Diary of a Deckhand

Well, it seems to have been a month of political upheaval, with many MP’s having their spending habits laid bare for the nation to see.  Indignant cries of “it was within the limits allowed” echo around Westminster and fall on deaf ears when the public is having to cut back on all manner of things due to the recession, we have members of parliament spending £5000 on swimming pools and automatic gates to their mansions.  One of the leading parties has 17 millionaires on its front bench.  Hardly representative of the general populace of the UK.  Ho hum. 

All this said and done, I will be voting in the next election as when I was younger I used to pass the grave of Emily Davison, the Suffragette who threw herself in front of the King‘s horse to try to win the vote for women.  None of the main parties are worth my time as they are simply so far removed from anything that I recognise as being worthy of steering this country.  Maybe some of the politicians should take heed from Emily’s headstone - “Deeds not Words”.

Quite enough of that.

The diving season is marching on, with the rest of the Scapa Flow boats joining us this week, it has been awfully quiet this year so far.  The Folk Festival is in full swing, with bands playing on the street and the hair/beards/tie-dye quotient of Stromness having increased exponentially overnight. 

Fugro Seacore Deep Diver Jack-Up Barge at the Pole Star Pier

Busy Stromness

Liner "Expedition" in Scapa Flow

Diving the Dresden on Thursday and I look up to be faced with a tornado.  Not the airborne military type thing, but the airborne windy type thing.  I did wonder if I had been too close to the exhaust funnel, but it hung around from its parent cloud for over 10 minutes - plenty of time for me to get my camera out and take a few pics.  If you do not believe it was in Orkney, you can see the oil terminal on Flotta in one of them!

Tornado over Hoy

Tornado with Flotta in the foreground

Stromness was busy on Thursday too, with two cruise liners taking up the back of the old Ola pier and the Ice Plant pier.  This plus the Fugro Seacore jack-up barge at the Pole Star pier means that Stromness is really rather full and we are evicted to the Marina Pier, slick with a patina of salmon fish oil from the processing boats which moor there overnight. 

Pier jumping in Stromness