Category: Non-Fiction Short Stories

It’s probably best not to try to examine Central and West African politics through the prism of European understanding. What passes as acceptable political behaviour in the sense of what that phrase means in Europe, cannot be applied in Africa.
Colonial powers left the African continent in such a mess that it may well take hundreds of years to clear up.
Power in Angola, DRC or any West or central African country is not decided upon by-election, because the losers simply reject the result of any quasi-democratic selection process and call upon their supporters, often numbering in the millions, to take up weapons and go to war.
Few commentators consider the history of Africa when the contemporary situation is under discussion.

Continue reading “Malongo Banana Base Zaire. Thinking about West African Politics.”

Things stalled for a while after I had finished the course, so I moved back to Dublin to find a real job. 

I went back to live with my dad and his new wife in Sandymount, and I found a position with an International trucking company very quickly, whose warehouse and offices were literally around the corner from where I had worked before embarking on my diving career.

I was back in the business that I had worked in for ten years prior to plunging into the diving industry, & I was back living in the house that I had grown up in.

‘Plus sa change, plus la meme chose’ 

Continue reading “After the Fort William Course, and before I went on my first ROV job.”

When I had just about given up hope of the Mexican job ever happening, my flight tickets and itinerary arrived from Idrotec.

 On Friday 22^nd of May I flew Dublin Shannon New York Mexico City arriving in Mexico early afternoon; the connecting flight to Cuidad Del Carmen was the following morning, so I had been instructed to stay at the Marriott hotel, which was in the airport terminal building.

Idrotec had thoughtfully provided a voucher for dinner and my bed and breakfast the following morning.

Continue reading “Mexico Cuidad Carmen, Campeche, May 1998”

On the trip from the airport to the Pemex office and then to the hotel Acuario 11 days previously, I had been tired, a little discombobulated by the heat, not being collected, and my general feelings of extreme stress over everything, so I had not really taken much notice of my surroundings or when Ciudad Carmen had turned into a bit of a slum.

Wherever the metropolis lurked, I didn’t find it during those ten days that I stayed at the hotel Acuario.

I spent the rest of my time there, taking a tan on my face, neck arms and legs. There was no poolside or decking where I would have felt comfortable removing my shirt, so I did my best in the arboretum.

Eleven days after my arrival in Mexico, as I was resting in my room after lunch, a message arrived from Pemex via the young boy in reception.

I was to be ready for pickup at 4 PM.

I hadn’t really unpacked, so packing wasn’t a chore and I was in reception with my bags for a good many ‘adios Alto’s ‘moments with the staff of the hotel.

Continue reading “Mexico Welcome to the world of ROV’s Wednesday 3rd June 1998”

The Bullfight.

Sunday 7^th November 1999.

I’m Irish, so never having had a bullfighting tradition; I shared with most of my countrymen, ambivalence towards the sport.

I’ve never seen one so I’m torn between Hemingway’s tacit support and my old opposition to any sport or activity that renders pain onto an animal.

Continue reading “Mexico The Bullfight November 1999 Mexico City.”

My first trip on the Umka lasted from 4^th of June to 17^th of July 1998, and was not a happy time for me.

I was completely stressed out about money,

I had no idea what was going on back in Dublin, I had given the Idrotec address in Italy as my contact for letters, so I wasn’t sure if any mail had been sent there, and just not forwarded to me.

The system as it worked for Chevron, perhaps did not work for Idrotec.

There was a fax machine in the radio room, but the radio operator was mad and wouldn’t let anybody in.

I tried to get a short letter sent once and was shouted at lustily in Russian, for my trouble.

Continue reading “Mexico Second trip on Umka.”

While I was working in Mexico in August 1998, our Russian boat DSV Umka was ordered into the port of Dos Bochas for urgent upgrades of conditions, from awful to acceptable.

Things on board since the beginning of the job had been appalling.  Chronic overcrowding because the Russian crew, from Capt down to AB insisted on single man cabins for themselves, whilst subcontractors were crammed four into  two-man cabins, all sweltering below decks. Barely working toilets, never working TV (during the World Cup)   hardly ever working air-conditioning and permanently working (round the clock) rodents, cockroaches and flies were among the many defects affecting that benighted hulk.

Continue reading “Mexico, A trip to DHL in Villa Hermosa Mexico August 1998.”

Olmec heads in Villa Hermosa, and Mayan ruins in Comalcalco Mexico.

Villa Hermosa is 70 km south of Paraiso, and La Venta Park and Museum, where the Olmec artefacts were on display, wasn’t far from the DHL depot where I delivered the faulty electronic component for shipping back to Italy. The primary reason for my little trip that day..

 It was mid week, and reasonably early in the morning, so parking was not a problem, and incredibly there was no entrance fee.

The heads, there are three at that site, are breathtaking.

They have been dated to between three hundred and one thousand BCE, the time span when the Olmec civilisation thrived along the Gulf Coast, near modern Veracruz. 

The discovery of those archaeological treasures, on or under the site of the ancient Olmec city of La Venta., took place during the Second World War, when the American husband and wife archaeological partnership, Matthew and Marion Stirling worked extensively in the area.

The heaviest of the three heads is 11,000 kg, and in the absence of aliens with tractor beams, an absolute truism (according to him) posited by Erich von Daniken in his 1970s book Chariots of the Gods, they would have had to be dragged, without the use of the wheel, all the way from the Tuxtlas Mountains, the nearest source of Basalt, to where they were found, a distance of 100 km or more.

In total there were thirty-three large artefacts on view.

As well as the three heads, there are numerous altars and other symbolic carvings, stelae and monoliths, all Olmec in origin.

Before the La Venta site was systematically excavated, the Olmec culture had been unknown, and to this day they remain shrouded in mystery. Even the name ‘Olmec’ is a Mayan word meaning ‘rubber people’, so we have no idea what they called themselves.

They had no writing ,so all the information left behind is symbolically represented, but it seems clear that they worshipped  apex predators from the animal kingdom, such as the Jaguar, the Cayman  the Anaconda, and even the Shark , because motifs of these animals are repeated throughout the bass relief sculptures, found at the sites.

Mysterious or not, there is no doubt that they reached a high level of sophistication in all things cultural, from art to religion to governance, and there seems little doubt that they were the primary civilisation, upon which the Mayan, the Mexica and the Aztec built their respective cultures on.

It was a wonderful experience to walk among them, and be so close to archaeology which is profoundly important to the heritage of humankind.

Having satiated myself on the Olmec culture, it was time for lunch.

I dined on fresh fish in the La Venta restaurant on the banks of the lagoon, and in sight of many of the monuments in the park.

While I ate, I watched languid pelicans skim the glassy surface of the lake, so close to the water that their wing tip feathers ruffled the surface momentarily, as the great wings flapped slowly.

Huge purple, blue and red dragonflies whose diaphanous wings prismadically, it seemed, projected the light of the sun, skipped across the silvered surface, their trailing legs dipping and dappling the water as they skipped. Myriad green lizards scuttled through the rattan roof of the restaurant, feasting upon flying insects..

Thick green jungle surrounded the lagoon on three sides, and the heavy air was full of the cries of exotic birds and the buzz of exotic insects,

After a long and languorous lunch, I set off for the Mayan pyramid and temples in Comalcalco.

In less than an hour I was parked at the site.

For 150.00 Peso’s, which included the entrance fee, I hired a very knowledgeable young archaeology student, Teodoro, to guide me in Spanish and English, through the various buildings and the temple.

The excavations were ongoing   at that time, however some three hundred human built structures had been found, ranging from a large Acropolis to a number of individual temples, a palace, smaller municipal buildings and burial sites.

My guide took me through the small museum, where the many beautiful Mayan artefacts found to date are exhibited.

Comalcalco is thought to have been a satellite city to Palenque, 200 km to the east, although it is unique in Mayan civilisation, in that it is built of fired bricks, held together with cement made of water and crushed oyster shells, rather than worked sandstone.

Many of the bricks are carved on one side, but for some symbolic reason, the carved face was the one turned downward. So the evidence of their craft lay hidden for over a thousand years.

Construction of the grand Plaza was begun around five hundred CE, and it was finally abandoned around one thousand CE, when the Mayan civilisation collapsed.

By the time I had finished my tour, and bought my tour guide coffee in the cafeteria, it was late afternoon, and I needed to get back to Paraiso.

The end.

Based upon the recommendation of Teodoro my guide from the Mayan site at Comalcalco, I had decided to ask if I could keep the car and drive to Palenque the following day, assuming that I was not required for work.

Of course I had heard of, and read about those most famous Mayan ruins, so tantalisingly close then. And if at all possible I was determined to go see them myself.

Continue reading “Mexico The Mayan ruins in Palenque 1998.”

The diving vessel UMKA was finally kicked off the job in September 1998.

The conditions on board had been appalling even after the upgrade, and finally the main contractor got fed up and brought in a new barge called Europa.

Of course all the project equipment, trencher, diving, survey and ROV had to be demobilised and then re-mobilised on the new vessel.

Again, we were brought into the port of Dos Bocos, this time for the demobilisation and re-mobilisation. Dos Bocos was a couple of kilometres away from the town of Paraiso, where we were put up in hotels while the work was ongoing.

Continue reading “Mexico Mosquito time and dengue fever.”