Road trip

As I signed off Moonlight II in Nice after the open day event and handover to the other Captain, I decided that instead of flying I'd be going to Greece by land. So I disembarked on a calm day and saw classic yachts at the Beaulieu anchorage.

s/s Delphine

I was surprised seeing s/s Delphine (built 1921) as she had been, according to some media sources, been laid up somewhere in Tunisia but obviously now had found a new Owner so she was back in the game. She did not look very shipshape up close but classic yachts always need a lot of TLC in order to get up to standard.

m/y Nero

Next I saw m/y Nero (built 2007) that is not a very old classic but built in China to this design, she looks the part without the age. 

Well in Nice by taxi I checked the timetables and was disappointed to discover there would be no trains east that evening so I booked a ticket to Milan for the next morning. Next I had to find a room and settled to a cheap and cheerful place next to the trainstation. I walked around town in the evening and could not find any appealing places to eat at so I just bought a ready-made sandwich at a 24h supermarket that then refused to sell me a small bottle of wine as it was after a certain hour. In France? Can you imagine. Did not take me long to walk a few blocks around the trainstation to find a hole-in-the-wall shop that sold me the bottle of wine instead.  

Nice train station

Next morning I was up on time and moseyed over to the trainstation, it is not a big affair so finding my train was piece of cake. Last evening I had bought online a continuation to Ancona so I would have a few hours to walk around Milan. Some hours later the train arrived Milan and everything there was huge. Unfortunately it was a holiday so all shops were mostly closed so I was just window shopping and walking around town like any average tourist.

Milan cathedral

Then it was time to head for the train station again and find my train for Ancona which was no biggie and off we went on time. The Italian countryside is not very interesting, lot of fields and country houses with afew cities in between with various factories visible. Coming to the Aegean coast the line was following it to Ancona sometimes almost in the sea.

Ancona

Ancona train station was a very worn out affair and I had to walk abt 1km to the hotel I had booked close to the port in old town. I walked past the quarantine castle and along the coast until I arrived the hotel. Very friendly service and I ended up having dinner there. Next morning I got up early and walked around the old town and palazzos discovering all the things worth seeing, Ancona actually has quite a lot to offer for the odd traveller.

Superfast at Ancona

Later in the afternoon it was time to pick up my luggage and get in the port, the boat was a bit late but eventually it arrived and started discharging it's cargo and until it was empty we had t wait on the jetty and it was scorching hot. After some time we were allowed to embark and I found myself a nice sofa to occupy myself on. It was an overnight trip so I had dinner at the a'la carte restaurant and ordered too much of the Greek food but it was vacation time.

Igoumenitsa

After having slept a few hours on a sofa in the buffet we arrived to the port of Igoumenitsa and I disembarked on the huge open field of tarmac, obviously it was thought the port would be a continuation of the highway or a much larger quantity of cargo was envisaged to move through. By the look of things this has not yet happened. I ended walking up to town and found the bus station to get a ticket for Athens as I did not fancy to stay a night here to explore. I was in luck, the K-tel bus left within the hour and soon enough we were on our way. The trip was quite comfortable and the roads were good, I missed the Rio bridge totally (if we even pased over it), I don't know. Some 5hrs later I arrived Athens and made my way for the metro lines.

s/y A

As we had finished our refit in Greece overhauling all machinery on Moonlight II we were fit for fight for a summer of charters and we set our heading for the French riviera. Our next stop was the open day display in Nice. It's a small event organized by ECPY with ML2 as the largest participant where we went in 1st and then the port was filled up with all other participants coming in size wise, kept 3-4 pilots busy for an afternoon.

s/y A

Anyway, as we arrived South of France we anchored off St Laurent du Var to wait for entry into port, provisioning and to clean up the salt from the passage from Greece. Luckily the weather was good so we were not totally encrusted. As we sat at anchor the widely discussed s/y A sailed past us. 

s/y A

She had just been launched in Germany and, as per the media, enjoyed a few weeks under arrest in Gibraltar. Apparently she had been released as she was sailing past in front of us. There has been many opinions of her design and it is not my place like or dislike her. I do think she is a marvel of man-made engineering and would like to see her actually under sail. I hope the design of the vessel is satisfying to her Owner, Mr. Andrey Melnichenko, as it is he who has decided on it. I wish fair winds and happy wakes to her with plenty of water under the keel.

s/y A

Suez

After having departed Dubai in good order for European summer we had finally arrived Suez, the ditch of decay and depravity in form of bureaucrats descending on you like the proverbial plague in search of bribes and presents. I have had a few unpleasant transits where the rot was so bad I have no words for it.

Some of the old wrecks trafficking these waters

This time I was using as Agents Meesa Egypt and having used them once before I trusted them to come through well again. True enough shortly after letting go at the outer anchorage the officials started coming and it was cigarettes galore left and right, the worst were the health officials that demanded 8 cartons of cigarettes and to sign a paper that no presents or bribes had been given (sic!) on their visit.

Anchoring at outer anchorage

After the first round we we shifted to the inner anchorage & our Agents were allowed to board as per the rules and we started stamping all papers for the various instances. I have always wondered where these papers end up and who ever reads them? I remember in India it was the same and the forms where copies of copies that were next to illegible, it only mattered that the file had the right header and that at the end there was a ships stamp and Captains signature on it. Once this was cleared we disembarked our security detail and then were left in peace. Shortly thereafter we were hailed on the VHF and assigned a number on the next convoy. It was going to be a non-stop transit.

Bulker

Our transit started on time in the wee-hours and the electricians and linesmen came first and settled in. There was some deliberations of the area they were allowed to use but our Agent soon put an end to it. Of course the customary shop was setup on our aft deck and crew had a look at the trinkets that was on offer to horrendous starting prices. We offered them food and drink as the trip progressed.

Gas carrier

Pilot came last and soon enough we were on the way. The tenderboats were of course hollering for cigarettes & coke and our boys threw them some packets and cans in order not to aggravate them to damage our paint work.

Tanker

Well on the way we soon enough reached Great Bitter Lake and it didn't take long when we changed pilots midway and we were almost through. Some miles before entering the Mediterranean the Agents took his leave and few minutes after the pilots gave his last instructions out and made his way to the pilot ladder.

Happy guys going home

I must commend both pilots I had did not even ask for a present so I volunteered a carton of cigarettes for their admirable behavior. I think even one of them declined the carton altogether.

Maybe there is hope after all for the Canal personnel & authorities to be cleaning up their act?

Signing on p/v Moonlight II

After looking for my next gig after the temp on Lady S I was approached by Owners of Moonlight II to come and put together a dream team and get the boat charter ready for the summer things started moving very fast and on 1st March I was on a plane to London to get indoctrinated in the Burgess office.

Cunard house

I already knew a bit abt the Burgess organisation as Lady S was also managed by them and now I got to meet everyone face to face, always nice to put a face to a name you have been emailing for weeks, sometimes months, without meeting. 

I got to London early morning and after a quick check in to my hotel I moseyed over to Cunard house. After a long day at office meeting managers left and right trying to keep memory of what is being said I was going back to the hotel for the evening so I could catch my outward flight to Dubai early next morning.

I arrived Dubai 2nd March evening and was late after dark onboard and got to installed to a guest cabin and short introductions before hitting the sack. 

Dubai by night of Barasti beach

Next day went quickly as usual when you start with the usual paperwork, then how the boat operates, we actually did a sea trial as well, meeting new faces...

p/v Moonlight II

Next thing you know it's way past dinner time and time to go to bed...   

Dubai anchorage with m/y A

As a footnote to Moonlight II, she was originally built in Syros, Greece as Alysia and owned by the famous businessman Andreas Liveras who got shot in the Mumbai terrorist attack back in 2008. She has a sistership Delma that is named Lady Miri today and is mostly trading in the Far East these days.

SeaTALK

I was surfing the net and came across a site called Seatalk, It is a wonderful tool for those not so proficient in the english language wanting to get more familiar with seafaring terminology. Best of all it is free for anyone to use. I suggest to go to the FAQ section first or clicking the "how to use" video, as the website is not very straightforward to use.  Below is the excerpt from their homepage.

What is SeaTALK?

SeaTALK presents a unique online platform for Maritime English resources! The platform provides a Maritime English syllabus with materials within a framework of STCW competences, CEFR levels and the ECVET system.

The SeaTALK platform offers Maritime English Training Modules for each rank and function on board:

Deck Ratings (Support Level) 

Engineering Ratings (Support Level) 

Deck Officers (Operational Level) 

Engineering Officers (Operational Level) 

Electro Technical Officers (Operational Level) 

Senior Deck Officers (Management Level) 

Senior Engineering Officers (Management Level) 

Training

After having stepped off Maryah in January I looked for new challenges but it appeared no one was stepping off or looking to employ Captain's. I ended turning down one offer as I was just about to board a plane for a course so that went as well. Then having been pretty much unemployed for most of 2016 I did my STCW Manila upgrading and renewed my license so I am good to go for the next 5 years.

Courtesy of The HR suite

Then I also decided to further my education a bit and have gone looking at shore side career paths that could be a possibility. The difficulties with choosing anything viable and good as well as recognized by a serious body is very difficult, the plethora of what is on offer is staggering.

For example there is the Maritime training academy that offers dozens of maritime related courses and was about to sign up for them but after discussing it with a few colleagues I did not go for it. The opinion was why go for a half-hearted solution instead of a full MBA at a university? The price of a yacht management course is cheaper than uni but is the certificate really worth it? Will it teach me anything of value at this age and at this point of my career? Is the MTA cert valued in the industry?

Then I started looking at universities offering MBA's in the maritime sector, one criteria was how much could have been done online as distance learning. I got up Liverpool university and another university in Hamburg, the MBA was a couple of years hard study and cost around 30.000EUR. I followed a colleague of mine that did the Liverpool MBA being overworked to the hilt doing assignments. In the end I found a solution close to home and applied for a Master in Maritime Management in Finland. As a citizen the education is free. At the time of writing this I have already submitted my thesis plan to Novia and awaiting news if I will be admitted this autumn or not.

Then as a more practical certification I went of the Lloyd's superintendent training programme that is 1 part online and then physical courses at their training facilities. This is by no means a cheap solution and the Superintendent certificate is ranged from Bronze to Platinum. To reach the bronze level they require a minimum of 5 courses and the more courses you do, the more you pay and you get a certificate attesting to this (12 courses for platinum, one course around 750EUR). As you can see the more courses you do, the more you pay. As a private person they give a considerable discount and as I have attended courses I saw most participants are from shipping companies that pays for them assuming this being part of their policy of improvement.

I also came across an outfit that could be confused with Lloyd's but has actually nothing to do with them, it is Lloyds maritime academy. Apparently this outfit appears to be a thorn in Lloyd's side when I asked one lecturer about them but another said some clients had good experience of their courses. It appears their curriculum is recognized by RINA as well as, when I was in touch with them, the course fees were not too exorbitant. The saying goes that there is hardly anything that is good and comes cheap so I skipped them too but who knows, maybe their courses are good. I don't want to prejudice something I have not actually experienced.

As a a conclusion there is a lot on offer but it is not cheap and it is not easy to ascertain the value in such courses as well how they are regarded in the maritime industry. When looking into these outfits I would carefully read the fine print and then look into the accrediting bodies that are displayed on their pamphlets. The key is the accrediting body and knowing which bodies are recognized in the industry and reputable, not very easy as for me this appears like entering a jungle. I understand there are also the "flag of convenience" outfits ashore too that are more interested in you loosening purse strings to their benefit than educating you.

Address to Haggis

I had the honor to be invited for Burns night at the British embassy and took opportunity to record the prayer to haggis that is customary to be done at every party when the haggis is brought in.

When I was in Athens back in 2003 or 2004 I attended a Burns night at the Grand Bretagne hotel with the Athens hash house harriers and it was a grand affair with hundreds of people attending.

Nowadays the expat community has shrunk so much that there is no more parties organised as such and not all whisky flowing with live music, dancing etc. We had a civilized whisky tasting though with pipemusic, not bad blended stuff but had better...

Donington Park - Download festival

Black Sabbath

Having been a fan since teenager it took me over 35yrs to finally see these guys live. I wish the weather had been a bit better but I spose this is the charm of open air festivals. Enjoy the pics below.

Video still to be uploaded

Montenegro

Maiden voyage with Maryah from Elefsina, Greece to Tivat, Montenegro to change registry from SOLAS passenger vessel to Private yacht (36p).