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Published: November 27th 2012
Friday, July 31 After our frantic 24-hour rail journey from London to La Spezia in Italy, we were so exhausted that we slept through the noise of containers being loaded onto the ship and didn't wake until lunchtime.
No doubt the crew have their own routines that shape their day but as a passenger on a freighter the day is divided into meal times and other times. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are at fixed times - miss out and you don't get to eat. Morning and afternoon tea are optional.
Lunch today was: Oxtail soup / Calamari, peas and chips / Fresh fruit. It may not sound exciting, but it was freshly prepared, well presented, very tasty and more than enough to fill us up.
We finally sailed at 15:00 only to anchor about a kilometre offshore where we remained until the next day while part of the hull on the starboard side of the ship was removed and replaced. Apparently the ship had been rammed by a tug earlier in the voyage and the hull was so severely damaged that the captain considered it a risk to the ship. Although it was an irritation at the
time, we were grateful later in the voyage when we had to sail through hurricane Lesley in the Atlantic.
We were given a tour of the ship and instructed in what we should do in the event of a disaster at sea. Lifeboats seem very small but we were assured that they would take all of the crew and us - even if we did bounce around a bit - as they had seat belts.
Dinner: Tuna, ham and pineapple pizza / Salad / Cheese, biscuits and pate / Fruit. No wine, though, as we were still considered to be in harbour and the duty-free store can't be opened until we are at sea.
Saturday, Sept 1 We finally sailed about 06:00. The sea was calm, the wind was light and the sun was shining. Off to the left we could see Elba, Corsica and Sardinia. There were no other ships in sight. In fact, apart from when we entered a port, we rarely saw another ship during the whole of the voyage.
About 11:00, we realised that the ship had abruptly changed course. A small dinghy had been sighted in the water and the
captain was making sure there were no people on board. After circling the boat twice we concluded that it was a "toy" plastic boat that had probably been washed off shore from a resort. As it wasn't a shipping hazard, it was left to sink or survive on its own.
Lunch: Pea and ham soup / Assorted steamed vegetables / German sausage / Garlic bread / Bananas.
The afternoon turned squally with intermittent rain so we spent the rest of the day relaxing and catching up on our sleep. We sorted our bags and hung or packed our clothes in the various wardrobes and drawers and washed our dirty laundry in the clothes washer and dryer provided.
Dinner: Pork tenderloin / Salad / Fruit.
The sea turned very rough in the evening and we bounced around the ocean until about 02:00 when every thing quietened down.
Sunday, Sept 2 Sunrise at sea is almost always spectacular. When it is not, it is downright dreadful. Today was not one of those dreadful days. The sea was calm and the wind was light.
Breakfast on the ship is something of a daily surprise. There is
always the continental option of bread, cheese, meat, eggs and condiments. Cereals (corn flakes, bran, coco pops!) are offered but the "breakfast of the day" is always a surprise. Today it was Steak Tartare. John loved it but it was not Sylvia's choice.
We sailed north of the Balearic Islands and anchored off the Spanish port of Valencia about 12:00. Sadly we were not due to dock until midnight so it seemed that we would not be able to go ashore.
Lunch: Fresh tomato soup / Roast lamb with spicy cabbage / Rice / Ice Cream.
Apart from a Fire Drill in the middle of the afternoon, we spent a lazy day on deck reading and enjoying the fine weather while catching up with chores such as running a virus scan on the laptop and powering up the various electrical equipment we have.
At dinner the captain announced that our port entry time had been changed to 04:00 and loading wasn't expected to finish until 18:00, so we should get the whole of the day in Valencia.
Dinner: Cold collation of meats and fish with salad / Fruit.
Monday, Sept 3 We finally
docked in Valencia at 06:00 but loading didn't start until 08:00. A container had been damaged during loading at La Spezia and there were three metres of water in that container bay which had to be drained and repaired. Expected departure is now 20:00 so we don't need to be back on board until 18:00.
After being issued with ship identity cards, we were met at the gangplank by a security van that took us to the port entrance. We were quickly processed through port formalities and an obliging customs officer rang for a taxi to take us into the town.
We don’t intend to write a full blog on Valencia. We were here for less than twelve hours and our view was very limited. If you are really interested, there are many bloggers who have written about their experiences here. We did a search in Travelblog and there are over 400 blogs about the place.
It was founded by the Romans about 138BC and was later inhabited by Christians, Visigoths and Barbarians until taken over by Islam in 709AD. It remained part of the Moorish empire until retaken by the Christian army of James 1 in
1238. It remained a fairly small town until the late 1400s when its population rose dramatically due to trade expansion under Alphonse the Magnanimous and it became one of the major cities of Europe. Despite flooding and plague, it continued to grow until Phillip III expelled the Moriscos – moors who had converted to Christianity – at the end of the 16
th century. The loss of their craft skills and farming knowledge was a great loss to the local culture and trade from which it didn’t recover until the early 20
th century. Today it is Spain’s third largest city with a population of over eight hundred thousand people.
The taxi dropped us off in the centre of the old town in the Plaza De La Reina right beside Valencia cathedral. As we entered the main door, we could hear voices singing plainsong coming from one of the small side chapels. We quietly opened the door to the chapel and found ourselves in the midst of a scene that could have come from medieval times. About twenty priests were celebrating a full, sung, high mass – in Latin – with all the trimmings, candles, incense, robes. There was only a
small congregation who, for the most part, were spectators. We were both enthralled as this is a rare event in the Catholic Church these days although we later learned that this is a daily occurrence in the Cathedral, celebrated by all of the retired priests of the area.
The chapel where this took place is known as the Chapel of the Holy Grail. It was built around 1365, in the Gothic style of the time, and still has frescos on the walls from the late 1400s. Tradition has it that the Grail cup was taken to Rome by St Peter and was hidden there until the third century when it was sent to Huesca in what is now North-eastern Spain to protect it during the persecution of the Christians by the Emperor Valerian. During the Muslim invasions the cup was hidden in the Pyrenees until Alfonso V handed it over to Valencia cathedral in 1437. It has remained in the cathedral ever since. It is thought by archaeologists to be of 1
st century eastern origin.
From the Cathedral, we ventured into the Plaza de la Virgen, the location of the 17
th century basilica of Nuestra Senora de los
Desamparados (Our Lady of the Forsaken), Valencia’s patron saint. The ornate, wooden statue of the Virgin dominates the main altar.
In the opposite direction is the medieval church of Santa Catalina which dates back to 1245 but has been modified so many times over the years that it is used by the university to demonstrate to students all the most important architectural styles, right up to the present.
By now we were feeling pretty hungry. It was a long time since our 07:30 breakfast. We wandered the back streets for a little while till we found a café with a set lunch menu for 10 Euro, including a glass of wine. Shortly we were enjoying a four-course meal of gazpacho, a mixed salad (almost a meal in itself), seafood paella and a custard flan (like crème brulee). Yum!
During lunch we received a phone call from the Monterey’s captain letting us know that loading had gone more quickly than expected and the ship would now be sailing a 18:00, so we needed to be back on board by 17:00.
After the big lunch and the glass of wine in the hot sun, we were feeling a
bit lethargic so we decided to curtail our sightseeing and catch up with some shopping we needed to do. We headed off for the Mercado Central. With over nine hundred stalls, it is reputed to be Europe’s largest fresh produce market but we found little that we wanted to buy so we went in search of a quilt shop Sylvia had looked up on the Internet before we left the UK.
We did find it, eventually, but it was something of a disappointment. While its on-line catalogue appeared to be extensive, the shop itself had little that could not be bought anywhere and what they had was severely overpriced. Sylvia bought a somewhat expensive pattern for an Advent wall hanging (it cost twice as much as our lunch) but later, when she opened it on the ship, found it was next to useless as there were no instructions, just some unhelpful drawings.
We managed to get ourselves lost while walking through the back streets to the main square and ended up at the Torres de Quart Gate, the Western gate of the old town. Built around 1445, they are cylindrical in shape and joined by an arched doorway.
They were used as a women’s prison for several centuries. There still pockmarks in the walls caused by French cannonballs when Napoleon invaded the city in 1808.
Now re-orientated, we made our way back to the Plaza de la Reine to visit MacDonald’s and download new books to our respective Kindles using their Wi-Fi. We were also able to upload a short blog to reassure our families and friends we were still alive (now deleted).
Last, but not least, we stocked up with a few bottles of good Spanish wine. The duty-free selection on the ship was limited and wouldn’t be replaced until the next port, Sines in Portugal, three days away.
The taxi trip back to the ship was strained as the driver wanted to take us to the cruise terminal despite the fact that we had the printed address of the freighter terminal and they were at least three kilometres apart.
Our maps did not extend as far as the freighter terminal so we couldn’t show him but, after some terse exchanges in broken English and even more broken Spanish, we persuaded him to take us to where we wanted to go rather than
to where he thought we should go and we arrived back at the port gate at 16:00.
The ship had loaded a large number of containers during the day and was now substantially lower in the water than when we had arrived that morning. We sailed on time at 18:00 on a calm sea and with virtually no wind. The sunset over Valencia as we pulled out of the harbour was spectacular. It had been a good but tiring day.
Dinner: Sheep’s liver / Mashed potatoes / Fried onions followed by a bottle of Spanish wine on deck as the sun set. Bliss!
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Now this is what we were all waiting for...
and it's good that you deleted the previous short blog as editing it with all this additional information would have left it off the Front Page where it belongs. Posting the menus sure distinguishes freighters from cruise lines...not sure what I would have done when a plate of sheep's liver was put in front of me. We look forward to your next update!