Ahoy there

Ah shiver me timbers lads, there's always some big brute out there, waiting for Royal Navy ships of the line, and I am heading to Scotland to see if I can rendez-vous with an old brig and its sea-dog captain, the young Capt Vincenzo and his team of petty officers. Oh yass, nothing to worry about except getting up there this summer, and the occasional French cruiser corvette, like the SS Brest and her sister ship the SS Westmonster, captained by those two skull and crossbone maniacs Capt Vincente le Terrible and his trusty steed Capt Dominique la Sterne-Liverpool. A right pair of sassy tarts of ships, but devilish on the Scottish run to oblivion.

And lo and behold

Ahoy there shipmates. Twas a real creepy night out there on the old sandbanks and fogs of the Solent, when we passed out into the Channel and found our way across to the Straits of Brittany, but there she was, loomed right out of the fog, all eerie and terrible to behold - a terrible beauty borne from old German naval yards - The USS Dusseldorf. A cruel captain beating and whipping his boys and his men for the sheer sake of it all, till they submitted to his iron will. The old Captain Fritz Dollinger was no softie, no dandy, and no gentleman's pleasure. Alas for his men and his gunnery.

Shinny up the rigging laddie

Ahoy there laddies and lassies. It's a good fast run down the coast of Africa, and there not long ago south of the old Tristan, we all caught sight  like ain a dream laddies of the finest sea-going vessel in the fleet of her majesty, the HMS Royale Venerabile - a beautous ship if ever I laid me eyes on a beaut. A Bute. Even more elegant than the HMS Anima. Ah now lads, there ain't no ship of the line like the Venerabile - she is a beautiful warship with 3 decks of big guns all down both sides. What we would all give to fly those lovely colours, that union jack to be sure to be sure, but also the little yellow borgia enseign out back. Ahoy there lassies - I would do anything for love lassies, but I wouldn't do that. Nope lassies, I won't be doing that lovely graceful ship of the line. And there ain't a better captain me hearties than chief captain Vincent de Cleves, a friend of Lady Hamilton, and his able assistant Count Niccolo di Monserrato, where those fine shipmen, the black Irish hail from.

Ahoy there lads in the Capricorns

Ah lads tis but a day and hike from the old Mount St Michael of Cornwall, a long ways back to those clement sweet green shores of the old islands, but the search must go on, some old warbanger of an old fighting ship called the Temeraire Hudson, still putting out for a fight that she cannot really win. No stomach for the long campaign see, and no real stamina for the long shot back home to some port in France. All these New France battlewaggons of old steamers are a bit before their time - very smokey and very dirty - if truth be told to an audience of the French Franglais in their chateaux. Vive l'empereur! the old Hudson and his petty officer Haddon will cry as they wave their tricorn hats, but truth is me hearties is that the old boyo Napoleon will not lose any sleep for such hard cases, too brave and too fast for their own good. Napoleon is a conservative, a coward in the real battles, who will simply slide home every evening for honey and tea, and his usual secret Remy Martin.

Ah truth to tell

Ahoy there lads, life on the high seas is not easy, but then life on land is no better, what with the lack of proper sewage treatment facilities and the like. Speaking of sewage, we came across two sewage boats recently, two old canal barges up and down the Thames for a living, but caught out on the squall in the North Sea, as brown as ever one will see. Yup the HMS Crowmead and the HMS Cheesle puzzlewhit are two old tugs that convey sewage abroad, chiefly offloading in Holland, if not Belgium.

Ahoy Ahoy when the sun

Ahoy ahoy when the sun was setting ... up here in the crow's nests after all, just looking out for the odd whale, spouting on the surface, and pumping out gallons of sea water into our faces here on deck. Nothing in sight - no moby dick from high up here - must be down below deep in the bluey depths of dark pacific water with all the blue whales - no white sperma whales for miles. The good ship USS Panspermia has not been seen down here in the waters north of Nova Australasia for some time. Its good captain, Horatio hornblower has gone the way of all flesh with chief petty officer Vincenzo and his able bodied seaman Recuerdo. Probably wrecked on some Fiji shore. Curiosity kills many an indiscreet cat, so bella giornata out the window. So it is Eliza Eliza for ho. Eaten alive by the natives or nibbled to death by some potty amazonian sisterhood tribe. Who knows? It is all a tragedy to see one's friends slowly being nuzzled and nibbled and consumed in a bloody fountain of gore. Kentucky FnC types might say - finger licking good, but let us spare a thought for a great seaman, Vincenzo de Lille and his batman Recuerdo el Cid. Fond thoughts for two sailors of the high seas that are now gone with the wind alongside Reg Butler. We will remember them. Fair thee well lost souls of the Falklands Isles or Islas Malvinas for the red enseigns - more enseign than red of course at the old tub HMS Veckerville. Good souls, lost souls, like the sailors of Farnese who lost their souls to many young syrens around Puerta Mayor.

Ahoy there 20-12

Aha me hearties, this is more like it, the life of the sails on the high seas, squaring off in the rigging, high in the crow's nest, like a couple of old sea dogs, Vin and meself, old veterans of the Cape of Good Hope. Aha yass me boyos there is no life like a big mainsail square-rigger at sea. No sight like the big seas off the coast of Ballycastle, Giants. And this boat, the Duke of Britanny is a fine dandy of a boat. Shame about the sister ship the HMS Venerabile which has been dogged by some big sheilas of storms this weather of late, this past year, lying up she is in dry dock with the SS Duke of Normandy, like an old corvette we used to know called the Guillaume le Conquistant, and now is reduced to a hospital ship near Newfoundland, whose banks are always threatening deep on the Hudson Bay River and muskets afew, bedad bedad. Ahoy there, must get off now, south seas approaching below the Azores and the big sandbanks are dead ahead. Ahoy there captain Hudson and the good midshipman on board the HMS Edmund Campion.