Freighter - Rio to Capetown

Pictures on picasa here.

The freighter ended up leaving Rio De Janeiro at about 5 am in the morning and unfortunately I couldn't stay awake until it left to watch it leave the port. I passed out around 4am and slept in until noon the next day. I was a bit shocked to discover that there were 5 other passengers, a retired pastor and his wife traveling around the world on the freighter, an ex-lawyer traveling around the world via land, and writing a book about it, and a couple that had just driven seven months down through Central and South America on motorbikes. These are the type of people that you want to be stuck on a freighter with, because they have great stories. At lunch I also met the captain, a friendly German man who has been working on freighters for over 40 years. After most meals he would come up to me and ask me "Mr. Hunt, how do you find the food, is it acceptable?" and then when I told him it was fine he would harrumph and reply "Ach, you are too kind, the food it is terrible!" He would always harangue the poor cook with complaints about the food.

A typical day on the freighter I would get up at around 11am, shower and then head down to lunch in the officers mess. It was a toss up as to whether I would turn up at the right time, because there were six time zone changes and I would always forget if I'd changed my clock or not. After lunch I'd catch some sun on a chair on deck and read books or watch the ocean for a while. The Atlantic ocean is big, really big, that's my conclusion after examining it for eight days. No land, no ships, absolutely nothing for eight days, just lots and lots of ocean. The closest we came to land was to Tristen De Cuna, and that tiny island was about 300 miles away. After watching the ocean I'd head to the small gym and lift weights or use the elliptical machine. There was also a tiny swimming pool that they filled on the second to last day, it was filled directly from the sea and would roll back and forth with the boat, fun to swim around in. At around 5:30pm we'd have dinner, usually a long dinner as the passengers would sit around chatting, and sometimes the captain would send over wine. Two nights after dinner we had birthday parties, sitting around in the crews rec room, drinking, chatting, singing karaoke and watching movies. That was pretty much the only time I would see the crew and officers interact, on purpose I think, the overly serious second mate told us they did not want to get too familiar because it could cause problems at work. It could also have been because the crew was all Philippino and all the officers were German. If there wasn't a birthday party I would sometimes play ping-pong with the cook, he was much better than me, and slaughtered me the first few times, but the last night I adjusted to the local conditions (the boat swaying back and forth in the swell) and we had a great game. Other nights I might go to the bridge and chat with the incredibly bored officer on duty (learned how to use a sextant one night), or I'd go borrow some pirated movies from the crew and watch them in their rec room or in my cabin. One night I went down to borrow some movies and I walked in on them unashamedly watching porn. A little weird, sure, but hey, they are at sea for seven months.

The passengers generally had the run of the ship except for the engine room. We'd have to tell the bosun if we were going up front or to the rear of the ship, and we'd have to wear headgear, but apart from that we could wander around freely. We did get a tour of the engine room one day. We followed the chief engineer around the three storey two stroke diesel engine that drove the ship, and powered all the refrigerated containers. Apparently about 45,000 horsepower, although they measure in megawatts. I think that is what he said anyway, I couldn't really hear above the incredible noise of the engine and we had headphones to reduce the noise. I think I need a pair of those for bus rides in South America, where they play music and videos at incredible levels.

The last two nights I didn't sleep too well because there was a huge swell from a massive storm further south in the Atlantic. The boat would roll slowly from side to side at a pretty significant angle and I would wake up to find all my gear on the floor and my body perpendicular to the bed. I was pretty happy on the last day to catch sight of Capetown, I needed a night of sleep on a non-rolling surface. Coming in to Capetown is an incredible sight, table mountain rises over the city and the clouds just roll over the top of it. As we came in we caught sight of whales all around the boat, perhaps six or seven of them, diving in and out of the water and blowing water out of their spouts. Docking the huge ship was a delicate procedure and the captain was a definitely nervous, chain smoking and monitoring everything. We docked safely though, no problems, and, although the land wouldn't stop swaying for a day or two, I was really psyched to be finally in Africa.

Tips for freighter travel:
1. Bring some snacks.
2. Bring lots of new pirated movies to trade with the crew.
3. Bring Wikipedia on your laptop (wikitaxi.) Best. Thing. Ever. Oh, and check what the power plugs are like, you will need an adapter.
4. Never ever call the ship a 'boat.' The officers hate that.
5. Bring some wine or liquor to share with the crew and officers.
6. Choose your seat carefully on the first day in the officers mess, you'll be sitting in that seat every day from then on.
7. The crew up on the bridge that have the late watches will be happy to have some company.
8. Bring a few long books.
9. Nobody is called by their name. First Mate, Second Mate, Chief Steward etc. The only exception being able bodied and ordinary seamen who get their last name tacked on. The captain on a German ship is 'master.'
10. Pay attention to the little note somewhere on the ship that tells you the timezones are changing. Very key.