No pictures in this piece and that is kind of the point. I have been working for a long time on setting up a photo shoot. The plan was to get some pretty unique shots of a rare jet that is owned buy a great guy I have worked with for a long time. The plan was to charter a camera ship that allowed some options to get shots that are harder to get normally. I had found an operator of the right aircraft that was in the right place and was happy to do the job.
We had the pricing agreed and they had even sent me the draft lease documents. I had made some amendments to these and sent them back to be finalized and then suddenly everything goes quiet. I send a follow up and hear nothing for a while. Then I send another email and the response I get is not good. They have found a more lucrative job and I am no longer on their schedule! How about that? You spend time briefing what is required, discussing all of the details, agreeing the pricing and you think that you have it all agreed. You are finalizing a lease document which includes a down payment so you think they are serious. Then you are dropped like a stone.
I think it is fair to say I am really pissed off. I am not going to name names because that isn’t going to help and one day I might need them for something else so I will keep the details out of this. However, I try to always be professional in the way I deal with people whatever part of my work is involved. I guess not everyone shares that approach. If they found a better job, perhaps they might have tried to solve my problem as well. They gave me a name for an alternative but this short a notice period is unsurprisingly meaning that an alternative is not available. The other guys tried hard to come up with a suggestion and I am grateful to them for that.
Having ranted I shall now wrap up. I was really hoping that you would see here the great results of what had been planned but I shall have to say instead that it just didn’t happen. Now to see if there is something we can come up with instead.
Alongside the clipper on the waterfront in San Diego is an even old sailing ship. This had the look more of a frigate from the times of Nelson. The shape of the hull is broad to provide a platform for the men and weapons and the gun ports on the side allowed the cannons to fire at any enemy. The boat looked exactly as you would expect for that vintage and, in keeping with the fashion of the day, an intricately carved figurehead was mounted on the bow.
Having grown up on the south coast of the UK, ships of this type were not unknown. HMS Victory was a ship I visited on a number of occasions and it was a big ship compared to this one but the lines are unmistakably similar. The idea of traveling around the world in something like this is fascinating (and terrifying) to me. Doing that and then getting shot at by some pretty unpleasant weaponry with access to minimal medical help if you got hurt is even more scary!
