Day 50 - Maritime Alps

We are heading towards Genoa today with today’s picture being taken of (perhaps) the Maritime Alps in France. There’s also a chance it’s of the Imperia province in Italy (also part of the Maritime Alps). And if you look closely – yes – there’s snow on the top of the mountains. Thankfully, we’re not going to those mountains! We might be a little later in than originally expected, although only by an hour. I still think our time might be tight in Genoa (i.e. in too late to do much exploring and out too early tomorrow) but we’ll see. I just thought I’d get this ready now just in case.

If I do get this updated the next update will likely be from Singapore. I’ve kind of lost track when that stop will be, however, the Rickmers’ website will have that information for any interested. There is a stop planned in Thailand just before Singapore so perhaps I’ll get online there as well.

(Just an aside. We did find an internet cafe in Genoa, however, for the first time I was asked for documents. As we are ashore with only a shore pass I did eventually convince them to take my driver's license.)

Day 49 - Ibiza Shore

I keep thinking that the Mediterranean seems bluer that the other oceans/seas we’ve been in, however, looking back at other pictures I think it’s my imagination. The weather is quite warm with only the wind making it necessary for a coat on the upper decks. Late afternoon brought us past Ibiza so I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures. Actually I took the pictures first and then went up onto the bridge to see what I’d taken pictures of. My mother went down onto the main deck to walk around and came up later completely soaked. If I thought she would stand still long enough I’d have probably taken a picture of it. Even the slightly less rough seas are deceptive. You still get some spray up on the lower decks and an occasional wave. The only good thing she says is that the weather is warm today! After a shower she’s now off to the laundry to wash the salt water out of her t-shirt and jeans.

I hear from the captain that we should be in Genoa tomorrow by about 7pm, however, we’ll likely only be there until noon the next day. The chief engineer tells me that there’s a bus into town quite near where we dock, so we’ll probably do the same as we did in Avilés – try and go in twice if we can. Hopefully I can update the website during one of the trips.

Day 48 - Back at Sea

More lovely sailing today with a planned passage into the Strait of Gibraltar this evening around 9pm. We went up onto the bridge before to see what we could see. The weather was actually warm and we could have seen just as well from the deck, however, it’s nice to be on the bridge with the occasional information passed from the captain and crew. The best sight was the coast of Morocco (near Tangier). There were numerous ships in this narrow area and the crew was kept busy at times (our job is to keep out of the way). We passed (just before Gibraltar) a massive cruise ship headed in the opposite direction. The captain told me that it had 2400 passengers and 1200 crew. The ship itself was about 100m longer than us. The strange thing is that I preferred being up on the bridge of our ship at that moment. We passed Gibraltar shortly after that and sailed into the darkness.

Day 47 - Spanish Sunset

The pilot wasn’t kidding about the weather outside the port. Last night when we came out of the mouth of the harbour you could see the swells headed inland. A smaller ship behind us seemed to dip down and disappear into the wave and then come up quite far out of the water. I suppose we were doing the same. Today was spent in an almost zigzag pattern of sailing along the coasts of Spain and Portugal to try and find a less stormy path. I’m not sure if this is common or not but the captain always does seem to try and find a less rough patch of sea (within reason). This may be to accommodate the passengers or just to lessen the chance of anything rolling off the decks.

After dinner, following far too much wonderful Spanish wine, the winds abated and the seas calmed down. This is hopefully a good sign for heading into the Mediterranean tomorrow.

Day 46 - Town Square in Aviles

As we were supposed to leave early (i.e. back on board by noon) we made an early start back to Avilés. We went to the train station (which did in fact have a train) and took it into the city. It turns out that it stops next door to the train station we were in last night. It was almost funny. I’m sure in years to come it will become funny. We looked at the schedule and decided that if we didn’t catch the 10:54am train back we’d have to try the bus. We actually saw the bus this morning while in the train station (although we have no idea where it stops). We walked to a local restaurant and had coffee and a pastry for breakfast. Although there seemed to be a lot of little places open this seemed to be the only real option.

After that we basically just walked around for a couple of hours. I took some pictures; we picked up a few things at a local market and went into the Internet café. I got my updates done and we made our way back to the ship. We were back by noon, however, the pilot had decided we wouldn’t go out until 5 or 6 pm (because of the weather – nice inland but quite rough outside the port. I took some shots after dinner of the lovely sunset we had. (Using that for tomorrow’s picture.)

Day 45 - Lighthouse at Aviles

Well, we came into Avilés tonight just at 6pm. We were told just after dinner that we didn’t need to clear customs or carry our passports. It’s a small town, small port, and everybody knew who we were. Since it was still daylight we went upstairs and grabbed our coats and just went for a quick walk. It’s unclear how long we’re going to be here but we found a little train station and took at the morning schedule. We walked back to the ship and met the captain who was talking with the local agent. The agent said if we could wait a few minutes he would drive us into town. You would think by now that we would know better.

Anyway, we did go into town and walked around a little. I found an Internet café although the system wouldn’t recognize my USB card and I couldn’t drop to DOS to mess with it as I have before. I’ll break down and burn a CD tonight and try it again tomorrow. It will serve as a backup for the pictures I’ve taken as well. I brought some blanks just for that purpose.

So now we come to our usual ‘how to get back to the ship’. According to the main train station there is no station out where we are. Now we were at it (didn’t write down the name), and saw train tracks. We think we saw the right bus to take, however, it was after 9pm and that was the last bus. So we thought a taxi would be a good idea. The first taxi suddenly lost his command of English when he heard where we wanted to go. The second driver was more blunt, telling us he didn’t go there. Finally with the help of a local resident we did get a fourth taxi to take us (the first driver the local fellow spoke to said no as well). It’s not that long a drive (7 Euros total), but I guess it’s not a popular place.

And yes, tomorrow we will go back – by train or bus so we know where we’re coming back to.

Day 44 - Antwerp Central Station

We’re at sea once again. Since neither of us chose to get up between 6 and 7am we yet again missed the white cliffs of Dover. Oh well, I suppose they’re still there. It’s another slow day at sea although the weather has been fairly calm. Late afternoon we turned into the Bay is Biscay and the sea started to get rougher. I suspect tonight we’ll find out what few things aren’t as well secured as they should have been. According to the limited encyclopaedia I have with me Avilés is a city of between 20,000 and 99,999 people. I don’t think we’re going to have much time to explore it. We will be picking up the pilot tomorrow about 5pm, with at least an hour transit time (more when you include tying up and clearing customs). I was hoping we’d be in earlier and perhaps at least try and have dinner ashore. The plan is to load cargo through the night and leave early on the 9th – perhaps as early as noon. I suspect that Genoa may be the same (as I saw this originally when booking) so I’ll try keeping the pictures/commentaries up to date so I can perhaps update the blog.

Day 43 - Interesting Cargo

The four days in Belgium were very interesting. This is the first port we’ve been in that actually runs a bus into the port. It’s made getting around very simple. And since the last bus stop was only a short walk back to the ship it made shopping easy as well. With a very few exceptions we’ve stuck to our ‘only consumable’ purchases rule. The inter-city trains were easy to use as well. It seemed like we just went from one to the other with almost no waiting time. (Germany was the same as well.)

The picture I took here is part of the reason choosing this ship was a good choice. The cargo has been a mix of steel pipes, boxed components too large to go into a container, bags (not sure what was in them), and odd pieces of machinery (as pictured here). This often requires more time to load, precise placement, and sometimes rebalancing of the load. These things are what give us our extra time in port. I asked the Supercargo what this piece of equipment is. It turns out that it's the base of a 3000tn crane that will be used building offshore pipelines.

We spent the first part of the transit up on the bridge tonight. This transit required a pilot to take us into a set of locks, another for the river and a third to take us to open sea. We should be a day and a half at sea before the next pilot comes aboard for Aviles, Spain.

Day 42 - Cathedral

Well, it was another foggy day in Belgium. While walking out for the bus we passed the stevedores who had a fire going in a metal drum to take the chill off. We went into Antwerp today just to see a little more of the city than we'd already seen. This piece of statue was on the side of a cathedral near the main square. It's a tribute to the workers of the country I believe. We walked down to the Schelde River; however, even at noon there was still a fair bit of fog. I think our many days of sightseeing have caught up with us as we actually made it back to the ship for dinner tonight. We found out that we don't need to be back on the ship until about 1pm tomorrow, however, I think the most we're thinking of doing tomorrow is walking to the mariners' centre or the nearby duty-free shop. Maybe it's even a morning to sleep in and miss breakfast.

Day 41 - Grote Markt

041-Grote Markt
Originally uploaded by realcdn.

The day started off very foggy. In fact, there was little scenery on the way to Brussels, although thankfully it burned off. It left us with a very lovely day to explore this interesting city. With limited time we took a city tour that showed us many things – palaces, the European parliament, and even Chinese and Japanese pavilions. After lunch we spent time walking around the city streets – including the Grote Markt (which is today’s picture). The architecture is very ornate and one building seems more impressive than the last one you’ve seen. Tomorrow we will spend in Antwerp, as we should be sailing either late Monday night or early Tuesday morning. That is, unless something has changed. Next update should be from Aviles in Spain (perhaps 2 or 3 days after sailing) or in Genoa, Italy. That’s always assuming I find Internet access.

Day 40 - Canals in Bruges

040-Canals in Bruges
Originally uploaded by realcdn.

Okay - so this morning we discovered you can actually see the stern of the ship from the bus stop. I'm not sure I should admit this. Anyway, we had a good laugh about it and took off for the day. This time we headed for Bruges, a very medieval town with cobblestone streets, canals and lots of chocolate shops. Well, lots of shops in general. The captain's wife, Iva, is leaving the ship here to go home so it gave us a good excuse to buy chocolates. She's very nice and it has been fun having her aboard. Iva is a bit shy about her English; however, it's much better than she thinks. I told her the other day that her English is considerably better than my Croatian. That's something we were discussing on the train today - that my mother and I both wish we were better with other languages. I found out that I could still read French fairly well (I downloaded the Belgian train brochure in French while in Hamburg and could understand it). I discovered that I just don't have a clue in German or Flemish. We are so lucky as tourists that we've run into many a local who is fluent in, or reasonably good in, English.

We're likely off to Brussels tomorrow. Hopefully the weather is as good as it was today. I'm keeping the pictures and the blog information up to date so I can pop into an Internet cafe on Monday. There are four of them between the bus station and the train station. And to think I was worried about finding places!

Day 39 - Gravensteen Castle, Ghent

039-Gravensteen Castle, Ghent
Originally uploaded by realcdn.

We tried staying up last night to see our arrival into Antwerp. The first pilot came aboard early and we started our trip in. He was quite chatty and during the trip suggested a trip to Ghent. Since we have 4 days in Antwerp we decided we would go there today. So in our usual confused tourist routine off we went. We had to visit immigration here (so far we’ve been cleared on the ship) so the driver dropped us off at the central station downtown. We had seen a sign for a bus on the way out of the port so we tried to get more information on it at the bus terminal. Well, this didn’t go well. We did manage to buy a 5-day bus pass (from a machine) so it wasn’t a complete loss. In the end we got the best information, and a map, from the information counter in the train station… that didn’t give information on the trains.

Anyway, we did manage to catch the train to Ghent, and find a streetcar to take us closer to the centre of town. (We had 2 stations to choose from in Ghent and we chose the one further out.) Armed with a map we bought at the train station and later a free one from an information kiosk, we spent most of the afternoon just walking around Ghent, eventually walking back to the station we should have originally stopped at. In Antwerp we found the bus stop (well, almost) and waited for the bus. After missing the first one we found out that the bus actually stopped around the corner, not at the gate marked on the electronic sign. (See what I mean about confused.) We found the bus, which took us back to the port, near to our ship. The bus driver gave me directions back to our specific wharf, however, at some point we figured we were going in the wrong direction. Some very nice people at the New Holland tractor plant drew a circle on the map (i.e. where we were). I really didn’t want any more directions at this point. Shortly after this we found our wharf and were home (it really does feel like it now). We had prepared for our late arrival by purchasing some meat, cheese and bread so we had dinner in the cabin with the addition of some fruit and a little Jack Daniels and lemonade.

Tomorrow we’ll start all over again. Although this time we’ll walk out to the bus stop in day so it should be easier getting back. We saw a couple of Internet cafes in Antwerp; however, at the moment the plan isn’t to use one of them until probably Monday. I’m just getting this ready in case our plans change.

Day 38 - Back at Sea

038-Back at Sea
Originally uploaded by realcdn.

Well we’re back at sea today although with the occasional ship in the horizon we don’t feel like we’re in the middle of nowhere. It was pretty grey until just about lunchtime when the sun finally made an appearance. Afternoon walking on deck was pleasant although fairly cold. At 3pm the crew take a coffee break and it was a good thing to join them today. The pilot came aboard for the trip into Antwerp tonight although there’s not much to see at the moment (just darkness). Last night when leaving Hamburg we were up on the bridge – just a little warmer than standing out on the deck. It was amazing to watch the crew (with some local help) take the ship out backwards under a bridge with probably less than a meter clearance on both sides. It probably looks closer than it was; however, after we were through the captain came over and commented on how tight the bridge was.