AKA - The Ship

Lovingly known by the locals as "The Ship"
Why?
Cos, it is one - in its own kind of way - chopped up in dry dock
This is part of the fire and rescue training unit in Edinburgh. It?s attached to the Fire training centre and is where some of the practical training takes place. Having been through it twice - it is such good fun, but such hard work!

Once you have donned your fire gear, boots, gloves, trousers, jackets, flash hoods, you move onto the breathing apparatus, gauges etc and then you are taken to the bottom of the unit. Put through the door at the bottom right.
Once inside it is black - very black, dark, smoke and flames - oh and hot!
You have to make your way through the mixed layout of the ship with the aim of getting to the top floor - 3 flights up. To get there you have to find your way through the "rat run"- a set of cages like a hamster cage, crawling on your hands and knees with teh heavy weight of the fire gear in the dark until you come to the next floor where your task is to find bodies and take them out. The body can weigh about 10stones - full of sand and what a dead weight !
Then up on to the roof where the gas tank at the top left is lit and sends up the most fantastic crackling plumes of flames.
Oh , forgot to mention - you are dragging a fully charged hose with you all the way, putting out the odd fire on the way, which generates buckets of steam and then you have to get it dragged back down to the bottom again!
Its knackering, hot, sweaty but fantastic - not for the faint hearted or those with claustrophobia - a great day - but I'm sooooo tired.....

I take my hat off to the fire teams