This email arrived via Isabelle and Dave, and with Mad's permission, here it is for you all to read. What a remarkable life she leads!
Pete
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We are in Singapore. Very busy time as everything seems to change a million times a day. I'm getting a bit frazzled by it all.
Tomorrow we leave for Pusan in South Korea for a fisheries campaign. So there is lots of planning to do, getting charts, bunkering, repairs...
We are at anchor which makes everything that little bit harder. We won't be coming to Australia which is sad. The Southern Ocean whaling campaign was cancelled & now they are scrambling around to find work for the ship. Looks like I will be signing off in Korea in mid December.
The Indonesian tour was a success & I think the whole team was happy with that.
Driving the ship around Singapore is a bit nerve-wracking. We had a main engine failure just as we were crossing the shipping lanes to enter the harbour & pick up the pilot. Not one of my favourite moments of the trip.
We did do a good sustained action in Sumatra where we stopped a couple of ships from loading palm oil. At one point I just drove the Espy into the main berth & occupied it so no ships could load. Then when they cleared another place for loading I slipped over there & got involved in a battle with 2 tug boats. We held our own for about 2 hours - dodging ships at anchor, 3 knots of tide running & blocking just about all activities in the whole harbour. It was a bit crazy, but probably the most fun I have ever had driving a ship. To be honest I don't think that the tugs were trying all that hard. but with bow & stern thrusters & twin props I was very manouevarable & I managed to hold my own until the palm oil tanker was just so close that I decided it was too dangerous & called it off. Somehow we didn't get arrested & with a bit of sweet-talking the harbour master gave us our clearance papers & off we went. Directly into the Straits of Malacca with horrible squalls & zero visibility & then into Singapore & then into the bowels of Singapore harbour to discharge the helicopter onto a barge in a tiny little basin where I couldn't even anchor. So it was more tricky manouevering lifting the chopper off & trying not to run aground with about 1/2 metre of water under the keel & squally conditions. I was pretty knackered after all of that. Now it is dawn & I have a million things to do. I have attached a not very good photo that the girl in the picture sent me after an open boat in Jakarta.
Besos,
Mad
