(Sunday, May 22nd, 2016)
We are back in the North Sea, headed from Hamburg to Antwerp. The sea is smooth, and the swells are small. It is raining outside, a steady drizzle, a bit chilly, but not especially windy. Not a bad day for traveling. We expect to be in Antwerp late tonight. We pick up a pilot late in the afternoon, for a long trip up a river. There will be a lock to go through, and the Captain hopes that it isn’t crowded at the lock.
I didn’t go in to visit Hamburg, so I have nothing to write about the city itself. The logistics were a bit difficult, as our berth was a ways from town center, and frankly my energy level was low. This post will be about the port visit.
We sailed to Hamburg via a long approach up the Elbe River from the North Sea. The river starts out extremely wide and then narrows to, well, fairly wide still, as it reaches the city. There were small towns all along the way, with deeply green fields, houses with dark pitched roofs over red brick, and spikey church steeples. Small herds of cows and sheep grazed nearby. Pastoral.
Interspersed with these scenes were the occasional pieces of industry: A small refinery, some sort of grain storage and shipping, and ferries to Hamburg and London from small docks. As we got closer to Hamburg the balance of small town / industry tilted towards industry. Finally, when we could see the city in the distance, the river was almost consumed with industry on both sides, with the exception of some expensive-looking homes with huge sloping lawns on the north side of the river. We passed by a regional airport whose long runway ended at the river’s edge. Eerie, looking down the business end of a runway. We were “in the way”. No planes while we passed. Whew.
Many sailboats were out and about, of all sizes and shapes. The day we arrived was sunny and windy, so pretty nice for them. I took a photo or two of sailboats sailing past some cows and sheep. Ha.
The Hamburg port is huge. It compares to Shanghai in size. It certainly feels that way. There are many pathways as you approach the city, and each seem to have many cranes visible in the distance. You gotta leave crumbs in the water so you can find your way back out.
Hamburg is where Rickmers, our ship’s owner and operator (two different companies), has their home office. So, once we berthed, we were visited by many people. There was even a group of Rickmers employees, maybe 20 of them, who came on a bus and toured the ship to “get a feel”. After all, their work involves ships and shipping, and yet so many of them have no clue what is it like on a ship discharging, loading, and transporting cargo. I had a good time talking with some of them as the “Chief Passenger”. A couple of them had to be told that that was a joke, that passengers had no rank. Kind of cute. I wish that Rickmers could allow them a few days on board, during travel. That’s much different than walking around a berthed ship. But any exposure to the real world that gets affected by their desk jobs is a good thing, so I applaud Rickmers.
A couple of the Rickmers folk, learning that I was American, asked about Donald Trump, looking for insight I guess. Oh my. Oh well. I am not a fan of that association. This isn’t a political blog so I’ll stop right there.
We had one really cool loading. A large yacht, a new Hanse 675. Like the catamarans we had on board across the Pacific, it is noticeable how much effort is spent on attempting to prevent even a scratch while loading and discharging. It makes sense, as this is a pleasure vehicle targeted toward people who have spent a lot of money and want to see something shiny and perfect show up at their marina. Not like those who are receiving a new mobile crane that will immediately be put to work.
We lifted the ship from the water. For the catamarans, there were lifting hooks built in, so we used those. For this yacht, there were no hooks, so we had to cradle it. This meant that there was underwater work to do to ensure that the cradle was properly located. A diver spent quite a bit of time under the yacht. Also, we started with a spreader (that piece that holds the lifting lines apart) that seemed right but wasn’t working well, so we had to start over with a different spreader. Nothing goes as planned. Took most of a morning.
A lot of people watched this lift. I am not sure if it was because it was near Rickmers’ offices, or if the yacht builders sent a lot of people, or maybe the receiving owners were there. There was also a photographer who looked official. I had wondered where she would place herself for best possible photos, and for a while couldn’t find her. She was up in the crane! Major cool. I was jealous.
I spent some time in a very nice Seamen’s center. They are not all created equal, and this one was one of the best. I got some nerdy work done on my computer, drank a few very nice beers, and talked with some Russians (in English, somewhat embarrassingly), who were workers on a car carrier ship. They don’t get to drive the cars, darn it, a separate agency does all that in the ports. On the way back to the ship I had a nice talk with the Seamen’s center’s shuttle driver. He was American, from Des Moines, who visited Hamburg in 1972 and just never quite made his way back to America. Ha! It was fun to talk with him.
We are vertically tighter to some bridges now, because the mast on the yacht is higher than the highest points (the radar equipment and antennae) on our bridge. My eyes aren’t the best at depth perception, and already one of the bridges in the interior of the port scared me on our way out of Hamburg. On top of the yacht’s mast are some electronics and some weather monitoring equipment. I thought they were goners! I am sure that Captain has it all under control.