Captain's blog July/ August 2012

So, my vacation was once again coming to an end. Unfortunately, this year the summer in Finland had yet to materialize so I had not enjoyed much of any warm weather although I had met a lot of old friends and a few new ones. Anyway, it was time to pack the 'ol trunk and get my arse to Helsinki to fly via Mumbai to Colombo.

Monitor lizard at Galle seafront

I boarded on time and flew first to Heathrow, London where my layover was 2h45m and I nearly missed my connection to Mumbai. There were a lot of people lining up for connection flight boarding passes and when I got the booth the lady said the gate is closed. I asked what do you mean closed, there is still an hour left and the plane has not left yet. She said I came late and the gate is closed. I replied that I just arrived from Helsinki, what do you want me to say? Isn't there anything you can do? Then she made a call somewhere and fiddled around on her computer and came out with the boarding passes and told me to hurry. 

Well, said and done I hurried, after 20meters I reached another checkpoint where the gent ripped my boarding passes and told me I am upgraded to coach deluxe. Bloody great, just give me my boarding passes, I need to hurry. I went off again at full pace and reached the security "express line" which to me seemed as fast as the regular line. Through I went finally, and I hurried down to the inter-terminal railway station as I needed to change from terminal 3 to terminal 5. 

Luckily the train was there almost as on request and as I stepped in the train the doors closed and off we went. I came to terminal 5 and continued my trek towards my gate and arrived at a queue that was 30m long. Luckily for me the plane was a bit delayed, and I got in good order albeit drenched in sweat. The flight leaves eventually and I am in deep slumber after a late last evening at my childhood friend, Taru's, pad.

The flight is 8+ hours long so I wake up at the stage they start serving drinks and food. I stare myself silly on inane movies from the on-demand system in lack of anything else to do as well as turn a few pages on the book I brought with me. I fall asleep again at some stage and wake up to the waiters serving a very early morning snack or very late supper. 

Soon enough we land, and I venture to the Visa on arrival queue. The thing is incredibly poorly arranged, and the Officers can barely talk English. I am directed to a sofa group at the side of the immigration desks where a group of elderly Filipino ladies sit and laugh as well as a young Japanese lady. She looks extremely bored with the Immigration officer. 

I am given a form to fill up that is the same as you will fill any visa application form with the usual Indian paranoia if I have relatives in Pakistan and so forth. I fill up the form but have no picture to give, they also ask me of my hotel booking as well as my onward journey ticket. As I did not have any of what they asked it took them hours to find a printout of my onward journey, the photo was skipped and multiple phone calls to get them to understand I am staying at a friend's place. 

Finally, after some 3-4 hrs I was led through to pay for the visa (2000 INR) and I got the stamp, collected my luggage and was on my way towards Avnish pad. The Japanese girl was also at the visa payment desk at the same time as me. I saw her having only Indonesian rupees which naturally were not accepted, they are worthless anywhere outside Indonesia itself, so I offered to pay for her as well otherwise she'd never make it through the immigration. She asked if I was sure, and I said yes, and off she went. I hope she got through alright. In hindsight I think she may have faked it all, who knows.

At Avnish pad I had a few snacks, and we changed a few words of latest news and hit the sack after a cold Kingfisher started to weigh my eyelids. Next morning was busy in meeting with the Office people and the program of Kalizma and other small vessels accompanying her. Then it was lunch time that had to be in Gokul's with Avnish. After that a bit more meeting and saying goodbye to Cmde Mongia & Avnish and then it was again off to the airport for my flight to Colombo. 

Arrived early morning and was picked up by our local driver who soon was whisking me off towards Galle in his minivan. There is now a brand spanking new Chinese built elevated motorway all the way to Hambantota port so the road was pretty smooth once we got onto it. The stretch through Colombo though was as chaotic as before but being the wee hours traffic was not too bad.

Once in Galle we had to get the agent to arrange me the requisite permissions to enter the port and get onboard. Even though Sri Lanka has entered a peaceful stage in their history the paranoia of security still lingers on from the Tamil Tiger scourge, but I could see the military presence was relaxing. Ports are a different story due to the security codes implemented by IMO internationally. So, there is a fair deal of red tape in Asian countries to gain access to commercial ports complying to the ISPS code. 

I can't even think how a marina could operate in these conditions, there is still a long way to go. After some turns and twists I got the agent, and he did his stuff and soon enough I was onboard saying hello to everyone and then hit the sack for a couple of hours as I was knackered of the overnight flight and land travel.

Sojourn on Kalizma

So 14th my vacation was up and I was ordered to fly to Male', Maldives to relieve the Officiating Master from Kalizma for his vacation too. I did not mind going to Kalizma as sitting on Indian Empress for two months in Abu Dhabi can't be better than going to Maldives.

The trip didi not start out very well as I was driving towards Phuket I got a call from office that I had missed my flight. It had been changed from evening to morning flight and I had totally missed the information. What a mess. Anyhow, I got a flight again the same evening and caught it to Kuala Lumpur, there I spent a few hours and flew to Colombo. The KL airport is huge but very quiet, maybe the reason was the late timing, I had a nice Caesar's salad at a restaurant while waiting.

I arrived Colombo in the early morning hours and spent there about 6hrs waiting for the morning flight. I half slept on a row of benches but was always woken up by clattering footsteps when a batch of passengers arrived from who knows where. Thats what you get for missing your flight. When the sun got up soon enough I was in the plane for Male' and a bit later we landed in good order.

The immigration was a breeze and I met Saini on the airport and we sat on the tenderboat to Kalizma in minutes. Kalizma looks the same as before, a bit worn out but that's why she is going in for a face lift in April. She is sitting at anchor north of Hulhule Island next to the Hulhumale' jetty. Then we started the handing over, accounts, current issues, maintenance, local contacts etc.

Colombo airport

In the evening I made "spicy chicken" curry Thai style for Saini as I had brought the ingredients from Thailand. Usually it is made in pork but unfortunately pork is illegal in Maldives. Later on I sent Saini to the airport for his flight to Colombo as he was going to meet with drydock people in Colombo before going home and so I had taken over Kalizma for a month.

The crew I knew from before: Richard now as Chief Steward and Umesh from Indian Empress as Chef, Dubey as my Bosun and Ruman as Engineer, as deckhands were Pardeep and Dhiraj and Steward was Parvinder. Rajaram and Sunil were on vacation. No girls worked on her anymore as they had resigned from service. I think an all male crew is easier to manage as well, less hassle and no envy.

Vacation in Finland

Having seen the troubles in Bangkok I suggested that I will go to Finland to sort out my Indian visa and vacation. The office agreed to it and on a short notice I arranged tickets and guarantee letters to get my visa sorted out.

On the 28th I disembarked and spent the evening in Saini's flat where we had some farewell Kingfisher and a late dinner. On 29th when my visa expired I went by taxi to the airport at abt 2am as my flight was leaving at 5am via Istanbul to Helsinki.

The airport was busy even-though it was the early morning. The security was tight and boarding pass and passport had to be shown at many check points. Everybody was scanned and patted down for dangerous objects. Immigration was efficient as I was leaving, bam-bam and I was done.

I was flying Turkish Airlines. I had flown this airline before and I can say they take you from A to B but don't expect much more than that. As a perk you get a complimentary pair of socks & eye covers. I must admit that the in-flight food was quite edible considering the difficulties in getting something to taste good 10km up in the air for hundreds of people. The service was very robotic, everything went on rote. The in flight entertainment system was broken at my seat an when I asked a stewardess, she replied "there is a problem". Yes, I could see that. Fortunately I had a book to entertain me until I fell into a short slumber.

Apparently the holiday season in Turkey is not attracting many Indians and as the rain season in India discouraged Turkish tourists I think as result the airplane was only half full so I could spread out comfortably not needing to worry about elbowing my neighbor. We arrived Istanbul a bit late after the 5 odd hours flight and I had to hurry to catch my connection to Helsinki. In Istanbul there was of course another security check (sic!) where laptops had to be ripped out of the bag, belts removed etc.

Once arrived in Helsinki after the 3 hours flight I noticed in the immigration queue that there was actually more people in the non-EU line than the EU citizen line. Oh well, the guy hardly looked at my passport and I was back home in Finland after a 6 years interval. Then it was the usual waiting for the baggage, which eventually arrived quite quickly. After that I headed for the Custom green line, all I saw was an Officer with a drug sniffing dog and that was all, finally I had passed the last hurdle in entering Finland.

I was met by Jari, my long time friend some 24years back. He lived in Espoo, close to Helsinki, where I was going to do my Indian visa so I had agreed to crash at his place until then. The weather was at 15 deg centigrade and, not surprisingly, I was feeling very cold.