I’m often asked how much time I spent at sea. Most people think that it ought to be a lot. But if you add together all of the time that I actually spent afloat during my 20-odd years in the RN it amasses to less than a year – 46 weeks, and 34 of these were during my training. No AEO spends a lot if time afloat – I worked out that even if I’d been appointed to sea-going (Front Line) squadrons, time afloat might have been only a twentieth of my active service time.