Day 23

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Day 23 - Wednesday, April 23 2008

Sadly, our great voyage of discovery nears an end and this will be my last shipboard bulletin. We enter Singapore waters tonight and expect to pick up the Port Kelang pilot at 0430. That should mean berthing about 0600, and by the time the usual shoreside formalities are dealt with, we should be down the Tosca gangway for the last time about two hours later (after a final breakfast, of course).

Correction: the last time on this voyage. There will be more.

Our not-so-slow boat to China will have covered almost 10,000 miles since leaving Khor Fakkan. We will have visited eight ports, seen more containers than I believed existed, and added another few inches to the waistline. Tonight we will have a farewell party in the wardroom - our treat this time - with Commandant Auvinet, his officers, and crew.

Marian, our ever-helpful maitre d’ has laid in the stock from last night’s ‘Ouverture de Cave’ (without the orchestra). Not surprisingly for a French ship, the provisions include ample supplies of pernod. I’m less impressed by their taste in whisky. J&B is the tipple of choice, which in my book barely qualifies. (One last chance to convert them to the delights of the Wee Low Flier.) Our French shipmates call J&B ‘ham sandwich’, from the ingredients represented by the initials - ‘Jambon et Beurre’, ham and butter. In that case the wine will make the outer bits, being known on board as ‘pain rouge’ or red bread.

Next time I see someone ordering J&B I’ll suggest that it goes better with a dod of Dijon mustard. (Couldn’t make it any worse!)

We will bring back a host of memories, many of which have already been recorded in the daily bulletins, but so far I have neglected to mention one peculiarity - Chinese road signs. On heading for Beijing, we spotted a large overhead warning ‘Keep Distance - Beware of Rear End Collisio’. The final ‘n’ had been dropped, but signage eccentricities are so commonplace that at the time it hardly merited a second thought. Until another one appeared about 500m later, and at the same intervals all the way to Beijing - urging ceaseless caution against the dreaded ‘Rear End Collisio’. A job-lot of signs must have been ordered, and all perpetuated the same error. Naturally, all these warnings prompted speculation about the nature of Rear End Collisio. He sounds Italian, even although as a nation Italians tend to be very much on the hetero side. Collisio obviously gets about a bit to have great swathes of China on the alert to his depravity.

Such deranged meanderings (mine, not Collisio’s) tend to have punctuated the daily bulletins, which I’m sure you will have noticed by now. Some of the yarns were reported precisely as they happened (honest!), but I will admit to a wee bit of licence here and there. As the old newsroom cliché goes: “Never let facts get in the way of a good story.” I’ll leave it readers to decide which were the embroidered bits.

At this stage, I should offer an unqualified apology to anyone inadvertently offended by any of my references. No offence was intended, except when it was meant. For example, if I have portrayed Linda as an anatomical pain on a par with Collisio, what can I say - you know her as well as I do. Fortunately, she more than compensates with an undefatiguable sense of humour, despite being English. And having put up with me for so many years, I think the resilience of her humour and her inherent good nature are now established beyond any doubt. Seriously, I could not have wished for a better travelling companion, especially after she’d figured out how to work the washing machine and the iron. Appropriately enough, our last day on board is St George’s Day. As a parting gift, Linda plans to celebrate the occasion by teaching the officers about cricket and how to sing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’. Sacre bleu!

I have also taken liberties with language. I should put on record that most of Tosca’s personnel are more than fluent in English, and the Franglais lapses were solely due to my mangled attempts to parlez Francais. ‘Desolaté,’ is the right expression, I think, especially as this is just about our skipper’s last voyage as master of Tosca. He is due for retirement - and he’s a lot younger than me! He plans to take his wife on board for the swansong, and a visit to Dubai is pencilled in should the route include a UAE port. You’ll then be able to grill him on what bits of the daily bulletin are to be believed. (I see many ‘ham sandwiches’ coming up to keep him on my side!)

Commandant Auvinet is a seaman to the marrow and takes an obvious delight in the running of the ship - and running a tight ship. This is no ‘hands off’ master. He’s on the bridge every time we leave or enter port, and most of the time in between, constantly checking course, position, progress, and the multitude of operations that go into daily shipboard life. Lean, wiry, energetic, and with a greying beard - in some respects, that reminds me of someone I used to know (maybe you’ll remember him as well) - our commandant always has time to explain what is going on and is unfailingly cheerful. Even after 23 days of putting up with Linda. (Again reminds me of someone who used to be like that!)

Tosca has a special place in the CMA-CGM fleet in that it’s the first ‘green’ ship and is pioneering all sorts of new environmental protection measures. For example, we have separate waste bins in the cab pour le plastique et le papier. In our case, they should be pour les cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and Famous Grouse nests. For the skipper, it means a whole schedule of ‘green’ regulations to add to his already onerous list of responsibilities.

CMA-CGM operates more than 300 ships, and has about 75 more on order. Among them are ‘super ship’ container vessels that will be about one-third bigger than Tosca - upwards of 400 metres long and carrying more than 12,000 boxes. Le mere pense est un cause de l’psyche fouqueé! I must admit, I had never heard of the CMA-CGM line until this voyage was being planned, but I’m assured it’s one of the world’s top three by size. As an introduction to freighter travel, you could not wish for better, assuming the rest of the fleet live up to Tosca’s standards.

One word of caution on this score. The line has several autonomous divisions and the ‘musical’ group to which Tosca and its operatic counterparts belong is one of them. Incidentally, the flagship is Debussy. If our experience has induced you to contemplate a freighter trip, this is the division to choose, according to our hosts - although it’s only natural if they adopt some hauteur in doing so. They’ve earned it. Wagner, despite the name, belongs to a different division and, would you believe, is crewed by Germans and Ukrainians? Or so I was told with an air of disdainful incredulity.

That would be just the ship for Rear End Collisio, though, what with Wagner’s magnum opus taking a whole nine hours to perform. (I’m not explaining that one. If you don’t understand it, look it up!)

Hamish Jamieson is the independent expert (no, Linda, not on Wagner) so contact him for more guidance on shipping lines, specific ships, and ports of call. Visit www.freightertravel.co.nz or email [e-mail] if you want to know more. With Freighter Travel (whether caps or lower case), the world really is your oyster.

At the moment, the upcoming crustacean is Singapore. Wait a minute, an oyster’s not a crustacean it’s a mollusc. Thanks, Linda, I should have remembered that. Crustaceans are Shanghai residents insufficiently agile to avoid an oncoming steam-roller.

You’ll gather from this that the wardroom farewell was the epitome of decorum. Certainly by my standards. Could not even risk breaking into song, just in case Linda really trumped me with ‘Swing Low’, and then broke into multiple choruses of ‘Rip my Knickers Away, Away’.

Instead, like a responsible crew member, it’s time for me to go topside and join her in keeping an eye out for pirates. If I’m not back, spread the message.

Sorry, the pirates got here first. A swarthy West Indian has just burst into the cabin brandishing a bottle of Jack Daniels. What can I do but surrender, other than barricade the doors before Linda gets back from the bridge, unless she’s discovered a roosting Low Flier along the way. I should have re-ordered at ‘ouverture de la cave’ instead of assuming I had enough stock to see me to Port Kelang.

That’s when on-board pirates come in handy. Olivier, ‘le maitre electricien’ wants to swap pictures of our shoreside explorations but in the absence of CSO MacLaughlin’s IT skills, we’re not making much progress. The Jack bottle is a fair substitute, but not quite up to the mark. So far, we’ve only managed to download Olivier’s camera. And a great photographer he is. Why he wants to upload Linda’s out of focus shots is a mystery. An even bigger mystery is how to get the laptop to respond and do the uploading. Better ask Jack, but he also seems to be losing the place.

We decide to settle on email exchanges when superior IT skills are to hand, as guidance from Jack and feathered friend have been exhausted. Linda’s now trying to guide me into the hammock. It seems to be swaying more than usual. Shaky hands? I hope not, but I must remember to have her checked out for Parkinson’s when we get ashore. We had to buy medical insurance for this trip, so better make the most of it.

Noon position 03◦53.06 N - 105◦56.69 E
Day’s run to noon - 603 miles
9,253 miles out from Khor Fakkan
Heading 211◦
Local time GMT+8
Average speed - 25.1 knots

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