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[Page 23]
& the deck was a mass of flying towels if you showed your head round the corner you would be met by a volley of them & forced to retreat unless you had a strong following to back you up, it rained that day, but being in the tropics, we were almost sweating in spite of the water flying about, the majority had nothing but their trousers on, the game got a bit too hot for the captain so about 4 oclock he stopped it.
The heat was very intense in the tropics, the pitch used to be nearly melting in the daytime, at night everyone slept on deck, I only slept down below till we reached Albany after that I used to sling my hammock under one of our guns, & I can tell you I enjoyed the trip.
We had a daily newspaper printed on our boat called the "Kangaroo" it used to cause a bit of fun.
Sailing across the Indian ocean the weather was lovely, scarce a ripple on the water, the water here seems very full of phosphourus, & looking over at night time it used to look lovely, I have watched the water churning away from our sides for hours at a stretch, there are also plenty of flying fish to be seen of an early morning.
Colombo, our next port of call was reached on the 15th we slipped our anchor a fair way out, the town looks very pretty from a distance snuggled away among palm trees this was our first sight of the East & very good it looked, we could plainly see a mosque in the distance