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4th Term, Week 0 ⛴⛴

Before joining the ship again… May 2021

I am back onboard Ruyter! This leave felt so short… Probably because it was indeed shorter! First of all, I had to catch a few up days with my reliever. Second of all, I had to renew a few of my STCW safety courses before joining the ship again. So that took a good week off from my leave too!

Back in Amsterdam!

My leave started by arriving in France end of March and the president announcing another lockdown for the coming 4 weeks – at the minimum! Great! Some of my plans had to be canceled as I wasn’t allowed to travel over 10 km around the house if it wasn’t for a good reason, such as: working, medical appointments, etc. The other thing he announced was to avoid going to work when we could work from home. And there my were weeks in Brest flying away. As there were no real “important” meetings at work I could stay at home. This was the first time I ever did homeworking. I must say I didn’t find that too had at all: I could have a coffee whenever I wanted and could enjoy the surroundings of my home without interruptions. I was more productive as I was certainly more concentrated. On the other hand, I missed being in the office and being able to ask my questions directly or to simply have all documents under my hand, my notes, and my files.

Behind the Botel is a training ship where I renewed my safety courses! Funny to know we put it on fire a few times- for training purposes!

In the end, It wasn’t too hard at all and I was glad I also did not have to travel for over 9 hours to be there. As my leave days were already counted, this saved quite me some quiet time home. The next Navy session will be in July. Hopefully, it with be nice and sunny and we will have lots of time to go sailing.

Amsterdam and her channels…

My STCW courses were in Amsterdam. That took also more time than planned as flights back and forth to France were very reduced: only once a day. Although making PCR test within 24h of the take-off was an adventure in itself, it all went very smoothly. We were in Amsterdam Nord. I love that place because it is so “boho chic” you have a lot of street art and big fleas markets. I hadn’t been there for over 2 years and I must say it had drastically changed! Big new buildings: a lot of housing and bars. Probably very expensive. And no more “student housing” that was made of old redesigned containers. The apartments seemed nice with terraces, big windows, lots of light, and 2 steps from the ferry binging you directly to Amsterdam central station. Another very good thing was a couple of new shops: A very nice bakery and a big enough supermarket to do your groceries.

NDSM, a very hype place to be in Amsterdam!
The sunset from my hotel room!

And… Of course, I can not not mention my previous vessel laying there: the Gulden Leeuw. So of course I had to pop on to say hi. I didn’t know the 2 crew members that were on board. Because of the pandemic and Dutch regulations they couldn’t sail and had to stay alongside for the winter. I am glad they will soon be starting to sail again. That is what these sailing vessels are made for!

It was very nice to meet the two captains again, enjoy a nice coffee and an easy dinner, catch up on good old memories, and talk about the future. I was asked if I could join them again in May-June to start up the season but, of course, I wasn’t available. Maybe in the future when I have more time during my leave.

The Gulden Leeuw moored in Amsterdam, NDSM

Safety courses are always classes we are not looking forward to attending. There are refresher courses, and to be honest, when you train properly onboard and do your drills regularly and seriously, that you also try to keep up to date with regulations and just with the function of systems and equipment then you might think they are a loss of time. I kind of try to set my mind up and think I will practice that and learn something new that I do not have onboard. For example, we do not carry a lifeboat nor a freefall onboard Ruyter, so I do not know these systems that well. We have a rescue boat. So it is nice to be confronted with safety items that are slightly different. It keeps the course interesting and makes it fun… We might as well make the few days together nice, right? The other thing I like a lot in these refreshers is the practice we have in the swimming pool with immersions suits and liferafts, jumping from heights, and practicing being lifted like from a helicopter. Or again the fire fighting: Being « on-scene commander » and making decisions for your crew, or being the first fire team and not having any idea of what type of situation you will meet behind the closed door, once you are ready to enter – with your BA set. You feel the heat of the real fire you need to extinguish as a team composed of a crew you only met one day ago… I find these experiences interesting. You can learn so much from each other. And that is great.

Time at home always goes so fast…too fast. I love being with my family and I often have the feeling that I didn’t have time to do all the things I wanted to do before going back onboard. But I plan it then for the next time I am home. It gives me something to look forward to. Those “plans” include this blog, making it nicer and more attractive, it includes stitching bags in sailcloth and also drawing more, reading more, relaxing more. On the other hand, it is also sorting out more; my closet, my desk, my papers… Get rid of all the things you realize you do not need.

Ready to fly! Always underway….

So there I am. PCR test is done: negative. Flight tickets in hand, direction Stockholm where I will take the train to Sundsvall and join the ship in Stockvik. I am looking forward to being back on board and sailing again. I think that sometimes I have more time to do things when I am on board! It’s probably the feeling of being more productive because I am on a schedule all day long and I do not have to cook or walk the dogs. Just enjoying every moment at home and onboard as I can!

So see you next week my friends!

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