THE PERSIAN GULF l6l 



winning the supporters of the stokers' team got carried away and 

 clapped onto the rope to save the situation. Finally this idea caught 

 hold, and despite the protestations of the referee, the whole 

 Ship's Company were soon on the rope pulling the Wardroom 

 away across the sands. 



This was an uninhabited part of Qatar ; not even the ruins of a 

 village were to be seen, but upon the reefs were built long low 

 stone walls which formed a crude type of trap to catch the fish 

 on a falling tide, and to these would come the solitary fishermen. 

 They wore a loincloth pulled up between their legs and a cloth so 

 casually wound about their heads that it was difficult to under- 

 stand how it remained in place as they waded about the reefs 

 inspecting their traps and occasionally bending dovsai to effect 

 repairs to the walls. They paid little or no attention to the survey- 

 ors nor did they interfere with the tempting marks which the 

 surveyors were now erecting upon the shallows. 



At first it was very difficult to use the ship for sounding at all, 

 for there were indications of shoals on every hand. On more than 

 one occasion the ship was pulled up or turned within feet of a 

 coral outcrop, and once the log, which protrudes below the hull, 

 was bent as the ship grazed over a shallow area. Charles Grattan, 

 the Navigating Officer, considered this technically a case of 

 grounding and ostentatiously filled in the necessary official report 

 forms which he submitted to Sam who cast them into the waste- 

 paper basket as often as they were handed to hini. On the field 

 boards the boats were slowly drawing the complex picture of the 

 reefs with the deep channels between them and indicating areas 

 where the ship could safely work. Most interesting of all, a deep 

 channel was found rumiing northwards between Fasht al Arrif reef 

 and Fasht al Odaid through which it would be possible for tankers 

 to pass when its narrow limits had been marked with buoys. 



The oil company had a survey launch of their own to which 

 Lieutenant Trapper Croome was now sent to assist with the 

 positioning of the buoys along this channel. On the first morning 

 of his stay onboard the launch he was surprised to be offered 

 brandy for breakfast, and on his protesting that the sun was not yet 

 over the yardarm the Captain of the launch went on deck and 

 lowered the offending obstruction to the sun's steady progress. 



