Ah yes, now I remember.....
It was 2004, Im a engineer cadet onboard a bulk carrier (ship) and I had been in Poland for a month. Szczecin drydocks was the place and it'd been fun. Very good/cheap nights up the road, pretty easy time overseeing work with the 2nd engineer and altogether its going well.

Another company vessel was docking the day before we were due to leave, and my mate was onboard. I grabbed my passport off the Captain with warnings not to be back too late as it was engine trials the next day and i was away!

Szczecin drydocks is an island in the middle of a river, its a fair sized one but I strolled in the July sunshine and was soon heading up the gangway. I cheerily greeted the Chief Engineer on deck and he gave me a jolly sailors greeting, "Who the Fuck are you!?"....unpertubed I found mates cabin and told him to get off Champ Manager, were were off out on the piss!

Its a short ferry off the island and we're soon larging it up in town. It was a brilliant night out, but the last ferry back to the island was around 11pm. As 11 draws near, I inform mate that we can roll back whenever we like and ring the ferryman. He will come out and take us over as long as we buy him a nice bottle of spirits(£2/3 onboard, bargain)

So continue we do and around 3am we roll up through the dock gates, over towards the ferry jetty where I am still impressing mate with my worldly swagger and ability to call ferries at my whim.

However what I didnt know was crucially the ferryman's number. I think I assumed that there would be some kind of hotline telephone that would put me directly to him.... big mistake.

It was getting too cold to sit around on the jetty so we ambled over to a nearby wooden benched waiting room which like everything else was infested with giant spiders (of which I was terrified of).

Sleep...........

I wake up with a jolt. Noise and light is now streaming into my brain. I have no idea what time it is, and I'm slowly realising where I am. I stand up, barely, and the worlds biggest special school steel drum band is practicing inside my skull. I wake mate, words hardly can form but he understands. We sit on the next ferry, its 11am....several ferries have already been today.

We part, as I'm vaguely aware we're heading in different directions. I reach the ship, brilliant. Theres an AB on deck telling me something about the Captain looking for me, hes not happy with me. Not Happy At All. Captain is soon right in front of my face and hes shouting, a lot. My passport and discharge book? yeah its in my pocket, what? Immigration are asking about me....?

Chief is telling me to turn to, I drag myself into a boilersuit and boots and I'm in the engine room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Im finally allowed to knock off, and I pass out in my bunk for quite some time. When I woke up I was summonned to Captains cabin to be told that they wouldnt be logging me (which would result in a sacking) but I was forthwith banned from going ashore.

Same AB later told me the Captain had told him to go to my cabin, put all my things in a case and then throw that case onto the jetty. Marek, I thank you for taking your time.
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Tue 29 Mar 2011, 16:10, Reply)