How many of you seamen have paced up and down on the foc'sle head singing your lungs out while on Look-Out, I did it all the time and I have even heard others doing it while I was on the wheel sailing into a head wind, it passed the time away and exercised the imagination. I'm sure there are a few Frankie Lains and Johnny Ray's out there.

Hi Tony,
the monkey island was where I used to give full vent to my singing. I found that there was a music up there like nowhere else on board,especially when it was stormy.The wind blowing through the flag halyards mixed with the beat of the engine would set me off. I conjured up great musical works,but ,alas ,not one of them made it from my imagination to notation, I could not ,and still can't ,write music. But on those cold ,windy nights I heard symphonies that were pure magic,
BrianD

Hi All .
Been there done that,and the mate thinking i was calling out a light ahead, then told to shut my gob and only open it to call lights ahead. How about counting the stars. Im sure we must have all done that,13678, 13679, 13680, bugger 1,2,3. Once i did try was tap dancing on the wing of the bridge one time when i had cold feet. didnt last to long before the Old Man conplained. Got sent to the focsle for my troubles, some people have no eye/ear for talent lol

Counting the stars, that was a bugger of a job; now lets see where did I finish off last night Mintaka 12701 Rigel 12702 ah no! 1,2,3, I gotta finish tonight!!!!

How many of us tried to have a quick smoke when on look out. I tried many a time and always got caught. I would try to find a nice possy out of the sight of the bridge windows etc, pull my shirt or jacket over my head and light up , cupping the fag in your hands so that on light came out. Then a loud voice would call out PUT THAT FAG OUT!. My standard reply would be ,its the peggy, not me and it always seemed to work. Send the bugger aft your up there to do a job not natter and smoke. Yes Boss. I once accidently knocked the top off my smoke and it fell inside my shirt, boy did that make you dance around for a while, ouch! ouch.!

The only place I found for a smoke in peace was the crows nest on the Empress of Canada, could"nt tap dance though unless you could stand dropping 30 or 40 feet.

I can remember times going up the channel in the middle of winter freezing my nuts off on the fcsle head, an old trick was to wrap newspapers or any kind of paper round your waist and chest to stop the wind blowing thru your jersey, bin liners were'nt invented then, but I've since used bin liners with hole cut out for head and arms when I was fishing and it works, I used to think of all the songs with the word "moon" in them, it's surprising how many there are, I must have been a bit of a romantic in those days!

On the "Home Boats" when it was cold I would take an extra blanket and wear a life-jacket on the focs'le head look-out, that's only if it was dark enough.
How many of you rang for the moon or a planet, at least whoever was on the bridge would know we were keen?

Did you never make ponchos out of blankets, as Ive said before i was always good at sewing and made quite a few ponchos and jackets out of ships blankets. sometimes i would use the companies logo across the shoulders. But you had to be very careful not to wear them on that companies ships. Other wise you ended up paying for them twice, once for the cost of the blanket and the logging ,fee for destroying company property.

What about reporting "All the lights are burning bright" when the wind was howling, and substituting it
with "I'd like to s..g your wife tonight."