Day 109 - Rail Cars

When I was up on the bridge last night watching the sail down the Huangpu River the captain told me we wouldn't be stopping at the anchorage. This would make our arrival into Masan very late in the evening today, or very early in the morning tomorrow. I'm never quite sure how to tell, I suppose it depends if you're up late or getting up early. The morning brought a fog so thick that you could barely see the water. By late afternoon it actually did clear and you could see the sun. Of course that also brought high winds and choppy seas. Just after 4pm I was standing up on the bridge watching the spray from the port side land on the starboard side, over the cargo hatches. The waves weren't that bad, it was just the wind picking up the spray. Anyway, our pilot time has been changed to 6am, so at the moment we're just drifting in the open sea. There is no official anchorage outside Masan and the captain tells us that where we meet the pilot is narrower than he would like. So it makes more sense to kill time out in the middle of the East China Sea. It's also good for the passengers as it means it might be daylight when we're coming into port. I'm not entirely convinced of that as the time changes tonight, but we'll see.

Oh, and the picture today is from Shanghai. I couldn't quite decide if we were loading or unloading these rail cars. I say that because I was sure that in the morning I'd seen the barge come down the river with the four cars in it. They were down in the bottom of the barge so it was difficult to tell that they were rail cars and I couldn't swear that there were four of them. Late afternoon I saw them swinging two of them into the barge. I went downstairs for a shower and after dinner the barge was gone. Usually I would have asked the supercargo, but he's off the ship already. Doesn't matter, since one way or the other we have carried them, or will carry them. Sometimes when in port items will be moved as the load is balanced. We've seen that happen once or twice while loading.