Instal 9
tue may 29
well....apparently portbury is the biggest car port in britain because it is well placed to the motorway network.....and i figured there must be a reason for it as it takes forever to get here as i said at the end of last blog...we were off the mouth of the bristol channel about 9.30am yesterday and plodded up it till 12.00 when we took on a pilot and then its on and on....you have to go thru a lock to get into the harbour and it was about 3.30pm before we got that done and tied up....one of the annoying things about being a passenger is there is always a long wait for customs and shipping agent and was about an hr and a half before we got off...but for the first time we had a long stay ie 17 hrs but that was a bit double edged as you will see.....first up we went to the seafarers centre which is in the port complex....it is a great place for the sea boys as they have high-speed broadband, telephone networks, games room, library, guitars,organs etcetc.....plus they have a curtesy-coach to pick up sea-men from avonmouth dock which was nearby.....did the blog and email thingy there and the guys that run it said that bristol was about 7 miles away but there is no bus link , only taxi....which we would have done but by that time was 6.30pm and thought , what is point of going there at that time on a monday night...plus we had gone thru bristol on one of our previous missions .so decided to go for option b. which was to walk to local pub for tea....only one mile.....fortunately the coach turned up and offered to give us ride... just as well ...the only people that would have reckoned it was only a mile would have been irish or maori , as if we had been on foot i would have turned back ages before we had got there on the assumption we were going wrong way..(i reckon 5km.).so that is how we got to "the kings arms"....a good old village pub in what i guess by the accents...was summerset?....this was also indicated by the amount of cider that was on tap....but also they had real ale as well...plus they did very good pub-grub...which for us always revolves around scampi and chips ....plus we had a bit of craik with the locals (thats gaelic for a yarn....not a mis-spelling of a type of cocaine! )....all in all a good night and to cap it off the seafarers centre sent the coach to get us at closing time ..
..today we sailed about 11.30am and are through locks and hauling for it down the channel...seems to be going a lot faster might be something to do with the tide......cork in ireland is next 12 hrs which means another middle of the nighter but might be ok as i dont think we can onload ourselves in some of these ports due to union issues so might be in port for tomorrow morning as well ...as kate will be wanting to set foot on her beloved ireland again.
wed 30 may
woke up to nice spring day in ireland , showered up and were ready to go...but bugger me we couldnt find 3rd mate who usually handles our travel (namesake stresses in the info that comes with your ticket , that you need a lot of patience on a cargo ship and i usually have but sometimes it gets very strained !!)....in the end i ran into the walrus and asked him about chances of a shore pass.....he has fairly good english but takes a bit of time to produce it..."there is no shore pass " says he....and i must have looked fairly astonished and was about to enquire why not in as diplomatic a way as possible....when he continued...."noo need for shore pass this port .....you just go ashore when you are ready but need you back 12.00noon as we sailing soon after that "....well wait till i get that mate thinks i...if the tosser had said that last night we could have offed at 7.00 oc(as you will see we did manage to salvage victory from the jaws of defeat !!)....anyway we hit the wharf at 9.30 and took route to gates that walrus had shown us....there was a philiy on the gates and you wont believe me but for the first time on the trip apart from israel...he asked us for our shore pass!!....bugger me yet again....i said we dont have one and he must have been a local-philly as he said " oohwell we wont bother about one today then"....and we walked into ireland
.....about 500 meters down road and we were in the village of ringaskiddy.....it is a small village on the port side of a very picturesque harbour and the bigger town on the opposite side i will describe in a while.....had a bit of a look at bus timetable and wondered if time to go to cork which is about 40mins away.....saw a small shop nearby which was in a virtual sort of car garage....had a good bit of craik with owner barry and he told us of the woes of ireland and indeed they are not flash with high unemployment and houses worth about half of what they were prior to 2008 , people have mortgages worth more than the houses and indeed barry looked like he was just hanging on by the skin of his teeth too as he had hardly any stock ....but we relieved him of some irish newspapers and 2 winning (we hope ) lucky dips in the wed nite 4 mil lotto draw....he also talked us out of going to cork in the short time we had (we have actually been to cork before anyway compliments of our friend tara from galway ).so..apart from him the only other enterprise in ringaskiddy was the "ferry boat inn"...the other two pubs in town having closed due to the recession....so 10.am i walked in and asked the two women behind the bar one of the most stupid questions you can ask in ireland "is it too early in the day for a guiness?"....they of course immediatly answered in unison .."its never too early in ireland for a guiness"....plus one said" if you were still in australia it would be night time and you could have several"....got her put right on the geography and tried a local brew and of course a good yarn since we were only patrons....transpired they had bought the pub between them and were giving it a good go....and a nice wee irish pub it was too.....one of them was called sarah and when i enquired as to where nearest bank would be she said that she had a bit of shopping to do in nearest bigger town and she would take us with her....she was intrigued as she had never met anyone called "heemish" before......so we installed ourselves in one of the smallest cars i have been in since greece...a ka (just as well 2 meter peter wasnt with us or he would have had to sit on roof )...and off we went to carrigaline...which was twenty mins away....a vibrant town with plenty of shops banks etc...she showed us the spot where we would meet up and off we went ....got some more euros at a good price as i am only carrying aus$ this trip and they were good rate even at bank(over 76cents)and some other stuff we needed so all good....we were way up the other end of town and suddenly we heard someone calling out "heemish" and there was sarah parked up in a line of traffic...transpired the stuff she had gone to pick up wasnt ready....so the trip was really only in aid of us....on the way out of town we saw a funeral forming at one of the churches and a lot of foot traffic heading that way...."ah it will be a big funeral" saya sarah..."she was a very popular woman who has 6 teenage sons"...i said that would account for the younguns heading down the street..."ah well now, her husband has 12 brothers you know and each of them has a dozen or so kids you know now"...says sarah....also we got the run down on how the whole event is run in ireland....as i had asked if they would be having a "wake" as my kiwi idea on what that involves is when you all go to the "oak tree inn" or similar after the event to lighten up a bit....but no...they probably do a bit of that as well but a wake in ireland is the whole deal and goes from the "viewing" of the body the day before , the service and ends at the graveside.....so i am further educated ...
...we whistled back to the "ferry boat inn" and sarah knocked up kate a chicken and veg stir fry as kate is getting veg withdrawl symptoms...and me a full irish breakfast of bacon eggs saus. black and white pudding and chips....yum a nice change from our regulation piza breakfasts....and of course washed down with another guiness....and then alas we were off ...but that woman was a real good stick (and along with the cafe mercanti couple from salerno.)...is "right up there with the fighter pilots ".and we got a good wee snapshot of ireland........well we got back to the ellade and bugger me if they didnt have some problem wtih the locks on the ramp when they folded it up and we wasted nearly 3 hours while they played about with that but finally we were on the move out into the harbour about 5.30pm.....now the town on the opposite side of the harbour that i mentioned above is called cobh (prounounced "cove") and we passed right along it only a couple of hundred meters away from shore and a right scenic spot it is too.....on that very spot 100 years ago in april a very well know liner owned by the "white star line "....anchored here to take on the last of her passengers which i think were irish immigrants heading for better places (now adays liners come here and anchor at the quay because the modern harbour has been dredged but in the titanic's time they had to anchor in the channel and barge the passengers out)...so was worth a bit of pondering as we sailed out of that harbour as most of those buildings..esp the lighthouse etc were probably standing when the titanic sailed past and for a lot of them it was the last bit of land they would ever see!!.....(.back in april they re-enacted the titanics voyage on exactly the same day ).....so as night fell we plodded off out into the irish sea hoping that we will have better luck than the worlds most famous ship..
...heading around bottom of england and up through the channel and next port of call is esberj in denmark in a couple of days eta 4.0am sat 2nd june
friday 1 june
past through the dover straits in the night and now plodding up thru the north sea...a lot of shipping around but an even greater number of oil rigs and gas platforms....man they are everywhere and i noticed on the charts that off holland there are also a lot of offshore wind-farms although we are too far out to have seen them....managed to get a guided tour of engine room today....had dropped a few requests in earlier in trip but nothing eventuated until today....engine surprisingly small in size compared with the old waitangi where the engine extended up through 3 decks.....this one is 7 cylinder 22,000kw which is something in hp i am not sure of...cylinders are only about the size of the old standard dust bin but are obviously a lot more efficient than in days of old....incidentally apart from maintenance , the main engine is never shut down even in port....she has done about 70,000hrs and has a shelf life of over 24yrs (she is a 2001 model) but they gradually replace all the parts over a period of time anyway as everything is compartmentalised.....one variable pitch propellor that can push us along at a max of about 22knots but mostly we potter along at about 17 to save fuel....bunkering is done in antwerp of about 250tonnes and that is sufficient for the round trip....the bow thrusters are the side on props that are used to manouver in port and they are both powered by a massive electrical motor.....there are also 4 large 7 cylinder generator sets for electricity and a large fuel fired boiler which produces enough hot water that we could shower all day long if we wanted to
.....something that i have not previously mentioned is that on one of the bulkheads at the back of the bridge is the makers plaque which in this case is daewoo from korea .....on the other bulkhead is a painting of the makers makers son if that makes sence ie...jc in the arms of his mother and this is surrounded by a dried flower arrangement and some religious verse......there were more pictures in that vein in the engine room....and i have noticed in passing at least one officers cabin with the door open , a large depiction of jc over the head of the bunk as well but this is hardly surprising as italy is home to the old fellow with the funny hat and they obviously take it quite seriously.....there is also a small statue of one of the patron saints on top of the bridge consul , facing forward.....so we are in good hands
....one of the most difficult things i find on board is to not walk around absentmindedly whistling as i am prone to do as you well know......it is not just because of the fact that i may not sometimes be in tune....it is because the sailors say..".whistling onboard ship makes the wind blow"....and i must say there has been a lot of offenders before me as it never stops bloody blowing at sea and the north-sea is no exception , i can tell you.
2nd june in esbjerg....sending this from good old macca's free wifi