My lasting impression of Bombay will always be going through busy streets and seeing people settling down for the night in shop doorways and odd corners we had to step over sleeping bodies as we made our way along, a sad place altogether India was, I only hope that forty years later today's India has settled some of its poverty problems.
Our next port of call was to be Aden which was then a British protectorate in south west Arabia, it was a journey of about 1600 miles so it would take us about eight days. We sailed straight across the Arabian Sea and I began to get an idea of old fashioned sea-fairing as I took my turn in the crows nest. You had to keep a real good look out as there was no radar whatsoever on the Portland Bill. We were told to watch out for land on the eighth day and low and behold I was on watch in the crows nest when it suddenly loomed up about 3.am in the middle watch. It was a good job it was a clear night, I thought at first that what I could see was a low cloud formation but I watched for a few minutes before I rang the bridge and said confidently, "Land ahead on the starboard bow", by that time I could see the breakers around the foot of the cliffs . We had made a pretty good landfall about two hours sailing south east of Aden and I was asleep in my hammock when we dropped anchor about breakfast time.
Only the boats crew landed at Aden , I was among them but all we did was have a walk around while the ships officer completed his business and gathered his mail. It was not a very pleasant place, very very hot and barren, the surrounding hills were brown and the only bit of green were the lawns in front of the administration buildings. We took aboard a few officials who were bound for Suez and went back to the ship. Almost as soon as the boat was hauled on board the ship sailed up the Red Sea and headed for the Suez Canal . The trip though the Red Sea was the hottest, sweatiest trip I had ever made , the sweat poured out of everyone and it was almost unbearable below decks. I slept on a camp bed on the deck at night but it was still pretty hot. After a couple of days we dropped anchor in the Bitter Lakes which are at the southern end of the Suez Canal, there we had to wait our turn with a number of ships queuing up to go through. We soon knew when it was our turn to go as the burn boats drew alongside and several Arabs came aboard. Apparently the natives had a right at that time to come on board and sell things on the deck and soon the decks of the Portland Bill looked like a market place.
Going through the Suez Canal was quite a pleasant experience, there were times when you seemed to be cutting through the sand with desert on both sides. Other times we sailed through country clubs and marinas with palm trees waving and all the time different sets of natives were boarding and leaving the ship.
We finally arrived at Port Said on the north end of the canal and the ship tied alongside to take on provisions and water. I was able to go ashore and see the sights such as they were, the first thing you see in Port Said is the statue to the man who engineered the Suez Canal, a Frenchman named Ferdinand De Lesseps. It must have been a great achievement in the last century when it took weeks off sailing time from India and Australia to Britain. Port Said itself was rather humdrum and the only thing I can remember about it was the Arab kids throwing dollops of polish on your shoes and then begging you to let them clean them. All the Arabs seemed to call themselves McGregor - I never found out why...
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