Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Part 4 - On Board

In the morning I woke up early and sat out on the balcony sipping tea, eating biscuits and listening to Radio Australia on shortwave as well as the local relay of the BBC World Service on FM, a useful relic of colonial times. The rendezvous point for people joining Søren Larsen was conveniently downstairs outside the Kaiviti's reception, so were able to have a nice leisurely breakfast by the pool (including spam fritters) before packing up, checking out and finding the small but growing crowd waiting to join the ship. There were, if I remember, about 13 voyage crew joining for this leg - with a maximum capacity of 22 the ship wouldn't be too crowded. We started meeting some of them now before all piling into a minibus and heading back to the Waterfront where we met the two long-term voyage crew who had been with the ship since it left Auckland a couple of months earlier - Emil and Simon, who was universally known as Syd for reasons I never quite worked out.

From there, some people went off to change money or to do last-minute shopping at those places which were open on the bank holiday Monday, dodging the president of Vanuatu giving a speech marking the holiday, while the rest of us were handed orange lifejackets and ferried to the ship which was to be our home for the next 12 days in one of Søren's inflatables. I could make out the Red Ensign and "Søren Larsen - Colchester" at the stern, which was a reassuring touch of home for someone far away on the opposite side of the world.

As we crossed the harbour I felt a familiar mixture of excitement and nerves. A whole lot of people from all over the place were about to be thrown together in a confined space for a fortnight. I hoped everyone would get on okay, as if personal conflicts arise in this kind of environment there's really nowhere you can go and hide other than in your cabin, which you may well be sharing with various other people anyway, so other than hiding in the loo there would be virtually no privacy. I'd been on enough Scout camps as a kid to be used to living in close proximity with large numbers of unwashed people and their socks, but at least then I'd known the people I was living with. This time everyone was going to be a stranger.

The only thing I had figured out so far was that there wasn't any such thing as a typical voyage crew member. The modal age was sort of thirty-something, but that was the only general statement which you could make. There were voyage crew from various parts of the UK, assorted European countries, New Zealand and the US, alongside permanent crew members from New Zealand, Australia, Shetland, Finland, Denmark (especially Denmark) and heaven knows where else. There were hardened sailing types and people who looked as if they'd never seen the sea before.

After a spirited run across the harbour we pulled up alongside the ship, pristine and shiny after a long layover and a repaint, and rapidly learnt the technique for boarding from an inflatable - grab the ropes supporting the step, stand on the edge of the boat and wait until it reaches the highest point of its up-down bobbing motion, then step smartly up onto deck without pausing. We found ourselves standing on the maindeck surrounded by a bewildering array of ropes which descended from the sky and attached firmly to wooden pins. We also found that tea and biscuits had been provided for our arrival.

The crew members who didn't have anything better to be doing at that moment introduced themselves - they were a likeable and affable bunch, and I guessed that after long months at sea it was probably good for them to have some new people around as well. Most of the deck crew lived in the fo'c'sle down below in the bows, living together for anything up to a year without any break from the ship longer than a couple of days. Various officers and cooks were spread out across another couple of cabins in the bows while the engineer, the first and second mate, and the Captain occupied another three cabins in the stern. The bulk of the remaining space belowdecks was taken up by the engine room, the heads, the saloon and a number of cabins for voyage crew which held between two and six people. Our names had already been posted next to our cabin doors, and by virtue of being a couple Kat and I had a tiny double cabin to ourselves, with two surprisingly comfy bunks, a wardrobe about six inches deep, and a bookshelf. They hadn't been kidding when they'd advised not packing too much and bringing soft bags rather than suitcases - once the luggage was in there wasn't very much room left at all. It was hot and stuffy below as a result of the tropical climate and the ship having not moved for a while, so most people left their cabin doors open almost all the time.

Posted by mpk at June 7, 2004 4:11 PM | TrackBack