18th – 24th of October 2021

The situation: cargo hold loaded with Fertilizer from Yara in Uusikaupunki and underway to Klaipeda, Lithuania. The very same port I joined almost one month ago. It is funny to be back in the same place a few times in a row. It sometimes feels like we « own » the place. Like we know what the city looks like, and how the cool places look like too. It is probably because for once I joined a day earlier so I had time to walk around in the city and get the vibe out there. And the first weekend I was onboard the harbour was closed due to bad weather so we « had to » stay in and enjoyed a great Saturday night out clubbing and dancing. Lucky me. It usually doesn’t happen like that. You join the vessel and go go go!

So yes. We owned the place. Or the harbour. Or probably only our thoughts on the city, but not much more in the end.

Leaving Uusikaupunki I was hoping we would be in town and we could celebrate my birthday but that didn’t happen of course. In the Bothnia Sea, the first 6 hours after departure, the wind was still quite strong and even though the ship had good stability, it did not feel so comfortable on the bridge: a bit of pitching here and there. Luckily, as soon as we headed south the waves and wind angles were slightly better. 

I had prepared your cookie and reminded him that it was soon my birthday. We had just had a crew change and our previous cook A. Would easily bake cakes. I think he likes it: carrot cake, tiramisu, or other cakes he fancied. With cook M. It is not the same. He is more of a « chef » and likes to cut out deco for the nice presentation of the salads and dishes. He is not such a baking person. But it didn’t matter to me. 2 years ago, he was our cookie when I was first trainee on board and I knew he could bake a birthday cake because I had already had one from him! This year I was just hoping I would not get grated cheese on it as decoration. I think it is an Indonesian thing. It tastes…. Different. 

Funny fact. My brother lives in Indonesia too and as I was having him on the phone for my birthday he asked me how my birthday cake was and if I had cheese on it too. I laughed. I thought it was just the imagination of our cookies for innovative cake decoration, but it seems to be a « thing » there too! 

Second fun fact: it is because of this cook that I got my nickname onboard « Sopie »; without the « H ». Because he spelt my name wrong on the cake and since captain H. Has been calling me Sopie or sopietje and the others have followed. I do understand that the « F » sound is not so common in their language; I just find it funny, and I do not mind at all. On the opposite!

Well, this time, I anticipated, I asked him if he could bake a cake for me and he said « but I do not have « room butter »! » ; to which I replied but you are a cookie you know how to bake a cake without butter right? Just replace it with oil!. I think I saw his face turning blank as he did not seem to understand that it was also possible to bake a bake without butter…. I for sure did not wish to have a remade cake: powder in which you just have to add water or milk, mix and put in the over. So I asked him if he knew how to bake a carrot cake… « carrots? In a cake? But miss Sopie! »…. Ok. History repeats. I will teach this cookie too how to bake my favourite carrot cake… even better than the one from Starbucks! Yes. true. So I printed a recipe and although he wanted me to help him; when I came to the galley to do so, he had already mixed it all and it was in the oven. Perfect! 🙂

Anyways. Third fun fact: I do not know why but Indonesian cooks never like to keep the surprise of how the birthday cake looks. They always bring you to the galley and open the fridge to show you. And I always like to keep it as a surprise. They spent time making it and decorating it so it is always nice that it is a surprise, don’t you think? So this time as he was showing me the cake and I was thinking « oh well, it doesn’t matter, it is still a surprise for me » I saw the cake and it was written « happy 40th » … 40???!! Like whaaaat? I am not 40 yet! He got so confused! And said the captain said it was 40… I said not 37! He quickly changed it for me. But It was funny to see the captain making a prank on me ( yes this is how it goes on ships like this! Always joking around. No harm) and discovering that I knew about it… haha

Anyways. Cookie’s first carrot cake was delicious.

So In Klaipeda, the discharging of the fertilizer went quite fast and we had our next destination already: Liepaja to Portbury. Liepaja was only 70 nautical miles away so we had to be quick to clean the hold and have it as ready as possible. The good thing about fertilizer is that it is an easy cargo to clean, not like grain or pellets that tend to absorb all the water. Fertilizer dissolves very easily.

The only thing is that the winds were increasing in the baltic and they were saying that harbours would maybe close. But we were lucky; our agent said he could find a waiting berth for us in Liepaja….. which… did not happen of course! We left Klaipeda very fast and 6 hours later at the pilot boarding station in front of Liepaja; the harbour closed and we could not enter anymore. The weather forecasted was SW wind force 8-9 Beaufort. Impossible to anchor in front of the harbour and wait. Impossible to sail back to Klaipeda: it was not possible to stay there before we left, so also not after we left. So we sailed in ballast to Sweden to drop anchor and shelter behind Gotland. These were probably my worst 12 hours ever onboard Ruyter. It was horrible how we were literally in a washing machine. The Baltic can have very short and steep waves when the wind increases drastically like that. I think the whole crew suffered too.

When we arrived at anchor we were all so relieved the ship was not moving as much, and that the waves were way less. I am not so sure anyone was happy about the thought of sailing the 12 hours back to the harbour a couple of days later…. Just the thought of it made me tired and started to re-seafasten everything I would touch. At anchor, sheltered behind the island, we faced over 40 knots of wind! I am really glad we were not in the middle where over 8-9 Beaufort were expected and the waves were still present.

We stayed like this at anchor doing inside jobs till we heard the harbour would open again. We heaved up and started making way again as we had 12 hours ahead of us. The winds were still very strong but they had veered a little making it slightly more favourable for us. But of course, as if this whole voyage was not the luckiest, when we arrived in front of Liepaja the harbour was still closed and remained closed for another 24 hours. We waited drifting back in forth waiting for our turn to get the pilot on board and enter the port. What a trip! 4 days to do 70 nm! Crazy. Anyways. We arrived there safely and ready to load sugar beet pulp pellet.

I had already been there. SBPP is for animal food: horses, cows… I tasted it, it was very hard. But when it is wet is because all smoshie. The quayside in Liepaja is not the nicest: there is a lot of cargo and mud and is a bit stinky there too. Every time we go and check the drafts we have to clean our boots on deck otherwise we bring dirt everywhere on the ship. There was still a bit of wind and quite a few showers. So it was not an easy loading. Two cranes but less than 150t per hour… for the two cranes together! I thought we would never end this. It seemed like it took ages. And it did. Between the rain showers, the brakes, the truck drivers break, and the crew changes…. It took us over 2 days to load the ship…. Again on departure, there was too much wind and the harbour was closed so we were delayed 6 hours again.

Honestly, I just think that they planned it for the pilot to come early in the morning and not in the middle of the night… just to get a normal night’s sleep. I do not know. But yes. Finally, we left the place with of course headwinds, but not as strong so we made our way to England. We had a nice long trip: 6 days before we would reach Portbury, via Kiel Channel. And we also had in the locks in Kiel the captain change. B. Was going home and captain H. Coming back from a well-deserved 2-month leave.

I was very much looking forward to having him back on board because work-wise, I would get a direct response on what we could or couldn’t do with the ship. He is the manager so all the shipping or improvements or worklists are approved by him, and social wise because he is fun and brings energy to the ship and he would of course bring Duschi his dog…. So that was a good thing to be looking forward to.

For now, the cargo loading was completed in the middle of the night Sunday and Monday early morning we departed for sea.

What a week! Not much happened but it was physically straining…. Hopefully, a full week of sailing and routine would able us to catch up on some rest here and there!

See you next week for new adventures! 

Xxx Sophie