15th till 20th of February 2022

Hello, third week onboard!!! Wow, the past two weeks literally went so fast I cannot believe it! Sometimes I have to remind myself when I arrived and count backwards. For example, how many Sundays did we have since I am onboard…. You know not to forget how fast it is going. I have the feeling I just arrived yet it has been 1/3 of my term already! Am I repeating exactly what I said at the end of my previous post? Naaaaah just normal here.

Anyways. We were loaded with Paper rolls from Hamina (Finland) to Terneuzen (Netherlands). We spent our Sunday on the Kiel Channel with good weather and visibility and we were heading out on the North Sea where we were expecting some heavy weather…. The German Bight in heavy weather is never really nice. Because of the strong currents on the Elbe river, depending on where the winds are coming from some of the tides can be very nasty and choppy. I remember having some hard times when I was on sailing vessels.

That is actually a funny thing. I sometimes really miss the sailing vessels but I also once in a while remember how tough it could be on the body: the waves, the choppiness, the cold, the rain… Of course, it was not always like that. But it could be. Here the bridge iOS always nice and warm and there is seldom a reason to go outside. In bad weather.

Anyways. We were ready for the bad weather, and we also knew that with this cargo we had to slow down in case of big waves so that we would not damage it. And that is actually what we did …. We just took it easy and then the trip was not that bad in the end… We were not in a hurry for once. I like it when we take it easy for the cargo… I feel like cargo. We should sometimes take it easier so that I am also not moving around the ship like in a washing machine! Haha

We went through the locks in Terneuzen on Tuesday morning and beginning of the afternoon we quickly opened the hatches to get ready and take all the airbags out to be ready for discharging as soon as possible. They were announcing rain again in the afternoon and the coming days. I wanted to make sure that all the airbags were out so that I would not be bothered to stop discharging to handle airbags. The thing is that our cargo hold was full full and full. No ullage in half of the forward hold, and 50 cm only in the second half so we could not take the airbags out with hatches closed this time. We had to lift them to access the areas. It was not a problem but we had to be fast.

And then they started discharging for a couple of hours. Less even. But at least it was a start. The whole time there was always one officer standing by close to the crane, no matter what, so that with the first drop we would immediately close. We also did only three hatches at the time. With a grab, it is not so much of a problem because with good communication with the crane driver and the foreman you can run the hatch crane around and prepare the next hatches movements when necessary. When it is a belt of bulk cargo, it is not that easy because when you say « stop » it still needs to empty the belt…. And that can be tricky in the case of rain as it can sometimes take 5 minutes too. Or with that type of cargo, you cannot drive the crane as you want because they have to move it out of the way which is the same as stopping…. It is all about thinking ahead and anticipating the next move.

In Hamina the paper rolls were put in the hold two by two. Here they were taken out one by one and stored on a sort of rolling platform. Once that platform was full, it was taken to a shed somewhere further in the harbour. While being stand-by during discharging, I was also noting if there was any damage made to the cargo. The good thing is that in the cargo there was none. But then some minor damage was made by the crane when taking it out of the hold. Well, no damage on our side then. That was good. I must say that I was a bit nervous remember with the lashing when leaving Hamina? Because it was the first time I had such a cargo and people kept repeating that it was an expensive and very very sensitive cargo…. Well now I know so it is fine 😉

It seems that it took us for ages to discharge because of the rain but also because all the shore shifts were not honoured. It seems that they do not have enough labour people for all the work that needs to be done so sometimes we could have been discharged but there was no shift. One evening the shift was there but it was raining the whole evening so we had our trainee and our new engineer standing by to open hatches in case it stopped. But of course, it did not. What I find a pity is that when you see that it will be raining the whole evening why not just say to everyone that we do not discharge and report everything the next morning so that we can all get a good night’s sleep and not wait for nothing. But of course, that also doesn’t happen. The second evening, they were not even sure whether to come to our ship because they had a river ship or a liner and these had priority on us. So we were just being standby in case they open. And guess what, they did not come! It can be quite frustrating sometimes because you would want to have a drink and go to bed early for example and just call it a day, but it is not the case. Seaman’s life right?

It took us three days to discharge!

And finally, we could sail during the night through the locks to Vlissingen. Just a short two-hour sail, when everything goes well. BUT! Of course, the locks schedule changed last minute and we were postponed two hours…. It was quite a long night for some. Luckily for me, I worked till completion of discharging and made the ship ready for departing and the locks and I would wake up early upon arrival to get the paper for the tank top for our next cargo. The others working at night would be able to sleep in the next morning to catch up on some rest.

The next cargo was wood pulp from Vlissingen ( Netherlands) to Norrsundet ( Sweden). Again a nice cargo. I hope we will keep on having such nice cargo 🙂 They are easy and nice, not dirty and fast to load and discharge. Very nice.

We prepared the tank top by putting layers of paper with tape here and there to fix it. I had left a few timber pieces that we used to prevent the winds from wrapping the paper off. But it did not work at all.

As soon I opened the hatch the wind blew in and all our work was gone.

Why do we have to prepare the paper ahead and not do it like in Scandinavian countries just unroll as it goes? That way, the wind cannot blow it away. Luckily the foreman took pictures of how the nice part was so that there would not be any problem. What do you want to do anyways when it is blowing over 40knots of wind in the harbour…. Our tank top is clean anyways. It is just that it is not painted so we need to put some protection between the steel and the cargo.

It also took us a lot of time to load only 2000t of wood pulp. Because of some rain but also because of the huge storm that we were in. They actually stopped all port and cargo operations for a whole afternoon and evening. And the next day that had two teams for 5 vessels….. 

When we started loading we had a small crane that was loading the wood pulp two by two packages. And the last day we had the big crane that was loading 8 or 10 packages at the time! So of course in 1 hour and a half, we completed it. Finally!

Crazy to think of the different times spent loading with a small crane, but more precise and tighter loading, compared to the big crane which was way faster but not as tight. We had to put way more airbags in the aft than forward!

It was still very stormy outside. We had registered over 60knots of wind in the harbour the afternoon that they stopped the operations. When we left the harbour there was a little less wind which was perfect timing before it would start blowing hard again. We had 3 to 4 hours of rolling along the coast and then once we were en route, we were surfing the waves, it was perfect. It was not bad at all. It is amazing the difference the wind direction can make to the movements of a ship. I prefer from the stern. Of course. It would have been a totally different situation if the wind were coming from the North. We would have probably stayed in the harbour a couple of days extra. Who knows.

It was nice to be back at sea again for a bit. In 36 hours we were arriving in the locks in Brunsbuttel after a lovely Sunday at sea. Cookie even made carrot cake for me. I say for me because I am the only one requesting cake flavours for Sundays… but I am not the only one eating it! 😉

Monday morning we will be sailing out of the Kiel Channel…. Let’s see what type of weather we will have on the other side, in the Baltic!

Till then…. Have a good rest!

Xxx

Sophie