Arse About Face: 2008

Just in case people get confused, I've updated the previous two posts to include the images I was unable to upload at the time; don't feel you have to read it all again just to look at the pretty pictures though.

So, let's see where was I...oh yes, lurking with family in the French countryside.

After spending so long in the heat of Australia, what do you do when you reach Europe in the dead of winter? Why you go out and play in the snow as much as possible of course!

Yeti!
Snowshoeing turned out to be huge amounts of fun, and I only looked marginally more ludicrous than normal whilst wearing them.

Must get myself a pair of these funky plastic yellow shoes

I also busied myself helping sort out various log-related issues, splitting, moving, stacking etc. and remarkably came away with all my digits accounted for. Not wishing to push my luck with an axe too far, I bade farewell to my family and headed back to Italy on the train, then up north to Switzerland. I was intending to do some more freeloading with family-types you see, and they live in Switzerland, where I could hopefully expand my collection of gold bars and cuckoo clocks.

Andeer in Switzerland, a proper bloody winter
Spent a week or so there, had a whale of a time. Surprisingly I ended up doing more wood related activities, this time with a chainsaw and a jeep however; so the potential for involuntary amputation was a little higher. Luck was still with me though, and I came away unscathed, despite my best efforts to make use of my travel insurance policy. There was a point behind all this chopping and hacking mind you, namely staying warm in the sub-zero Switzerland temperatures.

Vroom vroom, screeech...crash!
I re-awakened a long dormant love of waist-deep snow while I was there, much better than those limp wristed winters we get in England. (although even the lightest dusting of the white stuff seems to be enough to cause widespread panic and chaos)

Completely legless (sorry)
Next stop after Switzerland was Germany, to visit a friend that I first met in Broome, Australia no less. That's one of the great things about this travelling malarky, the random encounters which then lead on to more encounters and more things. Spent a nice few days in the fatherland; before jumping (well, more like stumbling) onto a night train through Germany and France; and arriving at Dieppe in the dingy morning light, and the pouring rain. The weather, once again proving to be a suitable metaphor for my mood at the time.

A rather miniscule vessel (I'm used to bigger things now dontcha know), had me across the ditch (English Channel) in a little over four hours. I stepped out of the gloomy interior, into blazing sunshine, clear blue skies and onto British soil at exactly 15:47 and 36sec on 30/01/2008. Just short of three years since I left.

Look, it's the white cliffs of the southern coast of England!

Look look, there they are
For those that don't like flying, the trip from Shanghai in China to Newport in England, was completed without leaving the ground once; not too shabby, even if I do say so myself.

This will be the final blog update for the forseeable future. I'll be concentrating all my energies on trying to find work and making some money, ostensibly so I can buy a bike and naff off around Europe; but who knows how long that will take. If I get my finger out and crack on, I'll be trying to write something about the Australia bike section of the trip: if nothing else, it beats looking for a real job for a while. I'll also make a proper "ArseAboutFace" website, so stay tuned for that. (Although I recommend not holding your breath)

Many thanks to all those that donated to MSF while I was on the motorcycle expedition, and my eternal gratitude to all those I met along the way who made it such a pleasurable experience. You know who you are.

Be excellent to each other.

One size fits all

More snow related fun, this time...sledging!

After what seemed to be days and days of talking to Chinese brick walls, I finally made contact with the shipping agent. First person he’d ever had embarking from Shanghai apparently, which didn’t fill me with the greatest confidence in his abilities. Turned out he did know what he was doing however, and I made it through all the vagaries of the Chinese immigration / customs system with nary a hitch; signed on board as a new engine technician no less.

The MV Al Fujairah turned out to be a very acceptable mode of transport, referred to by the German officers as a “comfortable prison”, albeit with a self-imposed sentence. Accommodation was very nice, almost akin to a floating hotel; food was plentiful and tasty, as long as you didn’t mind the unusual mix of German and Philippino influences. (The officers were German, and the crew were from the Philippines)

A handy sauna and gym were provided (consisting of a bike machine, a ping-pong table and a broken rowing machine) for those of a sadistic nature, and a couple of seawater pools for floating in; fish in a bowl simulator in heavy seas. Used quite a lot in the more southerly elevations, but unsurprisingly deserted when we got up to the cooler waters.

The fishbowl

So life quickly settled into an acceptable routine of breakfast at 7:30 (bloody early risers!), coffee up on the bridge, reading, writing, drawing (that sort of thing), and evenings spent watching knockoff Chinese DVD’s with the crew, and attempting to avoid the dreaded karaoke machine in the crew bar. The Philippino crew had disturbing propensity for belting out pop songs from their home country, usually with lyrics along the lines of “beer beer beer beer!”, I kid you not; I found myself quite close to jumping overboard a few times.

New Year dinner, a sea-pig

New Years party, somewhere near the Cannanore Islands (south west of India)

Christmas was spent on approach to the Singapore docks, and for new year we were to be found around the Cannanore Islands, belonging to India. (Down near Sri Lanka) The new year BBQ of pig (where we got that from I’ll never know, perhaps it swam past), also led to some more impressive singing from the crew. I’m fairly certain that their dulcet tones were enough to interfere with the migration of any passing whales, and to deter all but the hardiest of pirates.

Last sunset of 2007

First sunrise of 2008, yes I actually got out of bed to see it

Speaking of pirates, the closest we came was drifting for two days without engine power (due to a damaged piston), within sight of the Somalian coast; a region renowned for it’s pirate infested waters. All hopes of meeting Keira Knightley in pirate-garb were unfortunately dashed, it turns out pirates these days come with assault rifles, machetes and a worrying habit of kidnapping crews and holding them for ransom.

In the end, we just upgraded our security level one notch. That involved locking all the outside hatches, extra watches and patrols, and I was asked to stop running around on deck shouting “Yaaaaar!”. Killjoys. Shame really, I was quite looking forward to going all “Steven Segal” on a few piratey scallywags. Of course the more sensible option is to lock everyone in an easily defensible room, and let the pirates have their way with the cargo; it’s just not quite so filmik or exciting.

One knackered piston, the reason we were stuck in pirate infested waters for two days

Sundown off the coast of Yemen a.k.a scary pirate waters

So that was our only brush with potential high-seas miscreants, luckily.

Going all "Titanic" at the bow

If anyone ever finds themselves on a similar vessel, I highly recommend spending as much time down at the bow (pointy bit at the front for all you landlubbers) as you can. All the engine noise and commotion is 200m back behind you, and it is eerily quiet up the front; almost like being on a gigantic yacht. It’s also a good spot for experiencing the effects of weightlessness in high seas, with the deck rising up and then dropping away at a great rate. Not recommended for the weak of stomach though.

There weren’t too many chances for the sort of experience however, as apart from the last couple of days in the Mediterranean, Poseidon was kindly disposed toward us; I got my xmas wish of calm seas.

Luckily for me, the sea looked a lot like this for most of the time

The fire on-board and abandon ship drills were the only deviation from the comfortable routine, and it was all quite good fun. After having been strapped into the vertical drop life-vessel, I can safely say I wouldn’t want to be incarcerated in that thing during bad weather. I think it would rapidly become deserving of the moniker “the vomit comet”, that’s pretty much for certain. We all survived the imaginary fire without incident, although for some reason the captain deemed it necessary to abandon ship after we’d extinguished said fire; all a bit “arse about face” (shameless plug!) really.

The lifeboat, a.k.a the vomit comet

They look very happy considering we're abandoning ship

Inside the "vomit comet", looking up and out

So that was about it really, 26 days at sea and we finally sailed into Genoa at 0300 in the morning, with the snow dusted mountains of Italy bidding us a chilly welcome to Europe.

Genoa in Italy, where I left the ship

Apologies for the lack of pictures, I’m currently staying with some family in the French countryside near Nice, internet access is limited to dialup, so picture will be up one I managed to get back into the 21^st century.

Belated xmas and new year wishes to all!

Here are some photos from the voyage: