Tag: adventure

4th Term, Week 4 ⛴⛴

24th-30th of may 2021

Goole. Feed Phosphates. 2000t remaining to discharge. Weather predicted: rain.

Oh, God. I woke up early on Monday. The stevedores work from 6 am to 5 pm; which is one hour later for us as we stay on ship’s time – at all times. I prefer it when it is this way around rather than in Finland when we are one hour ahead…. It makes me wake up at 4:15 in the morning: it is because they also start cargo operations there (in Finland) very very early: at 5! In the UK, it is a normal time and for me, it ends up being only one hour earlier than the rest of the crew: easier for the rest of the day as I will not end up too much like a zombie around dinner time!

From the monkey deck, you can have a good overview of the cargo operations
An amazing view on the countryside
Always happy when I am at heights, never without a selfie either!

As there were some rain showers predicted, it was decided to open as few hatches as possible to close them quickly in case of drops. Feed phosphate does not tolerate any drop of rain and even with very light drizzle, the hatches need to be closed to protect the cargo from getting humid or worse, wet.

No need to say that my only job at that point was to stay outside when the hatches were open to be ready for action…. And count drops. The big bags were out of the hold quite fast and were taken away by forklift to another shed. Then Hold 2 was next to be discharged but….. the truck was not there yet and was late so we had to wait over 1 hour for that, which seemed like ages to me. Finally it came and slowly slowly, grab per grab hold two was empty by lunch time.

Finally we started discharging from hold 1 and then it started raining…. And there started my job to count drops …. Count drops to be ready to open hatches as soon as it was dry enough to discharge. That is the open-close-open-close game that starts. Oh, I didn’t mention that during the discharging, other trucks would come and load during our time so all the process of discharging the ship would have to be paused and it would take approx 30 minutes per truck. OK. How many trucks a day? 4 to 7. Yes you heard. We managed to discharge a bit more before calling it a day. That was nice to have a just longer evening than planned even though they wouldn’t have stopped too late.

Discharging hold 1

The next morning, it was dry. Perfect. I opened the hatches. But…. By the time I came back up to the bridge to switch the coffee machine on, I saw raindrops falling and run directly back down to the hatch crane to close. And…. Of course; British weather. 10 minutes later it was dry. And. That was till 10 am and then rain for the whole day. Great. We were just halfway through the discharging and the following forecast was not better. Luckily in the afternoon, we got a short window of sunshine and while we managed to continue discharging until trucks came, we had to pause. And…. The electrical cable of the belt got damaged by the trucks driving on it… Yes how unlucky! So we decided to shift some of the cargo from under hatch 10 to hatch 7-6 which would make it easier and faster for the grab to put on the belt. And… the crane broke down! Really? yes. We really thought everything was against us on this trip. The first discharge in Greenore was overtime or we would lose 3days; then the days at anchor because of the new survey in the river, and the rain, then the belt and finally the crane!…

Ended up having my morning coffee on deck!

Technicians spent a few hours preparing the crane in the night and the belt was repaired the next morning. Next rainy morning. Just to make it clear. We really had the feeling we would never get out of Goole and move on to the next harbour.

L. Sweeping the coming of hold 3

Finally, finally, we got a good slot after lunch and took the risk of opening up the hatches. And slowly slowly we managed to open everything and continue discharging; keeping the trucks out of the way while discharging. It seemed that for once, the stevedores also wanted us to move on. Well. In reality, they had other jobs to do around the harbour and they had a long national holiday coming on and did not want to do some overtime during the weekend. Obviously. Luckily, the winds had turned and they worked overtime of 2 to 3 hours making it possible for us to complete that evening and make it ready to sail out.

The sun finally came out… It’s all about perspective onboard😁
Hold 3 getting more and more empty

That meant: cleaning the hold and coamings and putting the bulkheads back in position for our next cargo.

We only knew in that same afternoon where we would be sailing to next. Not The Netherlands like we wished; but Hamburg in Germany.

That was good for our big food and ship’s stores delivery and also for some of the life Saving appliances that needed their renewal of certificates. Oh. And we would get our external audit in Hamburg too. Had I mentioned that already?

Ruyter alongside in Goole before discharging started…

Needless to say that this was going to be a long night, a short sail and long days in Hamburg.

I felt sad for Captain H. Because he was really looking forward to get his little dog Duschi back onboard. It had been almost 5 weeks that she was at home while he was sailing. Normally they are always together. But Hamburg was too far for someone to bring her on board. I am not admitting as loud as L., but the ship is way more silent without her…. Yes. We miss her. But shout, do not let Captain H. Know! We are still pretending it is way better without the dog that barks at anything that moves around. Haha. I know how much we can miss furry animals. I have the same with Maara and Ouschi, my parents’ two border collies. So I can imagine how he must feel without his warm little body dog following him everywhere. He just calls her a cuddle dog.

So there we were with a clean hold, a very short sleep and two pilots on board again to sail out of tiny tight Goole. Again a nice time-lapse, again very nice manoeuvring compliments for Captain H. And off we were to Hamburg!

We arrived at the waiting berth in Hamburg Friday in the beginning of the evening . As we had very little time, the external audit started directly upon arrival. It was long , but « okay ». I will never say and audit is nice. It is not. But we try to make the best of it. On Saturday we also had the delivery from Ship2supply coming straight from Delfzijl . 5 pallets! 5! And two technician checking all of our safety equipment: Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, medical oxygen, immersion suits, inflatable life jackets, fire extinguishers…. Etc etc etc a lot of things happening here indeed!

It seemed that the day never ended. In the middle of the night Saturday we shifted berth to go to the loading berth. Hopefully, we could be early enough to load and complete and still be on time to sail out with 3000t of soya bean meal to Hvide Sande in Denmark…… before the tide was too low for us to stay at the loading berth ….

Loading soya bean meal in Hamburg

Trust me we all wanted was a rest day. Or let’s say, a normal routine day; but we also all wanted to get back at sea! Get out of the hectic day and head towards a small calm danish harbour. And we made it out on time!

Finally a chill watch in the bridge…

This is how we spent our Sunday at sea. An easy Sunday. An easy sail. Just enjoy the good weather that was finally getting better and warmer.

Thank you for reading me dear friends, see you next week! Xxx Sopietje

3d Term, Week 9 🤩⚓️

15th of March till I fly home on the 22nd!

There we were Monday morning still in Szczecin, Poland, finishing the discharge of the steel coils. There was not much left but enough to take up half a day and wait for the pilot to board so that we could proceed to Riga. This gave us time to prepare the hod, sweep it well, and make sure there were no remaining from the previous cargo in it: bits and pieces of plastic, lashing steel, etc. It goes fast and if you do not pay attention the guys working in our hold would also leave their crap behind that we would have to pick up and clean up for them: wraps of snacks, sweets, papers, empty cans, and bottles of water…. It is often like that. But I am never so happy with it and I often cannot keep my mouth shut for this type of things and I make sure that they pick up all their trash before they finish. Sometimes it is a bit of a fight. But I am right: before the cargo, the hold is clean and ready and after the cargo, the hold should be as clean as possible. Maybe because I am a woman they try to have me there, but I know my voice can sound louder from time to time, and trust me; I do know how to use the sound system when necessary!

Moored in Szczecin, Poland. Grey and rainy.
It is important to make sure everything come out of the hold at the end…
A nice and clean hold, ready for the next cargo

We were finally underway to Riga in Ballast. It was a 2-day sail and we would load Sun Flower meal pellets. It looks very much like sugar beet pulp pellets, but it is not the same ;-). We would bring this cargo to Gent in Belgium, which meant a nice few days sailing. Even if we had to pass via the Kiel Channel once again; if we were lucky enough it would not bother us too much in our watch schedules and resting hours. Fingers crossed!

I think this was my first time with this type of cargo…. Let me check. Yes, indeed it was my first time! Now you must be thinking how I checked so fast into my memories for that right? Well, I have a secret. I do not have any memory for such things: cargos, places I have been to, distances, events… No brains at all so I write it down! I have a note on my phone and I write down on each of the trips the distances and cargos we have been transporting…. 😉 especially when onboard Ruyter we tend to go several times to the same harbors and also a few times in the same term! And a few times in the same harbors but not with the same cargo either! Yep. As you can see I can easily get myself confused after a while, so I write it down. To be as precise as I can.

Ruyter alongside in Riga

The loading in Riga went quite fast. It was a touch-and-go harbour which is nice because I could easily prepare my handover and take care of the last-minute things. There are always last-minute things to arrange when you come closer to a Dutch or Belgium harbour: deliveries, technical orders…. This time it was our gangway. We were going to receive a new gangway in Gent with a new platform! How cool right? We were all so happy about it because our platforms always got stuck with the gangway. But the reason we would get a new one was not so nice of course… it broke. Well to be more precise, it got literally destroyed by the crane driver in Szczecin…. He did not look where he was driving and ran over it like if it were butter. But it was not as if we had quickly moved our gangway just on his path by surprise right…. I mean, you get it. Shit happens and no one got hurt.

Started loading bulk cargo in Riga!
Very nice sunset in Riga

On our way back to Gent, we of course passed via the Kiel Channel and I enjoyed being once again in the locks. It felt like these locks were becoming our familiar second place to be with the ship. I do not mind they do not take long, and I usually try to make fun on the foredeck taking selfies or showing my life on Instagram or just chit-chatting with the AB on deck with me at that time. There are a lot of things to talk about: the way the germans through their heaving line, the way the gangway is set, if we need to take freshwater or not…. Always something to talk about indeed.

How can you not love sunsets at sea? Never bored of it…

I felt like this time the channel was quite busy with more vessels than usual. But I must admit that we were this time in a sort of convey so there were always vessels ahead of us and behind! And perhaps the last times I didn’t see the other vessels because of the darkness of the night… just kidding 🙂 even when it is dark we still see the other ships 🙂

Entering the locks in Holtenau
A busy Kiel channel!
Beautiful lights…

Does it happen to you too that when you know you are going home; I mean obviously I always knew it would be the case; but I mean the moment you have a fixed date, then suddenly everything becomes somehow « lighter » or more « cheerful ». You enjoy way more small things that you do onboard: mooring, cargo, watches…. Like a new you. The same happens when you just join the ship. You are fresh from leave so full of energy if you did not have a bad long travel day. At the end of your term, you are re-energized because you know you will get enough rest once home again so you are not trying to save on some rest or sleep.

Happy officer on the forecheck during mooring operations!

Anyways. Kiel Channel and arrival in Gent went quite smoothly. If you do not count the long waiting and drifting at Steenbank; then the locks in Terneuzen… The pilots always seem to postpone the boarding times and the locks always seem to be congested. Every single time. I can understand it is a busy area and if you have bad weather or infrastructure work in the locks, everything is slowed down. Do you have the same?

And then there it was suddenly the end of 9 weeks onboard. And my 3d term turns a page for new shore adventures… till I will join again in 8 weeks.

And say bye to the ship for the next 8 weeks!

I hope you still enjoy reading all my adventures and I am looking forward to my next term! But for now, rest is well deserved! Thank you all my dear friends and see you soon!

Xxx Sophie

3d Term, Week 8 🤩⚓️

8th – 14th of March 2021

There we were after a good weekend of rest in Eemshaven, we were ready for the steel coil party on Monday morning!

Probably because we were so close to the office, and perhaps for other reasons also, a lot of persons came to visit us. I say « us » but for sure it was more for the ships and to see what was going on, and how operations were going too. It is funny because you can recognize them easily. After all, their safety jackets and boots are very nice, shiny, and clean! Oh well, I cannot blame them, they do not need to wear them in the office behind the desk right? The funny thing is that of course they apply the safety rules by the letter and wear the helmet at all times… also inside. Personally, I find that sometimes wearing a helmet is more in my way than normal. I often forget that I have that extra space that I need to take into account and I find myself bumping my head way more often than usual. Haha. Also..; I am not so sure that a helmet would be of great aid if a 20-ton steel coil came to fall on my head…. But that is of course another debate.

There was a big crane that was hired for transferring the coils from one ship to another. We had also a few extra persons onboard.

Cargo transfer from one vessel to another
We are now almost equal freebords!

We had to make sure that a few of the bigger coils that were above 25t had to be on Portside because the crane in Szczecin did not have an arm long and strong enough to take those coils out from starboard. As long as we knew; it was not a problem. Because this was a particular case, two super-cargos from the office were onboard the ships to make sure there would be no damage and an inspector from Tata steel was also onboard making sure that the cargo would be again properly stowed from one ship to the other. They had all the plans and were mainly leading it all. I was making sure that the new captain was happy, that there was enough coffee and that the ballast was correctly taken out of the ship and stripped. I remember the new captain was slightly nervous to have the ship properly stripped and I found it strange that he asked me a few times to strip again « just in case ». Which I did of course – captain’s orders- but felt a bit hurt of course that he would not trust my deballasting and stripping of the tanks. But they were good empty so; I had nothing to be afraid of.

The deballasting goes perfectly well!👌🏻

It was fun to see that we arrived in ballast so we were more than 2 meters higher than our sistership and that slowly slowly we were at the same height and finally ended up being the one loaded and them in ballast 2 m higher than us! As I was regularly checking the drafts it was fun to see. Also, the nice thing is that we were at the very end of the harbour so the quayside was also accessible ahead of us with a small jetty. We could really check the bows of both vessels. I made a couple of nice pictures too of course! Also crazy selfies – but that is not a surprise for you, right? 😉

It took us over 2 days to transfer all the coils, and we were almost going to start day 3 of loading but we managed to do a little bit of overtime with the crane driver to have it completed at the end of the second day. I was glad about that because it enabled us to leave directly in the evening rather than losing again half a day. We have still 3-4 days till our destination port of call and well you know; Eemshaven is nice but there is not much to do without a car there.

The two sister ships alongside each other; Ruyter is loaded, Sprinter in Ballast.
A fully loaded cargo hold with steel coils.

While underway we heard that we would not be heading back to Hamina for the next voyage, but it would be Riga with some bulk cargo. We had to face the now the other part of the timber slings: storing them away hoping we would not have to take them out for a while…. Indeed it may seem stupid but a few trips ago we were hoping that we would have a few backs and forth trips with timber which meant that it was easy to just drop the lashing equipment in the hold while sailing in Ballast from Germany back to Finland. Up to now, it hadn’t really happened this way. But we had managed to leave the slings on deck in what we call the « swimming pool »: the area just in front of the accommodation. It is not ideal, but properly covered and fixed to the deck it was not such a problem. Just looked very messy. But you know, who cares if it is only for a couple of days.

This time we decided to store them back in the lashing store in the forecastle. Which meant tidying up and rolling all the slings properly, folding all the tarpaulins and bringing them back and counting all the timber slings, putting them by bundles of 25, and dropping them off via the hatch and the crane forward. It was almost as much work as making the deck cargo fast! Haha but you know what? This time, we had time to clean up the lashing store beforehand and I made sure that all the slings were together in one place and all the tarpaulins together in another place. That was a good job to be done together.

Putting away all the timber slings together with the AB’s

Half a day later we passed Kiel Channel during the day. It is my favourite when it is during the day because I find that there is always something to see. And I must admit that it was also good weather so it makes it even more enjoyable. After Kiel Channel, we still had 2 days sailing to Szczecin, our discharge port. Although they work fast there, we did not manage to complete it in one day and they do not work on weekends and nights there so we had a weekend in the harbour! Lucky enough for us we were allowed to go ashore!

I was looking forward to walking a bit but also to visiting this city. I spent a good part of my Sunday walking around the streets and going from one iconic place to another. I found that some parts of the city were really cute and well taken care of and the buildings were big and nice in other parts. All around the city, some panels indicate the direction and the time by foot to go to a « viewpoint » on the river to a landmark, or a museum, or a pretty fountain… It felt like they were trying to improve tourism there and make it attractive. I was really glad I had the time and that just the moments I was out, the sunshine was with me. It was my little architectural and tourist break. Very well appreciated as this was my first time there too.

When I was on tall ships, Szczecin was a big sponsor of the Tall Ships Races. One of the regattas even ended or started there; I do not recall really. But they were investing in a lot of polish youngsters to go at sea and experience some life onboard big sailing vessels, making friends and learning how to live together and be more understanding. They would also sponsor a lot of other youngsters all over Europe for this same sailing experience. Yes so I had heard about Szczecin quite a lot but it was my first time here and was nicely surprised.

A free Sunday afternoon in Szczecin

On Monday we would finish the discharging and prepare the hold for our next cargo in Riga. It was not a long sail there so it was going to be a good week. I was soon going home as I had just finished my 8th week onboard to probably after Riga!

We will see when that will be but For sure you will know soon enough in the next coming days!

And off I go for a nice walk in the city! Free days = Fun days!

For now, I hope you enjoy a great Sunday too!

Xxx Sophie