Still with the good ship Blyth Adventurer. Our owner, an uncle of the Scandanavian Mollers, big ship owners, was a man who would not use one expletive when he had two or three to hand. We all liked him. I suspect the ship was either built in Blyth shipyard, which he used to own/lease, or he just named it Blyth for sentimental reasons. However, when the local council tried increasing his rent or rates on a Friday he was gone by Monday, leaving said council and workers in a bit of a pickle, at least so the myth goes. Sort of rules out the sentimentality argument.
Well, we docked in an Australian port, some time in 71/72, customs come on and give the ship a right old going over. Of course they find all the opium in the aft accomodation, mostly belonging to our crew but some of the engineers used it as well, it was'nt hidden, they regarded it as we would think about chewing gum. The lot is confiscated, despite our protests that a number of the older crew members relied on it pretty much as medicine or a food substitute. The largest stash was the bosun's, a man who was supposed to be 64 yrs but was probably near 80 yrs. This lovely old character had obviously greased the hand of an employment agency in Hongkong to get this berth. Well, despite the Captain's protest, customs officials remained obdurnate and told us we were lucky they were not going to bring charges.
Sailed next day and a week later the bosun died. If I recall correctly we froze the body in a bag in the ships freezer and it was transferred home to Hongkong from the next port.
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