10th – 16th of May 2021

So we are still currently underway to Greenore with feed phosphates in our cargo holds. It is still quite a good distance at sea… Even by making all the best shortcuts possible, we still have approximately 1700 nautical miles on our passage plan. This represents a nice 7 days sailing: perfect to be in a routine and enjoy being at sea.

As I said last week the route planned looked like this: the first two days out of the Bothnia sea and then the Baltic Sea sailing South of Sweden; then through the Sound. Our first stop was bunkering at anchor in front of Gothenburg. Indeed, on their way to Stockvik, Captain H. had ordered to bunker in Skagen but because it took so long while waiting at anchor and (we) got delayed over 4 hours, we had to cancel so that we could be in time in Stockvik. Sometimes being on time for such appointments with the bunker barges is very difficult. The bunkering companies should know in advance how to take the loss time into account. Most of the vessels taking that route are in a “hurry” as any vessel in the shipping industry would be probably. When it is done safely and when we still have enough gasoil it is not a problem, so we just proceeded without full tanks.

This reminds me of a true story! A long time ago on voyage 5 onboard Bark Europa, back in 2014, we left Ushuaia with the normal program to Antarctica then South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha…… And that year instead of sailing to Cape Town like a usual voyage #5 would do (cape to cape voyage) we were sailing back North to The Netherlands. Well, it was a great voyage, except that we had a lot of “trouble” finding the good winds for a nice sail. There was either no wind or winds again us. Do not get me wrong. This did not make the trip less enjoyable… It was just more motoring and less sailing with nice square sails. We arrived in Horta with… Nothing left in our tanks! Probably enough to run the generator couple of days at anchor, not more. Which is what was done: anchor down, clearance done, and few back and forth in a dinghy with jerrycans. It was quite memorable. In harbor, I remember, another of my great friends vessel – The Tecla- was even ready to sail out to us for a couple hundred nautical miles just to bring us some gasoil. Such good “willing to rescue” friends.

Ok so this was not the same extreme case this time on Ruyter, but we still needed to bunker -for reel- this time. We anchored for what we thought was going to be a couple of hours only. But spoiler alert: it wasn’t! 7 hours later we were finally underway again…

And guess how long it took? Less than an hour! I can understand that is might be just consuming sometimes for captains to wait for nothing while there is a tiktok clock going on…

And there was our ETA to Greenore also thrown to the trash. We were hoping to arrive on Friday morning but it wasn’t possible anymore because of this delay. Greenore and Goole both are “SSHEX” harbors. Means “Saturday, Sunday, Holiday EXcluded”. A short way to say that they do not work on weekends.

Arghh!! Well… Ship life. We still managed to discharge our 1000 tons of cargo on Saturday and were in the evening back en route to Goole. Another 800 nautical miles approximately, so another good 3 days sailing and luckily we could then arrive in the week- normal working days for shore people… –

Greenore is in a nice valley between Northern and Southern Ireland. We need a pilot to enter the river there and a funny story! Well yes, I know… Another one! When I was trainee here on board we also went there and as I was in the bridge with Captain it, when the pilot came he looked at me and said “I know you”, You are the chief officer of the Gulden Leeuw! Haha. Well, probably you read the story already in a previous story of mine in my training ship chapters… I’d have to go and check my previous posts to make sure I am right. But I still find it funny that the pilot recognized me after so many years. Well, it was not him but his brother that day. So I did not have a chance to say hello again. Yes, it is a family thing to be a pilot in that area! The father and his 2 sons… And basically, that is it!

Greenore: a huge crane with a huge grab and I remember thinking to myself “great! This will go fast!” But after speaking to the foreman, yes it was perhaps a big grab but… it was all depending on the ” Lorries” aka trucks. Of course. That is very often the case that the grabs are big but there are never enough trucks to keep up with the discharging rate of the grab. So there is a lot of waiting in between. I was fine with this. I mean, to be honest I also had no choice. As long as I had enough time to close hatches in case of rain drops -which luckily did not happen-, if it takes longer or shorter, I am still ready for the job!

It look us 6 hours and we were off again. I must admit that I like discharging only a part of the cargo because it does not involve any hold washing and mopping afterwards! Joking joking (I only say that in case Captain H. One day reads this blog, right? -. Who doesn’t love cleaning up right?)

Well, this is how a week at sea goes by so fast! I am looking forward to what will happen in the next harbour and where we will be heading off after that! Our choice is set oi the Netherlands or Germany. No, wait. That is captain’s H. choice. Mine is more Spain or Portugal… Because I feel that I am still wearing wool while we are in May! But indeed, we do need to have a few of our Safety equipment checked and… Strange thing.. Captain H. Would like to get his dog Sushi (sorry… Misspelt Duschi 😉 )back on board! Yes, I didn’t tell you! The dog stayed home in the Netherlands! She couldn’t fly to England where Captain H. Joined so she had to “unfortunately” stay home. Oh, God. I really hope he never gets to read this article… Haha, or I will be cleaning bilges for a while! See you next week! Big hugs

xxx, Sopietje