An easy run to Cadiz

5th to 11th November 2008

The weather on this run was excellent, and (almost) everyone seemed to be in good spirits for the short voyage with a long stay on shore at the end. Seas were glassy, and temperatures were cooler. Although I still find the heat little more than comfortable, the boys are starting to put on double layers and then also windbreakers and woolen hats. I don’t think anyone wants to come to New Zealand now because they keep talking about how cold it must be because of my (lack of) reaction.

I FORGOT TO MENTION my good buddy 2nd Officer Ranjeet Rana left us in Taranto. His replacement is a tall and rather stocky young Indian guy by the name of Sameer Kazi. Sam is a beautiful guy.. a little day-dreamy even by my standards, but with a heart of gold. He’s always enthusiastic to lend his strength, congratulation, thoughts and thoughtfulness- all of this even when un-necessary. We also have a few new crew-members, including A.B. Russel Briones, a new Chief Cook (so Ramon has likewise gone home). Ramon was my friend but Elvin is an excellent cook, and knows exactly what to feed the two Europeans aboard to keep us smiling. Bosun Sano also went home, and his replacement is Emmanuel Libao. Manny is younger than Ismael – which makes me wonder how old Ismael is because Manny will turn 40 in December. Like all Filipinos in my opinion, he looks much younger then he is. His English is “better than average”, and we’re getting on really well. Now I’ve spent a bit of time on deck and know my way around, and also because I’m old hat to this kind of labor, he and others consequently are treating me more like an equal in fact, instead of only by superior rank.

We followed the same path as before, except backwards – south down the Ionian Sea along the coast of Italy, into the Malta Channel then the Sicily Channel, starting to turn westward north of Tunisia and then again past Algeria and Morocco. After plain sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar, we made a broad turn north-north-eastwards and then north-east-by-north on approach to Cadiz Bay.

Discharging this time around had left plenty of mess on the starboard deck, so much so that our first job was this: Hold man-entrances were rigged with canvas and rope into shutes, leading into the holds themselves. We gathered all the cargo on deck into piles using plough-like scrapers and shoveled this into quite a few field-expedient buckets made early on the first day. These were transported via trollies to the nearest convenient hold entrance, and sent down the shute to supplement our next load. This took the better part of the 3 (12 hour) days for both the deck crew and riding squad (remember, the poor guys who are on temporary contract to work underdeck). And by the way, the day we were working closest to the bow was actually the only period when the seas were fairly choppy. Water was flying near horizontally. We all got wet.

After this was complete there were plenty of little things that needed to be done to get the ship ready for dry-dock. A lot of my work at this time was going in and out of the void-spaces checking and repairing valves and the mechanical valve control tele-actuators, which open and shut valves for the ballasting system.

As we came close to Gibraltar I made a request to the Captain to be allowed to steer the ship through the traffic separation scheme, and this was allowed. It’s a bit of a thrill to have the helm of such a massive ship. There was quite a bit of traffic through the strait at that time (it was dark by the time we entered the traffic scheme), and there is a strong southward current to compensate for. Usually no more than 5° on the rudder were necessary to get by, but occasionally I’d put on as much as 10°. Occasionally I can put the rudder in a “sweet-spot” for around ten minutes at a time, preventing constant adjustment for the current – this means that the rudder angle remains the same, say at 3° to starboard, and my “course made good” stays relatively straight. I was told later that I could handle the ship like a pro –however restricted the situation. We quickly became a spectacle because of our size, and some of the cruisers and other passenger ships got quite close to me. They moved pretty quickly though when it became necessary to alter course. Sound signals are used when necessary, and one blast of the horn means that I’m about to turn to starboard (two for port). One of them veered off so dramatically after sounding that everyone on the bridge joked about it for the rest of the evening, and provoked us to branch into making fun of a wide variety of things and people aboard. All in all I steered the ship at this time for XXX hours –my longest turn at the wheel.

The next day as we came into Bahia do Cadiz we weighed anchor and waited for clearance. We had a good view of the cities Rota, Cadiz, and Porto do Santa Maria – including the medieval walls and fortifications that perhaps lately guarded some of my ancestors (Lisbon, Portugal is very close by) from my other ancestors (the British - and the French too that far back). Jess the 3rd Officer, after 12 months continuous at sea, enthusiastically disembarked and came ashore via a pilot boat along with Glen the mess-man. This left us short our butler –and the officers bit their tongues and did our own cleaning and dish washing and coffee making. I got the job of supplying the bridge with coffee gear, cookies and water bottles –which was fine by me because I got access to the food stores.

I also got the job of Acting 3rd Officer. Captain put Chief Officer to work mending some of his ballasting mistakes immediately, and so the watches were divided into 2 per 12 hours. I took the 6 to 12 watch. Now, at anchor, there is easily as much responsibility and perhaps more danger than while on the move –so my head was really swollen at getting this post. The ship moves regularly, often dramatically revolving around the anchor point. There is a lot of traffic coming in and out of port –including small boats, fishing fleets and other large ships. Dozens of cruise liners traffic around Cadiz. Not to mention the military activity that supports Gibraltar, with Morocco probably within swimming distance. During my watches we were inspected regularly by an MRV patrolling the area daily, an off-shore patrol boat, and a frigate. No submarines in sight though – probably all hiding (Submarines would be extremely useful in sea-denial roles around Gibraltar). Large squadrons of landing craft of various kinds, sometimes carrying tanks, could occasionally be seen in transit. Anyway, to hit any of these would be embarrassing to say the least.

I’m itching to go ashore…..