Christmas at Sea

I have to keep this brief as we will leave Vigo soon and then that’s it, no more nice data roaming in the EU.

This Christmas was certainly memorable.

Christmas eve we did our schooling as usual, and then relaxed in the afternoon before a festive dinner followed by Pannetone. After this, instead of everyone disappearing to their cabins, all the passengers congregated in the lounge and played table football and finished off the communal jigsaw to the soundtrack of my special Christmas playlist. This was followed by a ping pong tournament, which I begged off so that I could finish last minute preparations for the big day while Lauren was occupied.

We arrived close to Vigo during the night of 24^th, but as the next day was Christmas day we were forced to spend the night and all the 25^th going in circles out at sea. The plan had been to drop anchor but we had to keep going in slow circles due to very strong wind.

This didn’t bother us at all and we had a wonderful day.

We even saw our first bit of sun since London….

After breakfast, which featured Christmas treats such as biscuits and doughnuts, Lauren and I spent the morning in the lounge, playing an adapted version of snakes and ladders that I had devised to make her presents more fun and to spread then out a bit.

If she landed on a blue square she had to do a challenge – anything from sit ups to French translation to beating me at table football to dancing to a song of her choice (bad move that, had to sit through a full Justin Bieber song). If she failed she went back to square one. If she landed on a red square she got a present, but her main present – a smartphone which will double as our spare phone while travelling – she only got on completing the game. If she landed on a yellow triangle she got a sweet. It was a fun way to do the presents – after all there weren’t that many as we’d have to carry them – and we had great fun, often with a full complement of curious passengers and even some of the crew popping in to watch.

There is no way Lauren would get a phone at nearly-9 years old at ‘home’ but after much agonizing I figured she deserves a way to be in contact with friends, to take pictures of her own and to have a device just for her music (at least I get Justin Bieber off my phone!) and it’s a backup should anything happen to mine. She has been told if she starts obsessing with it then it will get taken off her.

After presents we had a reception on the bridge – very cool to visit the bridge and chat to the captain who even let Lauren hold the wheel. She was so terrified she later admitted to not actually moving it, even though he said she could! We had a little punch and some antipasti and it was good to have everyone finally together, as life on board is usually very segregated.

After this we had a long drawn out lunch, with all sorts of fancy food (9 or 10 courses, plus the mince pies and bakewell tarts we’d contributed!) produced by the chef – it must be the hardest day of the year for him and his staff and they did a sterling job. I made a point of sending some of the very expensive chocolates we’d bought for everyone through to the kitchen as a thank you – I’m not daft! There was music playing, and wine flowing, rather more at our table due to the addition of the two most junior officers, the cadets, who clearly enjoyed being released from the ‘grown up’ officers table and regaled us of tales of misspent youth in Naples in a mixture of broken English and Italian. They seemed quite enchanted by Lauren, telling her to study hard so she wouldn’t ‘end up like them’ having only ‘read a book for the first time aged 20’. She seemed similarly captivated, and at 19 these guys are closer in age to her than to me. They were a good laugh and polished off all of my ration of wine as well as their own, despite the odd frown from the Master (captain).

After lunch we watched a film and then reconvened for a light dinner.

This morning, Boxing Day, we hiked into Vigo, in the pouring rain, bought some vegetables, had a coffee and raced back to the ship having been only given 3 hours shore leave. It was just good to get some oxygen and really stretch our legs, as there is only so many times you can walk up and down the deck.

I can hear the engines starting, got to get this posted, the pictures speak for themselves, it was a great day made even better by picking up a cell signal as we came close to shore on one of our loops and being able to call my parents and brother.

Hope everyone had a wonderful time over Christmas and Happy New Year !

 

 

 

 

Days 3-5: Hamburg to Vigo

With no port days planned for a few days, we settled down into a routine on board. It was actually a really nice feeling to know that this was it, and we could relax into the long slow days, with nothing to worry about – no internet, no stops, no choice of food, no obligations to do anything. It’d probably drive me mad if we didn’t have some kind of structure to the day, so we developed our own routine.

We get up at 0730 for breakfast – the bread and butter fare provided by the ship supplemented by Weetabix and muesli and yoghurt from Hamburg, some lovely ginger jam and even some mango. It won’t last but while it does we are enjoying it. I should mention, as its an important part of my comfort on board, that we do have a proper coffee machine and a great tub of coffee. Making myself coffees takes me back to when I was 16 and worked at a restaurant in Portugal and it was my duty to make the coffees sometimes. The whole ‘fill, press, twist, on, coffee’ routine.

Some rules – such as you are only allowed coffee at mealtimes – seem totally irrelevant and ignored. Others – no access to the lower decks – are strictly enforced. It’s all very Italian. The crew seem incredibly hard working and professional and all health and safety boxes are ticked, but other stuff seems a little more… negotiable… hence, coffee whenever I like 😊

After breakfast (where the French table gabbles on at high volume – goodness they can talk – we sit quietly waking up, and the Germans don’t appear at all), we make a quick trip back to the cabin to clean teeth, then have a 5-minute walk around outside to clear our heads.  I tend to take my phone and locate our position on google earth. It’s cool to see the ‘jump’ from the previous day’s position as the phone finds a satellite.

We do schooling from around 08.45 until around 10.45, when all the other passengers come to the lounge in anticipation of the main meal of the day. Often someone will challenge Lauren to a game of table football while we are waiting.

It’s amazing how people become so conditioned to a routine and so obsessed with food when they have no choice over the matter. There was actually a cheer when we got real dessert (seriously, one profiterole each) in Hamburg rather than the rather dull apple/orange/banana we are used to.

The excitement yesterday when we got tiny bottles of wine each for the first time was palpable.

After lunch, which has settled down into an English-speaking table (ourselves and the Germans) and a French speaking table (the two French couples and the new arrivals from Hamburg who turned out to be Swiss), the Germans disappear back to their cabin and we restart schooling. Some combination of the 6 other passengers tends to hang around in the lounge for a natter before sloping off for a siesta. We do an hour of schooling after lunch, which still means we are done for the day around 1pm. I quite enjoy having the excuse of schooling to avoid all the talking. I don’t consider myself particularly antisocial, and over the last few days have had long conversations in French about Brexit, how to set up their phones with mobile data, Africa, and our reasons for leaving/travelling… and have listened to many life stories. But I cannot do the constant natter. I can hold serious conversations in French with some effort and concentration, but general natter and banter is beyond me.

I talk enough with Lauren, who is unstoppable on the verbal diarrhoea front. My brain needs quiet sometimes.

We tend to have showers after lunch, then to maintain my sanity I have instituted a ‘quiet hour’ when we read our books for an hour in silence. After this, we watch a film, play ping pong, play monopoly (Lauren never seems to tire of it, she loves holding onto her money and building up a pot, but hates actually spending anything so eventually loses every time), go for walks on deck, do jigsaws etc. I have also instituted ‘mid-afternoon veggies’ where we eat a fresh vegetable bought in Hamburg as an antidote to the protein and carb heavy diet. These won’t last the journey but we are both missing veggies. I actually dreamt of stir fried broccoli last night!

Before we know it its dinner time (6pm) and we reconvene for a lighter meal.  For both meals we tend to skip one of the courses, otherwise its just too much. Some days there is a menu, although the English can be very misleading. Lauren was most disappointed yesterday when the last course was listed as ‘gateau’ – it was actually a slice of mashed potato with bacon!

After dinner we generally go out on deck for another walk around, to clear our heads and wake ourselves up. Then we either watch something on my laptop, read, or finish the afternoon’s activity. Lauren goes to bed at 08.30pm and reads til 9.00pm, and I read until much later. And that’s it…. Days pass.

We are struggling to cope with the extreme heat of the cabins, even our steward (yay, we got our own ‘passenger’ steward at Hamburg, the lovely Vincenzo who actually changes our sheets and empties our bins and does his best to answer our questions) agrees they are too hot and has promised to speak to the chief engineer. There are aircon units in our cabins but they just blow hot air. The ventilation/heating system seems to be fairly rudimentary, with vents coming from the engine room blowing hot air throughout the ship, and some kind of lever determines how much hot air vs. outside air is blown through the ship. In some places like the lounge there is the ability to shut individual vents off, and to open windows, but in our cabins, we have neither option. One day I had a persistent headache all day and actually think I may have had heatstroke! It makes sleeping quite difficult, and poor Vincenzo struggles as he actually has to work in it. I just worry what it will be like when we are in hotter climes and can’t even pop outside to cool down.

Apart from the heat though, we are adapting well to life on board. It’s good to have a project though, as the days would be fairly dull without some structure. The German couple are working on their Spanish and the woman is finishing her masters’ thesis, and of course we have schooling. I guess if I were alone I could just read and read all day and that’d be a luxury, but Lauren needs some organized activity.

We still haven’t got the treadmill working, but Vincenzo is on the case. For now, our only exercise is walking around the deck and playing ping pong. Mind you we are both so bad at that that it ends up being quite a workout chasing the ball around the sweltering gym. …

Last night the poor cadet – youngest officer and basically gets all the grunt work – came into dinner and announced (in broken English) they had malaria tablets for Dakar should we like to take them, and asking us to sign a disclaimer if we didn’t want them. One of the French couples lived in Dakar for a few years as he was ambassador there, and I have been back and forth to Dakar a few times (and had malaria 3 times in Mozambique) so we led the way in saying there is absolutely no need for taking mefloquine for a one day stay in Dakar. Everyone refused the tablets, and I felt quite sorry for the poor cadet. But I mean really, its just the company covering their backs for insurance reasons.

Of course, we are all hoping there will be some kind of break in the routine at Christmas, although its not really clear what if anything will happen. I asked one of the crew if there would be a party and he mumbled something about bad weather being forecast. I guess it also depends where we are, as if we are in port everyone will be busy. Vigo is scheduled for the 24^th, but having left Hamburg quite late, its not clear if we will recoup the time. I guess we will find out and I am sure something will happen….

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I hope everyone celebrating Christmas, wherever they are and however they celebrate, has a wonderful time over the holidays. Particularly the rest of the wonderful Ennis family: have a glass (bottle) of champagne for me and a lovely extended Christmas. We will miss the charades, unless we manage to get the Italian-Filipino crew to play along…

Friends around the world – enjoy the celebrations and all the best for the coming year. Its been wonderful to catch up with some of you this year, and we are looking forward to visiting a few more next year.

We will be experiencing a very non-traditional but certainly memorable Christmas day on the Grande Amburgo, somewhere mid-Atlantic if all goes to plan.

Hugs to all, and a big sloppy kiss from Lauren to Michael.

P.S to the non technically savvy (looking at you mum….) this was scheduled to post on the 25th, I am not actually somewhere with internet right now….. 

 

 

 

Hamburg!

What an awesome 24 hours.

With apologies to my Dad who hates the word awesome, but in actual fact I find the incredible efficiency, energy and power of this place truly awe-inspiring. I warn you now, this post is filled with admiration for big heavy machinery, so if that’s not your thing, feel free to skip.

We chugged up the river Elbe in almost zero visibility – very thick fog, so that when we arrived it felt like we emerged straight out of the fog into the centre of the city.

Check out these videos of the arrival and docking, which was done efficiently with great precision as this enormous beast of a ship turned 360 degrees and then reverse parked neatly behind its Grimaldi sister, the Grande Nigeria.

I had to downgrade the video quality to be able to post it over a mobile network, but hopefully its watchable.

Arriving and Docking:

The Ramp coming down:

All night and this morning loading has been going on, containers being brought on the back of lorries and lifted straight up by enormous fixed cranes that are operated with extreme precision to stack the containers on the front of the ship as if they were lego. They load a container every couple of minutes.

Container loading:

While this is going on at the front, the ramp is down at the back and streams of brand new Audis, BMWs and other cars, covered in plastic, are being driven into the RORO part of the ship.

There is also quite a contingent of other vehicles, such as fire engines and construction vehicles. While they are going in, trucks are constantly back and forth unloading containers destined for Hamburg. It all works at very high speed, and being down in the lower decks with it all happening is actually quite scary.

We decided to venture out into Hamburg this morning – as much for the experience of finding out way through port as for anything we particularly needed. I figured of all the ports we will visit, you could count on Hamburg to be organized, efficient and safety conscious. This turned out to be true.

We made our way down to Deck 3, which is the deck level with the top of the main ramp, and found our friend Jake the safety officer (I think he is actually the 2^nd mate, but we know him as the guy who terrified us with the safety briefing and one of the few crew we have had a prolonged conversation with). He told us how to get out, which involved risking life and limb on the ramp, crossing to a portacabin and pressing a red button which summoned a port shuttle. This turned up in a few minutes and took us to the gate at high speed. Everyone from truck drivers to brand-new-audi-drivers to the guys driving the loading machines move at top speed and its obvious why just wandering around port is forbidden.

The guy at the reception of the port called us a taxi and gave Lauren an apple, which she was polite enough to feign delight over and swiftly hide in her pocket. I made sure to get both the reception guy and the taxi driver to write down directions and address in German for our return – the ship will not wait if passengers are late.

Hamburg was just waking up at 9 and the shops weren’t yet open, so we were forced to take refuge from the cold in a coffee shop, where we pigged out on cake.

We then did some shopping – some chocolates for Christmas day for everyone, but also some ‘supplies’ such as Weetabix and ginger marmalade to  make breakfast more interesting, some dried mango and some fresh veggies, and some tins of sweetcorn. We are both craving vegetables as they have not played a big part on the menu so far.

We also managed to get a compass for Lauren as this module she starts geometry, and some tracing paper for her art project this week, as well as a nice big mug for me as I am sick of drinking tea out of tiny cups. So all in all, a successful trip.

We wandered around the centre, including the very pleasant Christmas market which I had said I wasn’t bothered about visiting but which was actually lovely, with a much more relaxed vibe than Christmas shopping in the UK. Music playing, stalls selling food and crafts, kids hanging out and families doing bits of shopping, Christmas lights and decorations up. A nice taster of the city.

We soon had to make our way back as we had been told to be on board for 1pm. The taxi driver didn’t know exactly how to find it, but with the help of google maps and the bits of paper the previous taxi driver and reception had given us we had a relatively stress-free return journey, even having time for the Afghan driver to update us on how living in Germany is for Afghan refugees…. He couldn’t find the vehicle entrance so we ended up dodging under a barrier and walking through a massive truck park towards the gate.

We called the shuttle again and sped back to the GH, where I spent some time up on deck watching the loading and unloading. We should be off within the hour, and I want to get this posted, as its possibly our last good signal for a few days or weeks, depending on whether we catch one in Vigo.

This journey is absolutely awesome  (sorry Dad!), and the GH already feels like coming home – going into the city was lovely but we were just as happy to get back here to our cabin and our lounge. It was expensive and a huge risk if it hadn’t worked out, but so far so good!!!

Oh, and someone had cleaned our room!!! Life is good.

 

First Few Days on Board

So as you will have gathered from our previous posts, we did in fact make it to the ship in time to set sail for Montevideo. The process wasn’t without stress however, starting before we even entered the port.

Having spent a night at a local Premier Inn, the taxi turned up on time and we set off on the 15-minute journey to the port. The driver was a former banker who had retired at 40, been ‘divorced and cleaned out by his wife’ immediately after, so started driving a taxi.

On arrival at the port a very brusque security guard was adamant that we couldn’t enter with a child. I later heard the tragic story behind this rule, but at the time just found it immensely frustrating, especially as the taxi meter was ticking.

I showed him our tickets, I showed him the email from the company confirming passage for myself and Lauren, “age 8” clearly written there, but he wasn’t for budging. I dug out the phone number of the Grimaldi agent, called him and he radioed through almost immediately to say to let us in, I even heard the message and watched as he listened, but he insisted that it was not up to the company but the police!

My Mozambican-earned patience and firmness when dealing with obstructive officialdom eventually paid off, as I waited until he pulled a truck off to inspect it, showed our paperwork to his colleague, who confirmed they knew all about the matter and waved us through! The first guy’s face as we drove past was a picture, but he was just being a pain in the whatsit.

We arrived at the Grimaldi office (a portacabin) and the friendly staff let us sit in a couple of office chairs while they tracked down a car to take us to the ship. They took a copy of our passports, and told us there were 8 other passengers on board (actually there are 6, with another 2 joining in Hamburg), and after about 20 minutes someone turned up to take us round the port to the ship. He drove right into the ship, into an enormous, cavernous deck, and a couple of friendly crew members helped us with our (immense) baggage, up in the lift to the deck where our lives will be played out for the next month.

We were shown to our cabin and left there, a bit bewildered at the speed and lack of information after such a long build up. I’m not quite sure what I expected, but I felt more like cargo than passenger!

After about ten minutes one of the Italian officers came by and asked for our passports and yellow fever certificates. Of course, the certificates were well buried in our packed bags, but I managed to dig them out. I gave them to him and waited for him to reappear, assuming he was taking copies. He never came back. And still hasn’t. Some of the other passengers later told us they also hadn’t got theirs back, so I’m not worried.

We unpacked and then decorated the cabin with our Christmas stuff, by which time it was 11am. I recalled reading on someone else’s blog that lunch was at 11am so having realized no one was going to give us a tour (or even tell us where the dining room was), we set off to explore. It would not have been a good start if Lauren had missed lunch!

As we cautiously wandered the corridors (they all look the same) one of the Filipino staff found us and introduced himself as the safety officer, and we agreed to meet later to receive our safety briefing. He also took us to the dining room, where we met the other passengers and were served a four-course meal at 11am. Given that we had had a substantial breakfast, this wasn’t really what we needed, but actually the four courses are (seemingly every day) a small bowl of pasta, a small fillet or slice of fish, some form of meat, and some fruit. The fish and meat often come alone, or occasionally with some sliced up cucumber or tomato, so it’s actually not as overwhelming or calorific as it sounds.

The other passengers are two retired French couples, who didn’t know each other previously but who are both travelling with camper vans, and a mid-20’s German couple travelling with their motorbike. All seem friendly and the elderly French are more than happy to chat to Lauren so she can practice her French, while the Germans seem happy to practice their (already incredibly good) English. Parfait! Wunderbar!

I managed to smuggle aboard a birthday cake for Lauren and while she was distracted talking to the French couples I managed to communicate with the kitchen staff who agreed to keep it for me in the fridge until the big day. Goodness knows what preservatives it has in it to have a sell by date of 9^th January, but it was the best I could do. If the galley want to make something on the day, even better. I have candles, a big ‘I am 9’ badge, sparkly stuff, party poppers and other bits and pieces. According to the schedule, we are due to arrive in Rio that day.  But the schedule is always wrong.

After lunch the German couple took us on a tour of the areas we are allowed – effectively deck 12 and the exterior of deck 13 which is where the bridge is. I think Lauren gave a pretty good overview in her post.

After the tour we mooched around our cabin for a while, feeling a little lost. The captain stuck his head in and shook our hands but with departure only an hour or so away, he was clearly busy.

Half an hour before departure all the passengers congregated on deck to watch the enormous ramp go up (it reaches almost to the top of the 12^th deck) and the process of departing port.

The pilot arrived from Port of London and scrambled aboard onto a rope ladder and disappeared into a hatch right at the water level, before reappearing on the bridge. We tooted our horn, the engine was started (lots of black smoke emerging from the funnel), the flag was raised. Two tugs hung about, and a number of the orange-suited crew gradually removed some of the ropes until we were only held by a few at the front and one at the back. The last rope was removed by one of the tugs, using a machine to wind it in, and we were officially separated from the docks! The tugs were buzzing about pulling us sideways and while we didn’t even feel it, when we crossed to the other side we saw we were already a fair way from the side. We then proceeded to do an enormous u-turn across the Thames, narrowly avoiding the cruise shop docked directly behind us.

And then we were off! Finally after a day of stress, confusion, bewilderment, and half a year of anticipation. Down the Thames, as the sun set over London on a glorious cold but sunny winter day, past the marshes and fens and round the bend out to sea. It was a truly wonderful, exhilarating feeling, and all the worries fell away as I felt absolutely sure this had been the right thing to do, despite the naysayers.

This is living, doing what you want to do and making it up as you go along.

All too soon though the euphoria wore off as Safety Officer Jake brought us back down to earth with his talk of immersion suits, helmets and lifejackets, alarms, muster stations and what to do if someone falls overboard. Of course its necessary, and it is taken seriously – we were provided with a child sized lifejacket – but it did kind of burst our bubble. That, and the discussion of politics in the Philippines and Mozambique, which could probably have waited until we knew each other better!

Not long after the safety briefing it was dinner time and we re-convened in our usual places for another meal. Its funny how people are creatures of habit and I had been aware that the choice of table to join (French or German) at lunch would determine where we sat for the rest of the trip. Thankfully I had chosen the German table, not because there is anything wrong with the French, but because three meals a day in French might have been too much for my poor brain!  One of the couples doesn’t speaks English so it would have been pretty full on. We have plenty of chats in the lounge, but I need time and tea to come to in the mornings before speaking in anything other than grunts.

During dinner that first night an announcement from the bridge told us that the ship’s clock would go forward by an hour at midnight. Lauren was most unimpressed when I changed ours immediately then tried to make her go to bed at the ‘new’ 9 o clock. I was very tired.

Apart from getting used to eating a lot of protein at 11am and 6pm, the hardest thing to get used to is the lack of fresh air inside – the deck is kept very warm although I have been going round closing heating vents and cracking open windows in the lounge. The air is also very dry and makes my eyes prick. The noise is a constant hum of the engine, and a constant hiss from the air vents, but you very quickly get used to that. The galley is always a hive of activity, apart from siesta time after lunch, and the Italian head cook can often be heard singing along to the radio as he chops and stirs.  He invited us in this morning for a look round the galley and the enormous storeroom, which was quite an honour as it is ‘strictly forbidden’ for passengers to enter the galley. The fridge is as big as our living room in Maputo!

Apart from getting used to eating a lot of protein at 11am and 6pm, the hardest thing to get used to is the lack of fresh air inside – the deck is kept very warm although I have been going round closing heating vents and cracking open windows in the lounge. The air is also very dry.

Today is our second full day at sea, en route to Hamburg and then Vigo in Spain before heading to Dakar, Freetown and then crossing the Atlantic to Brazil, Argentina the Uruguay (don’t ask me why in that order, I don’t know).

The noise is a constant hum of the engine, and a constant hiss from the air vents, but you very quickly get used to that. Even when moving, there is hardly any movement in the ship, with just the odd gentle swell to remind us that we are at sea. We still blame the waves for our rubbish attempts at table tennis (or, as we have re-christened it ‘hit the ball once then scramble around on the floor looking for it’).

We have access to two outside areas, a more sheltered spot on this deck, and the incredibly exposed and windy ‘roof’ of the ship, where the bridge and the funnel are. There are a few ‘deck chairs’ but its too nippy out there to hang around right now. The view from the very top is incredible, but in this weather, you can’t stay up there long. Lauren is strictly forbidden (by Safety Officer Jake and by me) to go outside alone, but she does have free reign inside on deck 12.

We have been told that the crew will organize a visit to the bridge and to the engine room at some time during the trip, which will be really interesting.

The officers are polite but distant – you get the impression they deliberately keep it that way so passengers don’t go getting ideas above their station and bothering them when they have work to do. I guess its quite difficult for them as they are working and passengers are often casting about for something to do. I imagine the lines will be relaxed a bit once we have all worked out our place in the hierarchy. The all-Italian crew, headed by a tall, youngish and brisk captain, share our dining room but have their own recreation areas.

The all-Filipino crew are also friendly and polite but distant and you again get the distinct impression they are worried about you drawing on them too much or being too demanding. It’s a bit frustrating as there is very little information about how things work (should we leave our cabins unlocked so they can clean, as we have been told they do, can we just use the gym equipment whenever we like and how do you turn the treadmill on – it’s not obvious, are we allowed to go and get coffee whenever we like or only at meals, can we open windows/change heating settings, which ‘authorised personnel only’ doors are OK to go through and which not, what do the yellow lines mean….). I am now taking the approach of doing what I like and not worrying about it, on the basis they will say if we commit some major transgression! Mind you we depend on these people for everything! If necessary I will deploy my secret weapon, Lauren, as I have caught both staff and officers cracking sneaky smiles and winks at her while remaining distantly professional with the adults.

We have set ourselves up in a corner of the lounge, which has become the schoolroom and also a jigsaw station for Lauren (although everyone else seems to chip in the odd piece) and we plan to do schoolwork every day between breakfast and lunch and for an hour in the afternoon. Obviously, port days will be a different matter.

Speaking of port days, we have yet to reach Hamburg. We have been moored out at sea since last night, not far from the entrance to the river Elbe, which will take us to Hamburg. We should have docked there yesterday. Presumably we are waiting for congestion to clear in port. Everyone was very excited about the prospect of a few hours in Hamburg, thinking we would arrive yesterday night, but who knows if that will happen. Also, apparently someone ‘in charge of passengers’ will board in Hamburg, so maybe things will be clearer.

We went out on deck this morning after breakfast and before lessons, to clear our heads. It was surreal. A deep fog made it impossible to see much at all, and we just got glimpses of the incredibly still water far below. Some kind of optical illusion made the water seem very close. It was totally silent, in the early morning gloom, and it reminded me of WWII films where everyone is waiting at sea in total silence, terrified of U boats. Even without these references Lauren found it spooky.

Occasionally and for no good reason that we can work out, the ship’s horn blows – an equally spooky sound out here in the middle of nowhere. Maybe there are huge ships bearing down on us out of the fog and we are warning them off. Actually, if you check on a GPS ship tracker you can see there are in fact a number of vessels very close to us, but none that we can see and the fog makes us feel totally alone in our own little world.

We have no idea when we will be moving again, or if we will be in Hamburg long enough to disembark. We also have no idea of the specific arrival date in any port, so I am learning to let go and not plan. If we do manage to get off tomorrow in Hamburg we need to buy tracing paper, and a compass for Geometry. I also plan to buy a mug, as while I brought a travel kettle and my trusty Yorkshire tea, drinking it out of the tiny coffee cups from the galley or from the plastic ‘cups’ that came with the kettle just doesn’t do it justice.

Having prepared ourselves for a complete internet black out, actually we have had a signal at times from the Dutch and now German coasts, even when so far out we couldn’t see land. As of tomorrow, though I don’t have my mobile package anymore, so it will be a complete blackout apart from at ports if they have wifi.

I know I have gone on a bit in this post and it may be a bit disjointed as its been written in between french poetry and maths exercises during morning lessons, as and when the signal came our way.

Some of you think we are mad and have no interest in what we are doing whatsoever, but I know others have wanted details so here you go!

A few videos of our departure

I have no idea if this will work, haven’t embedded videos before and am hopping on German mobile network before my European data package runs out tomorrow, so feedback please 🙂

By Lauren: Our Cargo Ship

Hi this is Lauren.

We are on a container ship for a month so we won’t be able to post or talk much because we won’t normally have internet so no messages, no calls, no emails except when we are in port and even that isn’t guaranteed. (C: we are currently sailing up the river to Hamburg and hopping on a German mobile network).

So this is the list of what I am going to talk about: canteen, lounge, cabin, gym.

So let’s talk about the canteen first. (C: what a surprise!). The canteen is good. So far I like the food. This is the menu today:

Four course lunch and dinner served to you!!!! It’s a nice canteen (C: mess!). Here’s what time lunch is….11am for passengers, we have 45 minutes because the officers eat at noon. The kitchen (galley) is right next to the canteen and the head cook sings and whistles the whole time.

Right, let’s go on to the passenger lounge. Its just as big as the crew’s lounge but it has 2 sofas, 2 comfy chairs, 9 chairs, 3 tables, one table football, lots of films, 1 huge TV, a Christmas tree and three windows.

I do my schoolwork in the lounge.

So now lets go to the cabin. The cabin is bigger than we expected. Yes, it is small but you can live in it for a month. It has bunk beds and lots of storage space and an en suite bathroom. We have put up lots of Christmas decorations and even a really tiny Christmas tree.

Now lets go to the gym. The gym is small but good to get some exercise. There is a treadmill, 2 bikes, some weights and table tennis.

The 6 other passengers are nice. There are three Nicoles (2 French and one German) and three men. There are two French couples who I speak French with and a German couple who speak good English and I’m going to play ping pong with them.

I am feeling really good, the sea is not as rough as it was on the way to the Faroe Islands, it’s a really nice ship, and I’ve made a few friends.

THIS CONTAINER SHIP IS GOOOOOOOOOD AND A VERY BIG MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL.

 

How to Organize Travel on a Cargo Ship

The Grande Amburgo (or Great Hamburger) that will take us to South America.

A number of people have asked me how I went about organizing our trip (scheduled to depart from London next Monday) from London to Montevideo aboard the Grimaldi Lines ship the Grande Amburgo (or Great Hamburger as we have christened it).

First off, its not as simple as ringing your local travel agent and booking a place.

Secondly, its not a cheap way of getting from A to B. Its far cheaper to fly.

Thirdly, most cargo ships don’t take passengers, so you have to be willing to go where those that do happen to be sailing.

Finally, it has been made abundantly clear that the cargo is the priority and not passengers – if the cargo dictates leaving early or late, missing a port, adding a port or arriving in port at midnight and leaving at 6am, then that is what they do. You fit in around that.

So, it’s fair to say it’s not for everyone, and certainly wouldn’t fit neatly into a 2-week holiday.

Ports, boats, the sea all fascinate me, it feels like a different world that most of us know little about, and I am incredibly excited to do this.  Given the unpredictability of sailing, this is probably one of the few times we have the flexibility to do it.

One night while in the ‘dreaming’ stage of this trip I was idly googling various things I’d rather be doing than being stuck in Maputo beating my head against a brick wall.

It was a long list, to be fair.

I had read about repositioning cruises (when cruise ships move from one part of the world to another at the end of a season and offer heavily discounted one-way fares) but cruise ships with all the attendant entertainment and excessive food (I have no self-control, if it were there I’d eat it) and other people didn’t appeal. I then wondered if it was ever possible to go on a working vessel, and google had the answers, in the form of some blogs from people who had done it. These wetted my appetite and were all about how amazing this form of travel is, but had remarkably little in the way of actual practical detail.

I realized that I wouldn’t be able to organize this online, and would have to go old school and actually contact people directly.

I tried a number of agents who were, frankly, rubbish, taking ages to respond and then providing incorrect information. In one instance, we got all the way through the process and it was only when I sent payment that they turned round and said that the information on their website was wrong and in fact the shipping company we’d booked with didn’t accept children, even though that had been my very first concern and they had confirmed children over 7 were accepted.

By this point I had filled in a number of forms, provided copies of passports and vaccination cards, and had endless to and fro about the route and dates. It was an awesome route, including passage through the Panama canal, and when this fell through I almost gave up.

However, as I keep telling Lauren that perseverance is an important quality and one she should work on, I decided to give it one more go, and I contacted one more agent, this time in London. They turned out to be pretty good, and actually provided correct information, responded to emails, and reminded me when I needed to send payment or documents. I have been pleased with them and am happy to recommend them – they are called The Cruise People and have a website here http://www.cruisepeople.co.uk/ – mainly directed at cruises, but also some interesting seagoing options as well as cargo ships (click on the freighter travel tab). I don’t have any kind of agreement with them or anything, I just think it might be helpful for others interested in this option. There’s not much info on their website, so best off is to email them.

To make a booking I needed to provide documentation such as copies of passports, copies of vaccinations cards (yellow fever was obligatory in our case as we would stop in South America), copies of insurance cover (showing we were covered for health and evacuation in all possible countries along the route), and sign a contract which effectively stated I understood that things could change (ports, dates, etc) and the Captain is the boss.

The price includes an inside cabin with an ensuite shower/toilet, bunk beds and a small desk (you can pay more for an outside cabin with a window,  which would have been an extra 1000 euros for us, or even if you are feeling flush, a suite). We went for the cheapest option, and it cost, 2,070 euros for me and 1,035 for Lauren. As far as I could tell, Grimaldi were one of the very few who actually take children and the only one who gives a discount. While this is a lot, it’s around 32 days at sea, and so the cost covers transport from London to Montevideo, three meals a day and accommodation. It would still be far cheaper to fly and pay for accommodation and food there for a month, but this is about the experience, not efficiency or cost-effectiveness. Its just something I want to do so we are doing it. Isn’t that what travel should be about?!

You do have to be flexible – our original sailing date was the 12^th December, and now it’s the 18th. We have been told to ‘stay in touch with the port agent’ to find out details like confirmed date and time for sailing, when we have to be on board etc. He has responded quickly to emails, which is reassuring. It all feels very casual, all I have is an electronic copy of a ticket.

Today we are going shopping for ‘supplies’ as once we are on board that’s if for a good while. We have stocked up our kindles and backed them up onto other devices, as the thought of all that time without books is enough to make me wake in the middle of the night unable to breath. We have jigsaws, activity books and films downloaded onto my laptop. Lauren also has her next module for her schooling to do.

We will have both Christmas and Lauren’s 9^th birthday on board, so I have secreted a bag of tiny presents somewhere she can’t find it and we will decorate the cabin with Christmas stuff and take some presents for the crew.

Oh, and there is no wifi or cell phone signal on board, apart from a satellite connection used by the captain for emergencies. So this blog will be updated only sporadically when we find wifi in port. While the thought of a total digital detox is quite attractive, it does raise all sorts of issues such as how to enroll Lauren in school for next year (has to be done online in mid-January) or how to book accommodation for when we arrive in Montevideo ……

We have been told that shore leave is ‘at the discretion of the captain’ and that if we don’t make it back on time the ship will leave without us. Stops that have been confirmed are Hamburg, Dakar, and various on the Brazilian coast including Rio and Santos. Others may come up.

In the end though, this is not about the places we stop at, but the time at sea, and I will update this blog to let people know how we get on.