Home » India » Atlantic Express, Arabian Sea, 22/09 – 25/09

My hundredth’s day!!! I have reached the planned length of this journey, the symbolic 100 days. To celebrate, I buy a couple of crates of beer to be distributed to the ship’s crew and officers. Life on board is much the same as usual, routine sets in again. The crew compare themselves to a bus service with stops every few days, barely any time to rest. The outside air temperature is cooling slightly and, more importantly, so is the water temperature for the swimming pool. On day 101, we arrive at anchor and yet again the crew comes out to fish all day long. As soon as the fish is caught, the chef cleans it and grills it and we are thus provided with an all-day fresh fish buffet. Every day, small ships go from ship to ship trading things. They can get for us anything we want. We buy from them about a 100 kilograms of fishes and shrimps of all kind. We trade it for 150 kgs of copper, 4 coils of wire rope, some engine oil and a few lengths of normal rope. They are also keen on beer and we exchange some vegetables for a crate of beer. I spend the day cleaning the fishes. I have become a master in the art and enjoy the work. The evenings are spent in the swimming pool, playing around like children.

Atlantic Express, Arabian Sea, 22/09 – 25/09

Degrubenc
2005-12-09 16:16:06

Displayed times (last time: )

My hundredth’s day!!! I have reached the planned length of this journey, the symbolic 100 days. To celebrate, I buy a couple of crates of beer to be distributed to the ship’s crew and officers. Life on board is much the same as usual, routine sets in again. The crew compare themselves to a bus service with stops every few days, barely any time to rest. The outside air temperature is cooling slightly and, more importantly, so is the water temperature for the swimming pool. On day 101, we arrive at anchor and yet again the crew comes out to fish all day long. As soon as the fish is caught, the chef cleans it and grills it and we are thus provided with an all-day fresh fish buffet. Every day, small ships go from ship to ship trading things. They can get for us anything we want. We buy from them about a 100 kilograms of fishes and shrimps of all kind. We trade it for 150 kgs of copper, 4 coils of wire rope, some engine oil and a few lengths of normal rope. They are also keen on beer and we exchange some vegetables for a crate of beer. I spend the day cleaning the fishes. I have become a master in the art and enjoy the work. The evenings are spent in the swimming pool, playing around like children.

Before every meal at sea, the captain invites the Chief Officer, the Chief Engineer and myself to a Gin and Tonic in his cabin. It has become a very pleasant tradition to which I look forward to every day.

The captain and the chief officer, during that time, are getting increasingly frustrated with the Port Authorities of Karachi: there is no way to contact them to get information on the amount of time we will spend at anchorage (every day at anchorage costs Conti-lines in excess of 12,000USD). The port authorities play religious music over the VHF, blocking us from communicating with them. When we do manage to get through, they are either praying or eating. It seems that the only way to get through, is to bribe the officials who come on board every day to enquire about our health and well-being and very much hope that their concern will be rewarded with cigarettes and alcohol. The more their concerns are rewarded and the more friendships we buy, the more likely we are to go in. On day 103, the captain gives them so much that they have to make 5 trips under the hateful eyes of the crew to carry everything back to their ship.