Month: October 2024

A Nautical Nomad

Wednesday 30th October 2024

Monday 28 October 2024

This is me again on a wee jaunt to the northern climes. Big difference from my last trip which was to Thailand, and the main difference will be the weather, as I am heading to Norway on a journey that will take in, various Norwegian towns and one in Denmark.

So, my latest adventure started yesterday with a very short trip to the ship which was docked at King George Docks in Dundee, a mear 15-minute trip from my place of work, for an afternoon check in.

I have checked in at, and visited many cruise terminals all over the world, some in pretty poor and underdeveloped countries, but the Dundee facility has to be one of the  worst I have used. Honestly, it is simply an embarrassment. This is no way to welcome people to Scotland and Dundee Council should get their act together, along with Forth Ports authority ( who own Dundee Docks) they should work on providing a 21 century cruise terminal.

Tuesday 29 October 2024

Anyway, today is the second day of the trip and the ship is heading to Norway through the North Sea, on a dull but calm day. Today is a day at sea with a stop tomorrow in Bergen. A lively port on the southwest coast of Norway.

Bergen

I have been to Norway quite a few times and it is always a pleasure to see what a country with fewer natural assets than Scotland can do with the self-determination that they have with independence.

Norway ceded from Sweden in 1905 and forged an independent economy based on fishing and shipping from then on, to when oil was discovered in 1969 and by 1995 they had the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.

Norway’s wealth fund sits at just over a trillion Kroner  and last year’s profit on the fund was $213 billion

As a comparison, oil was discovered in Scottish waters in 1966, resulting in Scotland being one of the largest oil and gas-producing countries on the planet. The difference was of course that Scotland was not independent and had the millstone of England around our neck, meaning that our potential wealth was syphoned off to spend on things like illegal wars, nuclear weapons costing hundreds of billions of pounds, the House of Lords etc, etc.  

Wednesday 30 October 2024

Today we docked in Bergen, which is a thriving city and an obvious hub for the oil industry, with a very busy harbour, shared between fishing, oil and the numerous ferries which sail up and down the coast of Norway going right up into the Arctic Circle. One of the better-known ferry companies is Hurtigruten, who also do expedition cruises into the Antarctic.

I had a long walk into the city which took in some of the many very narrow lanes with overhanging timber houses. Unfortunately, it was fairly steady rain to start with, but I had a couple of stops for the obligatory cappuccino.

So after a pleasant, if wet day in Bergen I am back on the ship and again sitting with another Capuchino in one of the lounges, and contemplating the evening ahead, which will start with dinner in the Buckingham restaurant which is my allocated dining venue at late sitting. There is a lovely young Pilipino lady, Lian, who serves, and makes dinner very pleasant indeed. Food not too bad, indeed I have had a lot lower standards on some of the larger ships, and I cast my mind back to the last cruise I was on with MSC. It was that bad that I was making arrangements to leave after two days and only changed my mind after a meeting with three of the managers who offered quite an upgraded package altogether. So tomorrow we will be docking in Stavanger, followed by Kristiansand, then two days in Oslo and finally two days in Copenhagen in Denmark, before heading south to Newcastle and finally Dundee on the 8th November

The World This Week From Mennies

Saturday 12 October 2024

Today, Scotland lost a hero of the independence movement, Alex Salmond.
I am not one for hero’s but I have a few , Bruce, Wallace and a very few more, but Alex Salmond is among them as I lived through the years he devoted to a free Scotland.

He took us to the cusp of independence in 2014.
He was by far, the most able politician in the whole of the countries of the British islands.

He was treated abysmally by the people he left to manage the cause of independence, after the disappointment in the 2O14 referendum. Mainly Nicola Sturgeon, a woman who rose to popularity on the back of the achievements of a giant.

There was a concerted attempt at political assassination by a group of disgusting people close to Sturgeon and her cabal.
It didn’t work and Alex was found not guilty on all counts.

He took out an action against this cabal of conspirators which was due to come to court in the very near future and would have destroyed the creadability of the establishment, now he is dead.

I had several chats with Alex, the last being a lunch we had in Dundee along with a good friend of mine and a staunch patriot, John Gibson and Ken McDonald of I Scot magazine.

What a pleasant and informative afternoon it was and an interlude I will always treasure.

So Alex, you have left a void that it will be ny impossible to fill, but perhaps Kenny can take forward the fight on your behalf.

Rest well soldier, your place in history is assured and your duty done.

An evening with Alex in the run up to the 2014 referendum, Me, Alex and my son Jamie.

A Nautical Nomad

Friday 4 October 2024

Well, this a rather belated update on my latest travel project as I look down the club lounge in the First Choice Marina Hotel in Dubai on a huge oil refinery which is the basis of the obvious wealth here in the Arab Emirates.

Now the first thing I would say is that surprisingly, the large round tanks you see in the foreground, are not oil tanks, but water storage tanks, as this site is not just an oil refinery but also a desalination station which supplies water to the city of Dubai.

Now just think, Scotland, which has over 90% of the oil around the British Isles, is about to lose the only oil refinery in the country. Now apart from the loony greens and SNP most people in Scotland realise that oil is going to be greatly important for many years to come especially when because of crazy government policies we are all paying for the idiocy surrounding the sanctions on Russia and on top of that we are edging daily nearer a middle east war which will double fuel prices within the first week of such a war.

Actually, that brings me to the main reason I have waited until almost the end of my trip to post a Nautical Nomad blog and that is that I have been very busy on various social media platforms commenting on the awful situation in both Gaza and now Lebanon.

So, anyway getting back to the trip which started last Wednesday with the bus ride to Glasgow airport, on a beautiful, sunny morning, The photo is of the river Tay and Tay bridge.

It was a long day ahead, with a flight from Glasgow airport to Bangkok in Thailand. This time I flew with Emirates which is a cut above most airlines in both comfort and food.

It was one of these days which never seemed to end with a change in Dubai, but after more or less 24 hours of travelling, I arrived in Bangkok. There I boarded a bus to Hau Hin, another three hours traveling.

The last time I visited Hau Hin, I stayed at the Anantara Hotel which is a beautiful resort hotel on the beach but on the outskirts of Hau Hin. So this time I opted for The Centara Hotel in the center of Hau Hin but again on a very beautiful beach

The Centara Hotel is a beautiful colonial building which started life as a railway hotel and has developed into quite a large resort with lodges on its extensive grounds. I had one of these lodges which had its own pool.

On one of the days there I  took a trip to Khao Kalok in Pran Buri District. A beautiful part of the country with soft white sandy beaches and an interesting forest park.

One of the notable aspects of Thailand is the food, especially seafood., There was a small restaurant not far from the hotel that offered quite a surprisingly varied menu   which over the week was adequately sampled.

So after a nice 6 days at the Centara Hotel and one night at a hotel near Bangkok airport, I boarded the flight yesterday for the six-and-a-half-hour flight to Dubai and was pleasantly surprised, when checking in to be upgraded to a suite and I am sitting here looking out on the sun going down on Dubai.

Another day here before heading back on an 8-hour flight to Glasgow. It’s always good to be going back home to Scotland, but I will be back.