Hi everyone! I'm posting this in La Spezia, Italy after about 4 days at sea. Thought I'd share with you my journey from the beginning.
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A very emotional day today.
It was the day it hit me that I’m going to be on a container ship, for
approx. 1.5 months, travelling to Hong Kong!
Joining
the ship was easy. I made my way to the
Cruise Terminal in Piraeus, the port of Athens and there the agent for this
particular cargo line met me. He took
care of all my paperwork with the authorities.
I was lucky enough to also meet the new Polish Chief Officer who joined
the ship with me. He’d been on this ship
before and was coming back from his leave.
I immediately warmed to his avuncular nature: kind eyes with a weary, yet friendly demeanor, he assured me that any questions I had, he’d be more than happy to
answer them. “Don’t think any question
is silly.” Ahh, that’s re-assuring.
And so
on to the Cargo terminal. A taxi took us
to the front gate of the cargo area where I had to clear security. This took about two minutes whilst they
inspected my paperwork and passport. The cargo area is huge and it’s not as if you
can wander on down to your ship, so we boarded a minibus that drove us around
to our ship, my new home for the next one and a half months!
We passed several ships on the
way. These
are pretty big I thought, until we rounded a corner and came to a halt.
Nothing really prepared me for just how big ‘my’ ship was. I looked up, and up, and up. And there she was in front of me, the Hanjin Boston in all her glory looked
like a huge apartment block and as soon as I saw her, I embarrassingly burst
into tears! To say I felt overwhelmed is
an understatement. Chief Officer smiled
good-naturedly at me & patted my shoulder (I think I have a father figure
here who’s taken me under his wing).
You’ll see from my video how overwhelmed I felt…the emotions expressed
in it are no exaggeration.
 |
| Super cargo cabin |
 |
| Fab double bed! |
Due to set sail later, wish me luck everyone!
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