtowm' and found the old heart of the city. Lots of German archeticture as it was occupied up until 1949. The govenors house, a church, a cathedral and the prison still stand although they are now used by the communist party.

Many of the sights that were shown on a little map were either well hidden or in different locations as we could not find them. Gave up looking after a few hours and went to Old Jack's Cafe a great little bar near the hotel.

What we did find was the following.

A cathedral, who's I don't know as the dedication was in chineese, but think St Mary as there was a statue to her in the garden.

A pagoda at the end of the pier with a lighthouse on the distant island.

A German hunting and fishing lodge overlooking No 2 beach, yes another beach with that name., although this one is officially called Taiping bay.

No 2 beach Qingdao, not to be confused with....

No 2 beach Sierra Leone.

Down on the beach and all over the rocks there were what seemed like hundreds of wedding couples with photographers posing for the pictures of their happy day. Not sure if it was a special day for weddings or it was a daily occurance but there were an awful lot of them for a daily occurance, unless every couple the weds in Qingdao has to get their photo taken on the beach under an old bylaw or ancient charter or somesuch!

Away from the beach area, which was right downtown as Qingdao sits on a promontory that juts out into Jiaozhou bay, a natural deep water harbour on the Yellow sea, we found a mixture of old and new buildings. Like most cities some were nice and some ugly, others just plain bizzare.

Mixture of old and new.

The culture market, newish in an old style. In here were many stalls selling pearls and watches at dirt cheap prices.


Bizzarely there was a family of three bridges going nowhere, and indeed coming from nowhere. Maybe a job training exercise for apprentice concrete pourers. The apprentice demolition team will be by later to take them down, maybe?

Chineese fortune tellers on the steps by the bridges to nowhere. Maybe they know what it is all about, although they won't tell unless palms are crossed with silver Yuans and a translator is employed.

All in all a pretty interesting place, but full of little chineese people and some of the worst driving I have seen outside Italy and Cairo.

At last an offer.

The day before I left, Saturday 18th, we had a third viewing of the house by a couple from Mullion, this time with their builder. This arrangement sounded very positive as they wanted to get estimates from him on work they would like to do to convert part of the house into a self-contained flat. Unfortunately the mad woman was in one of her moods caused by Lorcan an I offering a spare room to one of his cousins who had recently returned from living in Wales and was sleeping in a tent in a friends back garden. With all the spare space in our house I could not see a problem. But yet again I overestimated her capacity for compassion. She went off on one on the Friday night when we arrived home and wouldn't let go. When she is drunk she can be like a dog with a bone. Both Lorcan and myself having been down the pub for a few hours probably didn't help with her mood.

Saturday morning with the crucial third viewing looming she was threatening to put a stop to it, just out od spite. Shee seems hell bent on staying in the house and forcing us to co-habit forever. Trying hard to understand her motives in this ploy, as she constantly reminds me that I am her biggest problem and that she hates me, I asked her if '"she was still so much in love with me that she couldn't bear to have the house sold so we would have to spend the rest of out days together" as I cannot afford to live elsewhere while I am still paying the mortgage and the bills. If looks could kill I would not be writing this now but a fine wake would have been held at the Blue.

Anyway she finally calmed down and hid in her room whilst the prospective buyers came around.

The Monday after, once I was in China, they made an offer. After some negotiating on the price, and a lot of convincing the mad woman that we would not get a better one as the last one was around 18 months ago, we agree a price and with fingers crossed we will be sold up and on our seperate ways within a couple of months. Although she is still banging on about not signing any papers and will scupper the sale. God knows what is going through her head as she seems determined to scupper any chance we have on moving on with our lives.

Anyway she does make life a little bit interesting and looking back, even while in the middle of this madness I have to laugh.

Hammers and spanners....

Back in work now and instead of the cerebral stuff I have been doing for the last few years, audits on GSM networks and like stuff, I am back on the nuts and bolts and hammers and spanners of installation. Good fun and no need to think too much. No real pressure as I am number three of a two man team plus a site supervisor. I have ended up in Qingdao, China. This seems to be a very modern city with many tower blocks and lots of new ones going up. It is the site of the olympic sailing reggatta of 2008 and they seem to still be building the venue.

Olypic flame.

Entrance to sailing venue.

Downtown from hotel window

View from the site.

A new stadium being built along with flats.

On the way here I had a few hours in London whilst getting my visa, for all you that have never been, or those who have but can't get back here as some pictures of the west end.

The new statue along the Mall to the dead queen mum.

Horse guards and the eye.

A dead war hero (Nelson) in Trafalgar Square.

Two old cadgers having a chat.
(FDR and Churchil)