CHRISTMAS AT SEA

Evening Star, Issue 25676, 27 December 1945, Page 4

CHRISTMAS AT SEA

PREFERABLE TO SYDNEY A IMPRESSIONS OF REAVELEY'S MASTER * With labour not available to work her until January 7, the master of the Reaveley, Captain Hansen, is not at all dismayed at the prospect of a fairly lengthy stay in Dunedin, ill spite of the weather which attended berthing at the Birch street wharf at noon today. Although Sydney was his last port of call, and at one time he enter-' tained the prospect of spending Christmas there, he wasn’t at all dismayed at getting his sailing orders, which arrived before his full New Zealand cargo was loaded. “ I didn’t have any crew trouble, either,” he pointed out. “ Sydney is no place for relaxation these days. I was glad to get out.” Theatres were open, but air-conditioning plants were not working, and temperatures were high above the comfort level. Streets were lighted for only an hour or so, and leisure living was too difficult to be pleasant. So the Reaveley spent a somewhat foggy Christmas off Puysegur Point. She is a trim modern vessel, commissioned at the end of 1940, and came through the war, mainly on the North Atlantic run, without a scratch. On her present trip she picked up a group of New Zealand ratings in Suez—-in-cluding two Dunedin boys, A. J. Smith, of 38 High street, Musselburgh, and A. H. McLeay, of 30 Coughtrey street, St. Clair, but left them in a transit camp in Australia, their_ places being taken by “ dems ” —ratings due for demobilisation in England. She also carried two naval lieutenants as passengers from Australia. Captain Hansen is favourably, disposed to New Zealand. He has visited New Plymouth, which he found rather better than he had been led to expect, and he anticipates a similar experience here. Reaveley will leave about January 10.