At 8:30pm my cab driver drops me over to 6708 Baynes St. in Halifax which is a container shipping area just north of town. Cables fly wildly with containers (“cans”) whipped about. A huge ramp lowers from the ship (left with yellow stripe) and I walk on board within a few minutes. I’m greeted by a Philippine crewman named Jason. He takes my passport and ushers me to Deck 5 Room 5. There are five passengers on this ship and about 28 crewmen.
One of my traveling companions gives me a brief tour and I come to the conclusion that this is a very busy place. We have dozens if not hundreds of containers (“cans”) to load–our departure time will be 3am. Each container takes about a minute and is cabled in from the gantry above and dropped into the slot–very efficient!
This is a recently built ship–about $250M–German built, I recall, Bulgarian captain and Philippine crew. Nearly 1000′ long. More details tomorrow.
My room is quite large with a shower/bath, two bunks and a small office. The galley is right down the hall. There is also a gym, sauna and lots of walking space outside if you like the November North Sea weather.
While I’ve got internet, I’ll forego the Hemmingway award and post this quickly with more to come when I arrive in Liverpool. Should be an interesting experience. Stay tuned!