22nd – 28th of February 2021

Riga!!!! Discharging the nice fertilizer loaded in Sluiskil! After a couple of days sailing in the Baltic, we arrived in Riga. It was an interesting trip for me because when entering the Gulf of Riga, we were regularly checking the ice maps for the ice situation. And it seem it was all clear for us till Riga, which was good. Maybe a bit more ice close to the coast. But then this happened: During my night watch, I found it strange that a ship ahead of me suddenly slowed down and almost stopped. That vessel was of course quite a few miles ahead of me, and there were also other vessels behind me and we had probably all checked the same ice charts that evening but….. As I saw the vessel strongly slowing down and only doing 2-3 knots of speed; I paid a little more attention to the horizon to try and figure out what was happening. Indeed, my route was not too far from hers so I didn’t want to be on a collision course with her but wanted to leave enough space in case she had some troubles and was drifting. But suddenly on the horizon, I could distinguish in the deep night so blurry greyish cover on the horizon. And there was a huge ice patch there and it was not mentioned on the ice charts!

We did not have much choice to go through, but luckily Ruyter is an Ice class A vessel so she handles it well. Of course, the inevitable noise of ice scratching the hull surprised quite a few that night. Normal: they had expected a peaceful non-icy night and they suddenly felt as if we were stuck in ice again. Almost. I mean. It was a surprise for us. And also for the other vessels. The one ahead of us and… the ones behind us! The only thing you have to do is slow down the ship and enter slowly to not have any unwanted damages. Because of the ship ahead we knew the patch was not that big; but big enough to last a couple of hours pushing away the patch. It reminded me of when we would go on unchartered areas in Antarctica on board Bark Europa… slowly pushing and making sure everything was fine. Well; that happened and it was fun. It was my little story of the night, haha and I shall remember it well! « The unchartered big patch of ice in the Gulf of Riga ».

So there we were back in ice in the harbour. A nice blue sky the morning, all hatches open, but nice and fresh (read cold haha…) air outside. Good. I do not mind the cold anymore, right? All these cold showers are supposed to toughen me up, and after my experience at -17° in Finland… any temperature around the 0° should be warm too, is that not correct? There was also still snow on the quaysides! Amazing! It is funny how in these last posts, I have the feeling I have been only talking about timber cargo, ice and snow. But to be honest it is probably the only thing we talk about onboard: how cold it is going to be outside for cargo and mooring operations and what we have to do on deck for the lashings! Haha. Oh well.

I was saying that the day started with a great blue sky so I opened up all hatches for discharging. But later during the day, it started to become foggy. I do not really like it when it is foggy because I never know what to expect. I know that in theory there is no rain with fog, but to my eyes, fog is only damp air; thus wet air and it is not that I get nervous with sensitive cargo, but I do find myself checking outside way more often than with blue sky. Fertilizer dissolves very fast with water, and would not want to have it on my hands that the cargo gets damaged because of me. Luckily it did not happen and we were discharged very smoothly.

From Riga, we sailed in ballast to Hamina again to do our second timber voyage to Brake. Unlike Riga, Hamina was still completely covered in ice. There was so much ice that we actually got stuck in the ice! Yes yes! We tried pushing a bit but we were not going anywhere really. And if the pushing method works for smaller and already a bit broken ice; it doesn’t work at all for big thick unbroken patches. We had to call the ice breaker. Captain H. Called them and as they were not too far from us, they came directly to « rescue » us. I mean it is not a rescue in the literal sense; they are there to assist us. And that is what they did! They flew in to help us and passed next to us quite close to break the ice and create a waterway for us. It seems for them that it was normal sailing: no ice no nothing. Can you imagine the power they have? As you cannot move forward they just sail close by to help you out and create a gap so that you can sail through? It was pretty cool to see! We had to be fast to captain H. Directly followed him because otherwise the ice just closes back behind the ice-breaker and we are stuck again. We could almost sail our normal speed again….

And we loaded in the same conditions as two weeks ago. Except that this time we did not have a full weekend waiting in the harbour. Oh and also the weather was not as nice with big sun and blue skies. We loaded directly the day after we arrived. This time I was more at ease. More at ease because I knew the cargo, I knew the plan as I had already seen it in action once and simply because I knew what was expected. As simple as that.

The sun of course only came out as we were sailing out of the harbour. I would not say it often happens like that but… yeah. The good thing about sailing in winter, compared to autumn for example; is that there are more high-pressure systems so the majority of the time it is blue skies and correct winds. While in autumn it can be horrible weather with very strong winds and depressions passing over the Baltic Sea one after the other. And that is very tiring.

This time what was tiring was the lashing of the deck cargo; once again. But not the weather. As it was the second time we were doing it, we managed to get in a good rhythm and found a few tricks to make our lives easier. Working with the watch crane a bit more to lift the heavy parts for example. But it seems that there is no way to end up not making so many steps and back and forth to carry the slings and hooks and chains from one part to another of the ship. Unless having to storages, one fore and one aft; but it is not the case. We just put our « just do it » mentality on and… just did it; calmly but well. It is very important to double-check the lashing on deck because if it is not tight enough, cargo can fall and it becomes a big problem for the stability of the ship.

The lashing took place during the daytime and we easily sailed out in the middle of the afternoon for Brake. We managed to have a beautiful sunset too. I admit I do not get tired of sunsets at sea. I have a lot of pictures of them. When I see one I take a picture. It is always the same but different. Different colours, different clouds; but always as beautiful as the previous one.

It was a fully efficient and hard working day. It was time for me to get some rest before my night watch at midnight.

We were back on track for a few days sailing before Kiel Channel again and Brake. Would this become our routine for the next voyage? Mhm… we shall see next week!

Take care and have a good rest my friends!

Xxx Sophie