Graeme and Ginny of nofixedaddress2011: Fremantle - Little Creatures and Submarine Tour

The " Little Dove" replica ship, moored outside Little Creatures brewery.

Tug boats below at Freemantle harbour.

Below, inside "Little Creatures" brewery.

The bar at Little Creatures

Enjoying a beer

The sub HMAS Ovens. Our tour guide here is an ex submariner who served 5 years on this class sub. He was full of fascinating stories about life on a submarine.

Descending through the hatch to the forward torpedo room.

Forward torpedo room, showing the orange torpedo tubes. On the left is an orange escape suit.

Proceeding through the hatch to the control room.

The Galley- there were 65 crew on the sub, fed 4 times daily, all from this tiny galley.

Officers wardroom.

Control room

Ginny ascending through the hatch.

The "Fin" (conning tower)

The submarine tour is one of my highlights, I have always wanted to see inside one. The tour guide had so many funny stories about life on a sub. One of my favourites was about John Kerr (before he became Governor General) came aboard for a day for background as he was conducting a pay review for submariners. They took him out to sea & the weather was very rough. Just before they came back to port, the crew need to dump the waste holding tank from the toilets. Usually they ventilate so the smell is not so bad, but they decided not to on this occasion. Apparently John Kerr turned bright green at the smell (on top of a rough day at sea!) & as he staggered off the sub he said "You are not getting paid enough to do this job" When the pay review came through, the submariners got 3 times more than they were expecting! Another interesting fact was due to the expense of torpedos ( each one cost millions of dollars) the sub was never fully armed. The aft torpedo tubes were never loaded, so the sailors used the 2 tubes as beer storage. One of the escape tubes for the crew was very narrow, so they had a strict policy that the thinnest went first so the larger men wouldn't get stuck in the tube & block the way out! ( Shades of Homer Simpson)