Aha ahoy ahoy

Ahoy ahoy as the sun was setting and the seagulls crying, we are away and on the high seas again. And it is round the Cornish coast, but before we get to the Bay of Biscay and the Azores, a quick fruit and veg stop on the southern Irish coast where so many of the sailors hail from who were press ganged. The USS Venerati Frati is in sight here in the Queenstown harbour of old Cobh and there is another German aka Prussian ship in the estuary too - a 37 gunner the identity of which cannot be revealed at this time. So too is a pretty schooner from the Peck school of ship-building at Meredith dockyards where Dickie Greeneleafe has his boatyard in the Hudson River called The Roman Holiday which is always nice to see as it is a romantic skip with a pretty girl on the deck - a real memphis belle showing off her feathers - feathers !! The Talented Miss Ripley one assumes. Anyway, we are off then round the cape of Valentia to the Azores to find us a Portuguese man o war - not the slippery jellyfish kind that one might expect in those waters near the Armada graveyards but a real Portuguese carrick, friendly though not foe as Britain and Portugal enjoy the oldest alliance in Europe dating back to 1200. 

Aha

Well today me hearties is a big day for the navies of the South Seas, as it is the 25th May, the day on which some admiral, an Irishman, founded the Argentine Navy, and there is a ship named the Veintecinco de mayo in that navy, nowadays surrounded by so many hangers on on the SS Camera and the SS Gaenswein and the SS Napoleone des Soeurs, as well as one or two frigates on the Brest run called the SS Crow and the SS Whitman; so we are cluncking together our beer mugs here at the Golden Galleon again for a rare old time with lots of old sea dogs together, enjoying a pint and a tankard or two on the Seven Sisters. Ahoy there captains and chief petty officers. We are splicing the mainbrayce here near Sleaford on the South Downs. And Capt Tim Weybridge is our team leader tonight, aided and abetted by young Capt Kevin Bling and his stout hearted sailors on board the USS Venerabile and the sister ship the USS Portineria. All aboard ship tomorrow and then we set sail for the high waters of the Solent and then out and beyond the cannonry of Napoleon's shore batteries along the Biscay to the South Seas again. Ahoy there captains !! Ahoy there ye lads !!

Ashore enfin

Ahoy there lads and lassies of the old ships of the line on the South Downs. A bit of shore leave this week, on the old Seven Sisters, at the pub called the Golden Galleon by Sleaford. Luvvily. A pint of the golden. Gold like Venerabiles at Madrid.