the blog has moved to www.ruttledge.se
Surf ya later,
Tim|||114983487597377879|||
Le Havre port entrance, in case you've forgotten which harbour you are entering
the letters are 5 metres high. Or in the case of some navigators to confirm that you have indeed found the correct harbour.
Del Monte reefer ship, it's not the best advertisement for the company, a lick of paint being forgotten about on the banana trail. I think the man from Del Monte would be saying "NO" if he was asked to judge this ship.
In the famous Beatles song ”yesterday” is the line”I’m not half the man I used to be”, well fortunately for me I was half the man compared with my neighbouring passeneger on my flight to Amsterdam the other day, the guy was huge, he filled his own seat and one third of mine also he had to lift the armrest to fit in, and the belt was just about able to get around his girth. His jeans had enough denim to make two pairs of jeans and a denim jacket for me. He made no apology for squeezing me over to the right hand side of my chair, fortunately the emergency window was beside me so I had a bit of space there.
His only comment was on landing, the plane landed heavily with a bang, and he said “Well I guess we’ve landed”, I was about to say that they did not compensate for all the extra weight when I realised he was all the extra weight.
The pilot announced laconically on the PA, “as you’ve probably noticed we have landed now” full marks for the drole remark skypilot. Ah, the joys of flying.
Just finishing our cargo operation here in Amsterdam, the immigration officials did not visit the ship this time as they don't have the staff according to our agent. So much for fortress europe. After amsterdam we will be doing a french voyage form Le Havre to Paulliac in Bourdeaux, bringing diesel for the vineyards, oil being needed for making wine.....
25th of May.
Just leaving Le Havre. Two days of loading, shifting berth in and out of locks, waiting for cargo, waiting for surveyors, pilots, agents, better weather.....
Good to have the comforting numb thudding of the main engine vibrating through the ship as we make for Paulliac. More words later time for my watch.
Bye for now, Tim.|||114834078984882167|||
Grimsby Town FC badge, nickname "The Mariners"
Greetings blog fans, I'm floating again. I joined at Immingham in England on thursday last week, Immingham, known as "Ming Ming" in merchant navy slang is beside the town of Grimsby, home of Grimsby Town FC and once a large fishing port until the Cod war with Iceland, not much fishing being done now out of Grimsby, the cod in the chipper on Cromwell Road probably was caught in the Barents Sea, frozen, sent to China, filleted frozen again, sent back to Europe and battered,deep fried and that will be £5.20 please. The Cromwell Road also feaured the "Oliver Cromwell Barber Shop" a good place for all the roundheads to get their short back and sides, I didn't know what I felt about being in Cromwell country, apart from the obvious "so this is where the bastard was spawned" (to all non-Irish history lovers Oliver Cromwell sacked Wexford back in 1649 and massacred half the town)
Ironically Cromwell was a Republican and wanted to end the Monarchy, the similarities with Wolfe Tone, and all other Irish Republicans end there, a hero if you read history books written in England, a murderous bastard if you read history books written in Ireland.
Cromwells New Model Army were sent to Ireland by the English Parliament to defeat the Confederates of Irish and Royalist English and it is all very complicated and part of the reason Ireland is still divided today, I did not buy a bag of chips or get my haircut on the Cromwell road.
King Billy
Now we are floating off the Dutch Coast near Amsterdam, probably where William of Orange set off from, and eventually got to Dunboyne in 1690, well things really get complicated here, William III, Charles II heads getting cut off, I won't even begin to try and explain William the III, but that is why the orangemen go around marching on the 12th of July, celebrating a victory from 316 years ago.
Here endeth the history lesson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne follow the link for more info.|||114825027060137540|||
Cardiff Castle with daffodils and unknown photographer, any further and they wanted money so I took a picture and turned my bicycle around.
The front of the millenium center in Cardiff Bay.
Lock gates open on departure from the Port of Cardiff, a lone empty cider flagon floated in on the tide, probably one of the dockers lunch beverage judging by the large corporation as can be seen unclearly by the man walking the ship along the dock wall.
Yours truly and cadet Martin, the one with the beard driving the rescue boat for the camera and for practice also or drill as we say here, lifeboat drill etc.
In Wales it's Brains you want.
The Welsh flag flies high from our courtesy halyard, officially it should be the Red Ensign or Union Jack on red background but the locals are very pleased to see the Dragon flying.
The pilot on the way in was very nervous, he kept shifting a load of coins around in his pocket, pacing back and forth, and taking a bite out of his Swedish "Farmer Omelette" that he had gotten for breakfast, he studied dubiously the packets of milk and orange juice also as they had no english on them, the cow and the orange should have provided a hint. He was going on about the poor planning in the pilotage office how 2 planners had been laid off and 6 people had been employed to do the job these planner had and hows your father. He told us of a local saying "that they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery" , he was having a bad day.|||114504466740773518|||
Kiel Canal by night.
Kiel Canal by day.
Our passage through the canal was peaceful, and pleasant everything went smoothly the pilots were in good form, the first one looked a bit like old Steptoe and probably saw some action back in WWII, a cheerful old "gubbe"!
One pilot even broke the golden rule (Don't mention the war!) he started talking about borders after "Ze World War" I was gobsmacked and had a hard job keeping the image of John Cleese strutting around out of my head. Again a friendly pilot, the last pilot we had 5 in total looked like Boris Becker and started talking about the Airbus factory which we passed, they had recently done an exercise to evacuate a plane, the limit is 90 seconds to get everyone off, they got 300 people off in 82 seconds, two broken legs, 7 broken ribs and dozens bruised but all off safely, I wonder if they were a good representation of a plane load or if it was the German stunt team that got off, 82 seconds is not a lot of time!
Anyway now we are sailing down the Elbe away from Hamburg on our way to Brofjorden, Sweden.
Reading Hunter S. Thompson's (author of Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas)
Kingdom of Fear what a great book, he has a style that is frighteningly real. feel free to borrow after I'm finished.
More news soon,Tim|||114437489320456004|||
The reefer ship "Crystal Lily" stuck in the ice outside St. Petersburg, I doubt if theres any crystal or lilys onboard but I thought she was good looking classic lines, and all that, a proper ship.
We are heading at rapid speed towards the Kiel Canal, or Nord Ostsee Kanal as the Jerries call it these days, they don't call it the "Kaiser Wilhelm" canal anymore strange that.
Then it's onward to Hamburg, home of the Hamburgers I suppose. But seriously though it will be my first time to Hamburg and the Elbe, have been to Bremen on the Weser and that was so memorable that I remember we had to keep "fumf bar" pressure on the cargo line, that was OK for them.
We will be passing the ferry crossing between Roedby in Denmark and Putgaarden in Germany, Anna and I had a huge fish platter in a restaurant on the German side, we had on Marks on us(that will tell you how long ago it was and we thought we were going to get busted for not paying for parking, lack of marks) so I asked if it was ok to use my Northen Irish Visa card (also a dim distant memory), and if the good lady waitress knew what the exchange rate was from Pound Sterling to Mark, it was particularly favourable to those in possession of sterling at the time to which I replied to the Fraulein "That's good" and she put her hands on her hips and exclaimed " Zats good for you but itz no good for ze Jormanz"
Previously that day I asked at a road side coffee shop newsagent how much a road-map was, the offending map was whipped from my hand and an impatient german woman pointed at the bar code as if I was an imbecile, apparently the first four digits above the bar code are the price, wouldn't have caused an outbreak of civil unreat to actually use words and tell me the price but there you go, I gave her the Visa card too, who gives a shit what the price is I thought to myself.
Cheers Tim|||114409527838935542|||
A Russian immigration stamp in my book, last time I was here I didn't get one and they said I could not go ashore, this time the boys seemed to be in better "spirits" or had been to the local for half a day before arriving on board. All was stamped and sealed with the usual "presents" ( Marlboro, Gevalia, Famous Grouse etc.)from the old man. One has to keep the wheels of industry greased, just depends on the grease ....
We are at a loading depot, where the cargo arrives by train and tank wagons, the original colour of the wagons is hard to tell, probably because of the loading method, when they see oil pouring out of the top then its full, each tank has black streaks all over the side, looks really professional.....
The post communist wealth has not spread itself to the paint industry here, the place could do with a lick of paint, or to be more realistic a shipload of paint, as the grey concrete look is so 80's. It's hard to know how the place goes around at all, I suppose it is down to priority, basic as possible seems to be the level their at.
Off to Germany next, Hamburg according to the best guesses, the definition of efficiency will be changing radically in 3 days when we arrive there.
more reflections later, bye for now.Tim|||114395016039677250|||