July 6th, 2009
Basic Outlines - Croater 226
Cazanga turned out to be the unhappiest ship I’ve ever worked (-: It only took a few days for me to decide that I’m not going to put up with being made miserable for a few $$$. However, this experience combined with other recent disappointing UK work experiences did lead me to decide to go back to my roots. I’ve applied for a position as Chief Officer with several Dutch companies that specialise in the world wide tramp trade (-: The aim is to find a bit of “gezelligheid” and job satisfaction again. It does mean taking a step back & working hard towards gaining enough experience to get a position as captain again in a trade I left in 1996 after I moved to the UK.
After briefly visiting the Netherlands for some job hunting things are looking good & I had some positive meetings that hopefully should lead to permanent employment s0on.
In the meantime I took an invitation by an Croatian passenger boat operator to work onsite on the design for his new boat.
Posted in 3D Ships | 1 Comment »
March 30th, 2009
Cazanga on trials / R'dam - 26 March
The SBS Marine job fell through but signed a contract with a UK dredging company last week and will be working the brand new Trailer Suction Hopper Dredger Cazanga in Angolan waters soon. She has a hopper capacity of 2400 cbm and will do both maintenance and capital dredging.
Posted in Dredging | 1 Comment »
March 3rd, 2009
Done some major work on utilising all the domains and webspace I’ve had available for a while and now have a new Gallery, eShop & Ship Tracking site online. As soon as I’ve made all the 3D Ship Models currently available in the old shop also available in the new shop I can remove the old shop completely and will no longer be dependent on my ISP for webhosting at all (-:
Posted in 3D Ships | 1 Comment »
February 10th, 2009
SBS Torrent @ anchor off Mumbai
Flew up & and down to Aberdeen yesterday for a job interview and hope to start employment with SBS Marine shortly. It’s an up and coming company with a strong presence in India and where the crew is more involved with the direct management of the vessel. You can visit www.sbsmarine.com for some info on the company and the vessels they operate.
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January 7th, 2009
After handing over Northern Comrade the whole crew was picked up by a mini bus and dropped at Valletta Airport where I took a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt (covered in snow) and from there a FlyBe flight to Southampton. After hopping on the Weymouth Train I was back home by 22:00 (-:
Posted in Northern Comrade, Trico Marine | 2 Comments »
January 6th, 2009
Alongside in the Valetta Grand Harbour
Arrived safely at Valetta. Had to take the vessel in without pilot as the weather around midnight was such that the pilot couldn’t board. Now handed over the vessel to new Master and waiting for the bus to the airport (-: Looking forward to seeing SL again!
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January 4th, 2009
Galitons De LOeust and La Galite
Now off the Tunesian coast and making excellent progress, weather little bit miserable today, chilly with grey skies and drizzle at times. Expect to arrive off Valetta Harbour 16:30 tomorrow to pick up the pilot and have the vessel alongside around 18:00.
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January 3rd, 2009
View from the stern
I took the photo above this morning when it was still cloudy but by now the sun has come out and it’s a lovely typical Mediterranean day with an almost flat calm sea. We can just about make out the Algerian coast on the hazy horizon and luckily the pirates that used to ply these waters praying on merchant vessels are no longer an issue. As we’re making excellent progress and the weather forecast is also promising we could actually arrive at Malta earlier than anticipated, but I’m still waiting ofor clear instructions. It’s should be either Monday or Tuesday and I’m currently busy preparing the required documents and handover for the next Master.
Posted in Northern Comrade, Trico Marine | 1 Comment »
January 2nd, 2009
Moody Sky over Mediterranean Ship Traffic
Vessels above are part of the fleet of container carriers responsible for the majority of the worlds goods transport today. That’s how those iPods and other gadgets get from China to our shops. The weather is nice wind and temperature wise but it’s not that sunny here. I’m working on a crew change during the afternoon on the 5th of January without going alonside at Valetta. The only business we have is the actual crew change so we can save a lot of time and hassle doing it by launch. The vessel is not chartered out and the owners have to cover all the costs for this trip to Singapore.
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January 1st, 2009
- Ceuta – Morocco
Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar Allemaal!!! Finally back online (-: It was pretty challenging getting this SatCom system back on track as I didn’t have previous experience and we’re only a little boatie which tends to move quite a bit. I’ve been working at it flat out for the past 3 days /-: I’ll be looking into getting an alternative, more reliable, SatCom system going as this depence on a flaky system can be very inconvenient. Expect no further problems as we can look forward to some smooth sailing in the Mediterrean. Just passed Ceuta on starboard and while I was busy blogging the 2nd mate told me that we had a whale on the portside. I rushed outside with my camera and got some excellent close-up shot of what appearred to be a sperm whale. However, on my camera screen appeared “no memory card” as it was still in my laptop! Maybe time to upgrade to a WiFi enabled camera?!
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