Chapter 5. Maggots, Sea Snakes and Stuff.

Thursday June 29^th

When Captain Boxer Shorts and the Admiral woke up on Thursday it was very windy outside. The Flag was blowing straight out behind the Good Ship Mithril.

The Admiral was looking at the hinge on one of the lockers.

“It's not right,” she said.

Captain B.S. Took a hammer and knocked it straight. As he did so something fell out onto the floor.

“What's that?” asked the Admiral.

Whatever it was it was wriggling alarmingly. Captain B.S. Got out his magnifying glass.

“It's a maggot!” he exclaimed.

“If it's a sea-going maggot, it had better go in the sea.” said the Admiral, as she examined it carefully.

Captain B.S. Put it on a piece of paper and took it outside.

“I hope you can swim,” he muttered as he threw it overboard.

The Admiral shut herself in the front toilet to have a wash and clean her teeth. Whilst she was in there she heard a loud hissing sound coming from the main cabin.

“Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed, “Whatever is that? It sounds as if a huge sea snake has come on board!”

There was no noise from Captain B.S. “Perhaps it's eaten him,” she thought.

When she looked in the cabin there was no sign of a fearsome sea-snake. It was just Captain B.S. Putting some more gas into the fridge to make it work better.

As the day wore on it became more and more windy.

“It's too windy to pump up the dinghy,” exclaimed Captain B.S. “I'll put my computer on, in stead.”

He looked at the chart table, where his computer was buried under a heap of 'stuff'. There was an empty sardine can, a pile of wires, two rolls of kitchen paper, a roll of toilet paper, an old box of cheerios, several books and a spotty banana.

“It must be here, somewhere!” he exclaimed as he picked up two dirty mugs, two multimeters and a pack of indigestion tablets.

The Admiral smiled to herself. “He'll have to tidy all that stuff up if he wants to find his computer,” she thought, and she was right.

Chapter 4. Sharks and Whales?

On Wednesday morning, when Captain Boxer Shorts woke up, he went to look outside. This is what he saw...

This is what he saw

“Shiver me timbers, Admiral,” he said, “It's a lovely day today!”

“The Admiral poked her head out from under the sheet.

“Is it really?” she asked.

The Good Ship Mithril was at anchor in the River Arade, pointing towards Praia da Rocha.

“What a lovely view!”

“What shall we do today?” asked the Admiral, when she was fully awake and eating her oats for breakfast.

“Not much,” replied Captain B.S. “We'll have a rest day today.” The Admiral thought that this was a very good idea. She connected up her internet dongle and began to check her emails.

Captain B.S. Wanted to know the time. “Either it's four o'clock or our old clock isn't working,” he moaned.

“Why don't you put up our new clock,” suggested the Admiral.

“What a great idea!” said Captain B.S.

He opened up a cupboard and pulled everything out to look for the new clock. It wasn't in that place, so he opened the next cupboard and pulled everything out of that one. This went on until there were so many things pulled out of the cupboards that he couldn't move.

“Help! I'm stuck” he shouted from under a pile of books, CD's, bits of old computers and boxes.

All the Admiral could see was the tip of his nose!

At last the Captain found the clock and started to put everything else away. It took him all morning to tidy up.

After lunch Captain B.S. Decided to fix the clock on the wall.

It looked very smart and shiny in it's new place. Captain Boxer Shorts was very proud of it.

The Admiral thought it was very hot. “I need to keep cool,” she thought. She went into her cabin and put on her new black swim suit.

“I'm just going outside,” she called to Captain B.S. He was busy doing something with lots of bits of wire and one of his five multimeters and didn't hear what she said.

Suddenly he did hear a loud splashing from outside.

“Oh my goodness, what's that?” he cried.

“Is it a shark?”

                                       “Is it a whale?”

He rushed outside to see what was making the noise.

It was the Admiral, having a swim around the Good Ship Mithril.

It was the Admiral!

She was wearing her black swim suit, her goggles and her yellow swimming shoes.

“I thought you were a whale!” laughed  Captain B.S.

When the Admiral had finished her swim and had a shower, she cooked them both some supper.

"What will it be tonight?"asked Captain B.S.

"Chicken in white sauce," replied the Admiral.

Chapter 3. Setting Off.

Captain Boxer Shorts looked at the Good Ship Mithril in disgust. 
"This ship is covered in Seagull Poop!" he shouted. The Admiral looked at the decks. It was true. There was seagull poop everywhere.
"It needs a good clean," she said.
Captain B.S. connected up the hose-pipe and scrubbed the decks, washed the windows and cleaned the ropes. Once that was done it was seven o'clock in the evening and time to let go the mooring lines and sail out of the marina.




The Admiral took the wheel and steered whilst Captain B.S. untied the ropes. Soon the Good Ship Mithril was nosing her way out of the marina towards the open sea.

The sea was not flat!

The sea was not flat. In fact it was quite bumpy. Captain B.S. and the Admiral began to feel a bit unwell. 
"We'll soon get used to it," said the Admiral.
"Of course we will," replied Captain B.S, turning an interesting shade of green.




After a while our brave sailors got used to the rolling movement of the boat and began to feel much better. It was a lovely evening and there was lots to see. There were fish jumping out of the water, and fishing boats trying to catch them.


In the distance they could see a warship on patrol. There were three smaller patrol boats motoring around it.
"I hope they don't come too near us," said the Admiral. Captain B.S. decided to hoist the British flag to show them they were friendly. 
"That should do the trick!" he laughed. The flag hung down at the back of the boat. There was no wind. 
"I hope they can see that!" said the Admiral, looking at the limp flag.

The Good Ship Mithril sailed past a lighthouse on the top of a cliff. It was just starting to flash the light to warn ships to keep away from the rocks.






Next they sailed past a huge cave in the cliffs.
"I expect there could be trolls in there," said the Admiral. 
It was starting to get dark and the cave looked very black. 






The sun began to go down behind the headland. 
"I hope we can see where we are going" worried the Admiral.
Captain Boxer Shorts put the sailing lights on. 


There was a red and green one at the front of the boat and a white one at the back.
It wasn't too long before they saw a flashing red light on the shore.
"Head for that light!" shouted Captain B.S.
"Aye aye, Cap'n" replied the Admiral. They steered the Good Ship Mithril towards the flashing red harbour light. 
There were several other boats at anchor in the bay. They put down their own anchor, turned off the engine and made themselves some supper. It had been a long day.

Chap-ter 2. Getting Ready 02.

Tuesday, June 26th. The Good Ship Mithril is loaded to the gunwhales with everything that Captain Boxer Shorts and the Admiral might possibly need, and a lot else besides. 
(If you don't know what gunwhales are you can look it up in the dictionary!)

They chose a white one.

The day before they had been to a phone shop in Algarve Shopping.
"We need a new dongle," said the Admiral. There was a beautiful girl behind the counter. She looked at Captain Boxer Shorts. "Really?" she asked.
"It's for the internet," growled the Admiral. She showed the Admiral some prices and other information on her computer. The Admiral looked at the prices. Captain B.S. looked at the pretty girl.
"This one will work best," she said.
The Admiral and Captain B.S. took the new dongle, which was cheaper than their old one, down to the Good Ship Mithril and plugged it into their oldest computer. Surprise, surprise, it worked first time.
"You can't have too many dongles," joked Captain B.S. as he set off to drive his shiny red car back to its garage.


On board The Good Ship Mithril, the Admiral was trying to cram as much food and beer as possible into the fridge. 
"You can't have too much beer," she thought as she took out a bag of onions and pushed two more bottles in.
The Admiral took her bag and the magnetic key to the marina gate and walked all the way round the marina to the Office to pay the bill. It came to €47 euros for one night. 
"You can't have too many euros," she said.


Meanwhile Captain B.S. was walking two miles to catch a bus back to the marina. It was a hot day and he was tired.


The Admiral walked back towards the Good Ship Mithril. She waved her magnetic card at the gate. Nothing happened.
"Oh dearie me," she said, "How am I going to get back to our boat?"
She thought about climbing over the gate? No chance! She thought about walking all the way back to the Office. No chance! As she waited another person came by with a new card and opened the gate.
"Thank you," said the Admiral, gratefully.

The Bus.

Meanwhile Captain Boxer Shorts boarded the bus. The bus driver asked him, in Portuguese, where he wanted to go.

An Alien.

"Albufeira." replied the Captain in his best Portuguese.
"Eh?" replied the driver.
"Albufeira" replied Captain B.S. The driver looked at him as if he was an alien.
"Al-bu-fei-ra!" he shouted. At last the driver understood.
"Quatro euros" he said. The Captain handed over 4 euros.
"You can't have too many euros", he mumbled.


The Admiral was stuffing clothes onto an already crowded shelf. Suddenly the phone rang. It was Captain B.S.
"I'm lost," he moaned, "and I'm hot. I'm in Albufeira walking along a road called Avenido do Tenis. How do I get to the marina?"
The Admiral fired up her computer and looked up the name of the road on Google Maps. She told the Captain which way to go and he was soon back on board the Good Ship Mithril.

Chapter 1. Getting Ready 01

Monday, June 25th and Captain Boxer Shorts and the Admiral are soon to be off once more on their Summer cruise on board the Good Ship Mithril.
It's 21 years since Captain B.S. finished building her out of large pieces of steel and a lot of sweat.

The Good Ship Mithril

At the moment The Captain and the Admiral are re-stocking the Good Ship Mithril for several weeks at sea. Do they really need all those tins of baked beans?
"You never know when we might run out of wind!" laughed Captain B.S.
The Admiral was trying to find somewhere to put two suitcases of clothes.
"You can't have too many pairs of underpants" she muttered as she stuffed them into a canvas bag. All the other lockers were full of tools and bits of wire.
"You can't have too many bits of wire." said Captain B.S.
"Don't try to use the aft toilet!" shouted the Captain as the Admiral headed in that direction, "I had to have somewhere to put my shoes" The Admiral looked at the huge heap of shoes with dismay. "It's a good thing we have two toilets on board," she sighed.

    

The Admiral and Captain Boxer Shorts on board the Good Ship Mithril