7th term, week 4 🤩

13^th to 19^th of June 2022.

Hello There! still at sea sailing from Spain (Vilagarcia) to the UK (Birkenhead, in front of Liverpool on the Mersey River). It is just over 3 days sailing from one port to the other, but luckily not a difficult trip as there are no reporting points, no coast and just vessels crossing up coming from the channel and probably heading to Africa or the strait of Gibraltar. We even crossed another Dutch vessel on which one of our previous maroffs is now a chief officer. They were sailing to Jeddah. Our Apprentice S. who was still in touch with him, and who still needs to practice calling on the VHF made contact as they were both on watch and it was good to get news from him.

We could only arrive at our next port of call with high tide and we had to calculate arriving at the pilot station 3 hours before high tide. That meant in the early morning on Tuesday we would be there and be ready for sailing up the river up to Birkenhead where we would pass through an old narrow lock. As I came on watch to the bridge slightly earlier, I got to see Liverpool from the waterside and I thought it looked like a nice place to be. I was really hoping that we would get a bit of time to go ashore in the evening; if the conditions would allow it.

we were told that it would take at least two days to discharge. So we hope that it meant two evenings two right? Two evenings where we could split the crew and take a turn to go to Liverpool for the evening and get a picture with the famous statues of the Beatles!

well… sounded good. Also because we moored on Tuesday afternoon and they started around the coffee break, and they would not be working late: only 20:00 ship’s time; so for sure, we thought it would take two days.

The first part of the crew went ashore: engineer, ABs and apprentice. I thought I’d let them go together, being guys, they would not probably want to see the same things as me…. To be honest I love sightseeing, so just walking in town, getting the atmosphere of the city in my head, walking the streets and taking pictures of the architecture: buildings, houses, streets, windows and doors, colours. It is probably some leftovers from my architecture years. I guess that will never leave me as I will forever be an architect even if I do not practice. My vision of tourism and cities are probably transformed since my studies. I do like to go for a drink too of course, but it is never really my main goal when I have the chance to go ashore.

As I was closing hatches that first evening, I thought to myself that they had been working quite fast already. I somehow had the feeling that they would complete the next day with this speed. But I did not want to worry or to tell myself I should have gone to town too. I was secretly keeping my fingers closed that we would still be there the following night.

The next morning, hatches opened of course, and it all went so fast that by lunchtime I knew we were going to complete before the end of the day and that Pilots would come onboard at high tide to go outbound with the flow. I somehow just knew it! I knew that I had missed my chance there and I was actually quite sad and angry about it. Maybe because in the past I have always put the crew and the guests ahead of what I wanted, being so faithful to the ship and to work, that now I tend to try to grab any opportunity, also for myself and not always being the person saying yes all the time. So I was a bit upset with myself for being that person again giving the chance to others before myself. 

Do you know what happens in such situations? I have to work hard on my mind to tell my brains that we could have been at sea, and I would not have seen Liverpool either, we could have been in another harbour, it could have been covid times with no shore leave, it could have been a 24h working harbour and yes exactly, you get it. I am here for the ship, not on vacation. And I had a nice early evening onboard watching a movie with the captain and one or two beers, which is also rare as we are a dry ship. We only allow ourselves a beer when there is no more cargo operation and no activity during the night and alongside. And it never goes wild. I guess we are quite a reasonable crew right?

So there we were preparing for departure in the middle of the night. I will directly let you know. It is never handy to depart at such hours. Indeed the whole crew is awake then; and if not on deck it is the noise from the engine room and variations are the usage of the engine for the manoeuvres that wake you up. Besides, there is a long part that is done on the river with the pilots where the captain also needs to be present so there is a little bit of a change in schedules. On longer trips, it is not a problem because, over the following days, it is all settled up again; but for short days it is never really so nice as it totally breaks our routines.

This time, we were heading to Scotland, to Loch Aline to load some sand and we would be back to Runcorn just a couple of hours sailing further on the Mercey River, passing Liverpool.

It was very nice to sail up to Scotland. It reminded me of my time onboard the tall ships because we had quite some sailing in this area. Especially a cruise in company ( sailing time between two race ports) which gave us lots of time to hop in and out of the smallest little harbours all the way up to Lerwick! This time as we were sailing up North I knew from my Instagram feed that the tall ship Thalassa from the Netherlands was also sailing in the area! and I actually saw them on the AIS! but not in reel. My colleague early morning saw them as they were sailing by a great castle and apparently the view was really amazing! Lucky him!

Loch Aline was a very cute little lock. The pier, which was more of a jetty, was short. Our size vessel was probably just at the maximal tolerance for this kind of jetty; the belt could also barely reach our outboard side of the vessel. But it did not really matter as long as we could load properly. There was a big tide there and the difficulty of this jetty is that you can only load when the tide is running in so that as you load, the vessel’s draft gets deeper, but more water would come under the keel which would compensate. If you did not pay enough attention or continued too late after High water, you had a big big chance of running aground then!

The loading rate was also very fast: around 600 tons an hour, so you could expect to complete within 5-6 hours of cargo operations if all went well. Well…. we had a bit of a nervous half an hour there as we had to suspend the loading due to a problem with the belt, but it was fixed fast enough and we could finish in time safely. Very often the problems in loading come from shore: the belts, the trucks, and the crane…. I mean it can happen and it is most of the time not a problem; but sometimes, if you have sensitive cargo, or tidal constraints well, you better pay attention to take the right measures if necessary and fast!

The sand we were loading was really white like beach sand in the tropics! It was beautiful. It was quartz sand, so I googled it to check what it was used for. I thought maybe glass, and I was right!

After loading you proceeded during the night towards the next port of call which was Runcorm, as I mentioned, just a little further from Liverpool. The wind was picking up a bit and we passed through a beautiful area called the great race then the sound of Jura. In the Great Race, the currents pushed us all the way up to 17 knots! it was crazy! The captain stayed a little longer on the bridge with me to pass that area. I guess he wanted to make sure that we would not hit the rocks right? Once passed, the sound of Jura was a blessing: calm, quiet, and beautiful. Just a pity it was by night. I could imagine green mountains with nothing around them as there were almost no lights surrounding us. Just nature.

In less than 24 hours we were back in Liverpool Bay, waiting for the pilot to board the vessel 3 hours prior to high water.

We arrived at Runcorn on Sunday morning very early and discharged the sand we had.

Not all harbours only work during weekdays. even in the UK. I guess it depends on the cargo we have too. For sand, it seems that it is 7 days out of 7. Oh well. and as it is not rain sensitive either, it is very easy: just open all hatches and let them discharge according to your plan.

The cook and I went for groceries that afternoon; so I must say I almost did not see the cargo coming out of the hold!

The grocery shopping in itself did not take long… probably just less than 2 hours. yes yes, it ends up with three full carts! but we had to somehow wait for the taxi for over 1 hour after that! The very nice thing actually was that he did not have any receipt to give me for the accounts of the ship, he made it free for us adding that it was not normal we had to wait so long for a cab. I am glad that there are still some nice people in town right?

This is how we spent our week in British and Scottish waters. Our next cargo was not ready yet in Rayness Jetty so we would head back to Loch Aline that night again for another round of Sand, but this time to Ellesmere Port, a bit closer to Liverpool.

And off we were on the run again!

See you next week!

Sophie xxx