# Best Christmas meal ever?



## alan ward (Jul 20, 2009)

Like all you boys,I`ve had a few good and bad,but what`s your most memorable?

For me it would be 1973 on the Labrador Clipper.We`d come up from Oz carrying meat and were discharging the cargo on the East Coast spending Christmas in Wilmington Delaware.

Whilst off the coast downunder the Chief Engineer had spent every possible minute fishing and very successfully,we had yellow fin tuns,barramundi and stuff I couldn`t even identify.My meat room was full of ullaged cases of good aussie beef and the bond stuffed with wine.

Christmas day saw us eating grilled barramundi,filet of beef wellington all accompanied by vast amounts of penfolds red courtesy of the Old Man who was an aussie anyway so he felt right at home.

A great night followed I seem to recall falling off a bar stool,maybe that was another chrsitmas.


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## john blythe (May 23, 2011)

Alan never mind the best chistmas meal .As cook you work all day doing your very best for them all .To find someone as fallen in the night time buffet.M erry christmas(Night)


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## dixie dean (Mar 24, 2009)

Port Lincoln,christmas 1970,arrived in Auckland christmas morning,as we had race horses on board we proceeded straight to our berth through a line of anchored ships.As soon as the ship tied up and was cleared all the lads rushed up the road to the snake pit,poor cook was left with a load of uneaten christmas meals.


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## TOM ALEXANDER (Dec 24, 2008)

Actually, several in one port - Oxelosund in Sweden. Christmas eve saw us invited to the local sjomanskerken (spelling?) or seamans church. Lovely spread of tabnabs and goodies along with presents for the whole crew. I remember getting hand knitted seaboot socks and handkerchiefs. Christmas Day we had a normal shipboard Christmas dinner with guests from the town. After dinner, during an entertainment session the 1st. mate slipped a disc doing a rather theatrical version of "Frankie & Johnnie" and spent the rest of the trip in his bunk. After a bus trip to Stockholm arranged by the Old Man my fellow apprentice and myself were invited by new Swedish friends to their Santa Lucia festival, where the minister asked me to read one of the lessons in English. Then after the service he hauled out this old guitar that I had been playing in the vestry beforehand and announced that "now our English friend will play for us." After a rather fragile attemp at "Silent Night" where I forgot the words, and the most reverend rendition of "Hang Down you Head Tom Dooley" I received this thunderous applause (remember we were in church?) Then large tables were set up in the aisle and another huge spread of sannies, pastries filled with cream, etc., was set up. We were in port there for just over 5 days to load, whereas in Seven Islands, Quebec, we normally loaded the same amount of ore in 4 hours. All in all a very memorable Christmas.


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## Pat Kennedy (Apr 14, 2007)

I've had many a good Christmas Dinner. Sadly, not one of them was on a ship!
Pat(Sad)


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## alan ward (Jul 20, 2009)

Tom your post reminded me of a christmas spent in Nagasaki.Docked in the morning,loaded 300+cars for Portland Oregon,took water,bunkers and fresh food supplies(carried through the saloon by deliverymen)served Christmas day lunch in the duty mess for most of the deck and engine departments and sailed late afternoon.That niht there were about 3 of us having a drink everyone else had turned in knackered


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