Rider war diary, 20 March 1915-4 March 1916 / Edwin Rider - Page 17

You are here

Transcription

[Page 17]

The ocean is about as smooth as I have ever seen in fact so one of the Men I have spoken to say they have never seen the Indian Ocean so smooth before yesterday it was just like a sheet of Ice. It does ones eyes good to watch the sunsets & Moonrises, it is some think beautiful a sight you might never see again. Last night we had a grand Concert on the Promenarde which was verry nice considering the wind was against the singers. All the boys lined up on the hatch way, some of them were in verry good positions & some were in bad ones. It was a grand sight to see the boys respond to the National Anthem by standing to (Attention) then we gave three cheers and that finished the night. At 6.30 this Morning I was looking over the railing of the ship all of a sudden there was one mass of flying fish dart out of the water & fly about 25 yards, not only one lot but several lots were seen. It is called a shoal when there are a lot together. I have ommitted to note that we passed Cocos Islands on last Wednesday 31st. We were out too far to see anything much of the Islands. Some say were about fourteen miles out so you can guess what chance we had of seeing them. To day is Sunday, there will be a church service on deck which will be much better than down below where we often have it.

April March 5th April
Well we have reached Colombo at last. We were waiting about outside the breakwater for about 3 hrs. really speaking we anchored in the harbour about 8 o'clock, it is not a bad place from the boat, I have not been off the boat yet. When we were tying up there was one mass of cooleys in Small boats rushed the Gang ways to get on the boat to sell small goods all of them producing their cards but only a few were

This page has its status set to Completed and is no longer transcribable.