Good morning again

When I recalled the past I think one might have noticed that something was going on in the Soviet Union already in 1986 for, within the years 1986 – 1988 they sold for craps a mammoth amount of ships, many of them still in good condition –to be demolished in Finland.
There were many kind of vessel, from a large cargo vessel to a fishing boat. Many citizens got bought a small vessel from the scrap yard and get converted it into vessel for some purpose of they own.
Well. There were also trawlers for sale with cheap price and I picked up one of them; MRT-13. It happened belonged in the fishing fleet that have been operated off the coat of African and last pot of call been in Angola.
There were rats there in those trawlers- they were not the usual kind of rats, they were big and black.

The first observation of those animals we made when I was on my way into engine room and were descending by ladder. Lars who stood on upper end of ladder swooped a warning and as I glanced up there it was, one of them, above my head, I saw it hanging from the asbestos cover of the exhaustion pipe, it was big as a cat and coal black as the devil himself and it was just preparing to lower himself on my neck.
I took long jump witch ended down on the floor of the engine room beside the main engine. And stood for a moment there watching whether the rat was following me down.
In our judgement the rats must have been aboard nearly three months without food. And now they have become so desperate and hungry that they have started hunting us.
When we sat in the mess room we could head them running in the middle roof, there were many legs running, then stepping for a while and running again, but not visual observation was made and they remain invisible.
I took my shotgun with me in bed as I lay down to sleep. Along the night there was hubaloo up there on the roof and in morning we could find head of a rat, other part of the body been cannibaled away by their company.
They were rustles and so were we and we declared war between them and us. I loaded my gun with wolf pellets and each time when there was to be hear those legs running I fired few time up to roof, no result was seen but he trawler began fall apart piece by piece. So before long we had to take our gears and move out on the deck to sleep somewhere.
One day came the dock master asking what a hell we are shooting every night so much. Are we started shot the terns. We said that we are shot the rats but hitting no one of them.
“Oh boys, you will never get rid of them in that way, Go ashore and buy the poison and you not need see them any more.”
Cheerio
Harry

A great story, Harry. With all that shooting going on, I'm glad I wasn't aboard your trawler.

Harry,

Another great story.

Carol

Our problem was mice. We lived on the edge of a large farm field and when whatever crop they planted that particular year was harvested, the mice would move into our house. Our house was a one of a kind house, not too well constructed, made of cedar inside and out with little knot holes just right for mice to enter. We would set traps and use poison. However, with the poison they would venture inside the walls, die there and then for several weeks the house would smell of these dead creatures.

We did not want them to come in and multiply which happened a couple of times. A few memorable experiences include one time when a mouse ran up my oldest son's leg. You would have thought he had been attacked by a monster.

Then one night I was sitting at the computer in the little room off the laundry area and three mice decided to come out and chase each other around the room. I sat with my legs curled up under me shouting at them to "decease," which had absolutely no effect.

Carol

We used to camp at a specal place three miles up a lake. One year the kids discovered an adorable baby mouse.

They spent their whole time feeding it milk and water dripping from leaves and generally spoiling it.

The next year when we came back the whole camp was overrun with mice.

Our problem is the pack of rabid wolverines and their friends the pygmy camels (I believe them to be the deadly blood sucking dromedairyo variety) that roam wild though our apartment complex in Panama City Beach. I have picked off a few, but I think they are plotting against me.

Yes Marie.
Yes I once owned a ship, whole ship alone. Unfortunate I have been a person who had forgotten the most vital truth that hold a man on surface, and it’s that the deed of heroes and the deed of daily bread must keep far from each other, the first one belong to a soul who is more idealist and adventures than the real man who toils for his bread with no dreams.
Yes, as I said I have been ship owner if so nobly title is right to use in this case. Let me tell the sad story. I bought an ocean going trawler in order to begin fishing within the arctic sea, to the far north.
This happened in the time when there was an agreement between Norwegian and Finland and the agreement allowed finish flagged fishing vessels operate in the Norwegian fishing ground, and, of course in the international waters as well.
The repair of the vessel asked hard labour and money, There is no need to tell what kind of condition she was in that time when I bought her, I just want to say that she was scarps, but her very nautical outlook appeal to my seaman soul and I haired six men aboard to repair her - all of them more or less been sign on the dole at same time, and the repair carried out, at first for six month, the things became look worse during that winter 1987 which happened be one of the hardest winter for decades as the temperature lowered as far below zero as 37C and stayed there for two weeks while we were struggling to keep the vessel’s pipelines unfrozen.

The envy between the fishermen is largely known and we got visitors from the local fishery and every of them knew this or that one could said that the venture to go fishing to the north - is doomed to failure. ‘No Norwegian will give you bunger oil or provision because the Norwegian will not give any service to foreign fishing ship.
I took that like rumour and we continued make the ship seaworthy by the spring I got the ship classification and certification for ocean and money also was sunning out of my pocket. and when I went to home I found the house empty, there was a table in kitchen and on that table was laying a telephone, All other furniture were carried away, I never have worried after furniture but my wife and boy was also gone.
So I was alone in that empty house.
And the bad news not stopped to come.
The next stunner was the notice that the minister let me know, according this notice the annual agreement between Norwegian and Finland have lapsed because there haven’t been a single vessel from Finland out there for years that for the agreement has fin been fruitless.
No worry I said to myself, there is lot of water in ocean to be fishing what ever want. I gathered all my little financial power and the men that I could find the next day in the evening I went out whit the crew I had find and before midnight I found the all being dead trunk and I designed to turn around and return to port.
Next day there were the bailiff declaring the vessel being under distains

This is a sad story, Harry. The rat hanging over your head is frightening! Poison over shooting guns sound like a better plan to get rid of them. What happened to your wife and son?

What happet to my son and to my waif, When I next time meet my wife she said: "You are so unlacky man. I cannot be with you."
That happen.

I grew up in a small city on the Texas side of the Sabine River. If you follow the river south for about 30 miles, you reach Port Arthur, on Sabine Lake(a salt-water lake), and a few miles further south, you come to the Gulf of Mexico at a little town called Sabine Pass, where the Gulf runs into the lake and two rivers, the Sabine and the Neches. Sabine Pass was the site of a major Confederate Naval victory. My great-grandfather's shipyard built two of the Confederate vessels, and he was there, serving on one of them. Practically every weekend as I was growing up, my family joined my dad's parents, his brother and his family, and usually several family friends, boarded my grandfather's houseboat, which was docked on a tributary of the Sabine called Cow Bayou. My uncle and my cousin each had fishing boats made from old tugs, which they used to move the houseboat south onto Sabine Lake where they would run it aground on a sandbar. This way, there was a shallow side of the boat for small children to wade and swim (under close adult supervision), and a deep side for adults and older children. My cousins were expert water-skiers, and one of the fishing boats would always be rigged to pull skiers while the other would be used for fishing and shrimping. The boat dock on Cow Bayou would have had a crab trap, which would be emptied into a bin on the houseboat. My mom, Aunt Mrytle, and my grandmother would begin the cooking as soon as we left the dock. My job, under supervision during my younger years, would be slicing the green onions for the crab gumbo which would be eaten as a first course, before the fried fish, shrimp, and crabs. Dessert would always be ice cream, made on board in an old hand-cranked ice-cream maker.

Several times a year we would spend long weekends at a relative's beach house at Gilchrist, a Gulf community a few miles down the beach road from Sabine Pass.

I believe I have salt-water in my veins. I'm surprised I don't have web feet.

Harry, if you happen to visit my website (see the buttons below), and go to the Family page, you will find an article, written by my grandfather, about building wooden boats.

And as I read your posts, I think it was your wife who was unlucky.

Ann

Thanks.very much, Alj I will visit there.