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We woke to the sounds of a working container ship in port. A quick peek out of our window confirmed what we had been told by the captain, that the container terminal at Fos-Sur-Mer is a long way from the local towns and a very long way from Marseille. We decided just to venture to the Seamen’s Club at the end of the huge wharf, about 1 1/2 kilometres away.
The club is closed during the day but there is 24 hour wireless internet access available in the foyer of the building. I needed to access my emails so I convinced Eileen to brave the gangway and we walked the 20 minute route in the hot sun to the small hot building.
With our water bottles empty, our emails checked and some blogs posted it was time to head back to the ship for lunch. As we were about to leave Eileen commented, "the Seamen's Club is well named ... the bathroom has only a urinal!"
After dinner I wandered down to the Club, cautious about the den of iniquity I might find. Nothing could be further from the truth. Three guys from our ship quietly using the
computer, not even any music playing. I shouted beers for Alex, the petty officer, and Viorel, the electrician, and I sat quietly. After a while they engaged me in conversation and chatted over a couple of ‘quiets’ before we all headed back to the ship in the dark.
The next day after lunch we met our new passenger, Elisabeth, who works in Paris for Air France. Like us, Elisabeth was new to container ship travel and she too was surprised by the size of the vessel and the comfort of the accommodation.
The procedure for exiting Fos-Sur-Mer was straight forward because the ship was facing the right way. The channel was very narrow for a ship of Lyra’s size. Part way down the channel we edged out to deeper water on the starboard side. From the bridge it looked like we only just missed one of the channel lights. With the height of the bridge and the 275 meters to the bow from the bridge it was probably a lot further than it looked.
We ended the night watching a DVD before we headed off to bed anticipating our mid-morning arrival in Genoa.
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