Forget me Knott settles down 3/5

"It's much easier on a boat," said Abigail, "you can't afford to make mistakes, especially on a dark and stormy night," she added with a grin. "Port is always the left hand side of a boat, starboard is always the right hand side. It doesn't matter which way you look or even if the boat's going backwards. Port and starboard never change sides.

"Golly” said Fern, "that sounds too good to be true. Is it really as simple as that?"

She left the bridge to go below and unpack her suitcase. "Port is always on the left side, starboard is always on the right. I'll have the portside bunk to sleep in and it won't be on the other side when I turn round. It's so easy."

Her voice faded away as she went below. Abigail looked at Barnacle Bill and smiled. "I think we may be doing her some good at last," she said. "Mind you, that lot at the Wish Warehouse always used her nickname and that can't have helped her confidence."

"Well, Forget-me-not certainly suits her," said Barnacle Bill "but how did she come by it in the first place?"

"Her real name is Fern Marigold Knott," said Abigail but of course at school, with a name like F.M.Knott, she didn't stand a chance. Her nickname has stuck to the point where she probably believes it herself now."

Fern came back up the ladder and stepped into the wheelhouse smiling happily
.
"I think I'm going to enjoy this voyage after all," she said. "If Barnacle Bill can teach me how to tie ropes properly, I'm sure I can soon be a real sailor."

Well, Barnacle Bill was only too happy to oblige. For the next three days, the paddle steamer continued on it's way across the sea, towards Abigail's first job as a journeywoman. Barnacle Bill taught Fern knotting, splicing, the rule of the road at sea and all the many things that sailors have to know.

She proved to be a very quick pupil. The sudden realisation that port and starboard were always in the same place, seemed to have got rid of all her muddled thinking.

In the odd moments when Barnacle Bill wasn't actually teaching her, she would sit in her bunk, port side, with a piece of rope, practising her knots, or she'd be up in the wheelhouse learning all the points of the compass. The day he first let her steer the paddle steamer by herself was something she never forgot.