Rambling Rat

Location is north pacific ocean in between 170oE and 180o the temperature is now much lower at 6oC and the weather is not as good so we have changed route and will be tracking slightly lower than before which means we won’t be going into the Bearing sea anymore we will sail just south of the Aleutian islands at the moment we are due to arrive into Prince Rupert on wednesday the 4th at 5 am and I’m told we will stay in Prince Rupert for about 24 hours and i will be able to go ashore and hopefully publish some of my blogs to the internet.

Tonight we will be crossing the International date line and as we are in a ship and going slowly to change the clocks back 12 hours would be madness as an example you could have your supper at 7 p.m. go to bed at 11 p.m. and then at midnight it would be 6 am and the crew get up at 7 am so that means they would get 2 hours sleep, so this ship from leaving Tokyo on Tuesday has put its clock forward every night since leaving and also we have for the first time in my life had two Friday the 31st’s too, so tonight is the second friday the 31st and from tonight we are going to take off one hour every day till we arrive into Prince Rupert. It seems a little strange but it is a good system and their is no need for any large time change.

Life on board is lovely and peaceful and i am getting plenty of time to write up diary entries from Russia although now it seems along time ago and it is more difficult to write about what happened as accurately, I am happier writing about the present and what’s on my mind at that time and trying to put down in words what i did in Russia is a chore, i hope you find some of what i am doing interesting. Apart from writing i miss doing exercise and although they do have a very small gym i haven’t used yet, i did want to use the ships indoor swimming pool but it has been drained of water, however the captain said he would fill the pool but the temperature would be about plus 18 and it would feel a little too cold.

What i have been doing is walking around the perimeter of the deck which is 638 meters to do the whole circuit so if i do this twice a day i am walking over klm a day and it helps to stretch the legs.

GMT+11

We left Yokohama at approximately 5.30 p.m. on tuesday evening and now we are in the pacific ocean north east off Hokkaido the most northerly island of Japan we are closer now to the Russian Kuril islands, the weather is good and the air temperature is 10oC we are doing 22 knots.

Our planned route which is much different than i had expected. Will be to track north about 055 degrees past the Kuril islands in the pacific and enter into the Bering sea going past Rat islands would you believe then we will follow our track with the Alaskan Aleutian islands to our starboard side, we then sail through the Unimak pass and into the Gulf of Alaska through Dixon entrance into the Harbor in Canada called Prince Rupert.

I didn’t realize till i boarded that we are to make a call into Prince Rupert as if i would have known i would have got the car off here, the agent Transglobal solutions in Mannheim didn’t give me this option and now the car is in a container about 20 ft below decks in number 15 hatch in the front part of the ship covered with other containers that are not coming off in Prince Rupert, also the paperwork and agent is already organized for Vancouver so Vancouver it is!

The Mv Hanjin Madrid has three cabins available to passengers the Super cargo on E deck which is a single cabin but looks more like a 3/4 double to me then on F deck you have the pursers cabin which is a double were i am and the owners cabin which is next to mine, i wasn’t told if their would be any other passengers till the day before as i asked the company in London Desey at the Cruise people office and she said just one an English man. I had no idea who to expect but i am happy to meet a fellow brit and when i was at lunch yesterday the ships officer told me that the other passenger was a 75 year old man they called Mr Whipp. At afternoon tea at 3 p.m. Alan Whipp appeared he had been in Yokohama visiting the town for 3 hours and remarked on how organized the Japanese were and how the school children were so neatly dressed in school uniforms looking almost military, he had walked into the mess and i had just had my tea and was going back up to my cabin i shook his hand and said to him that i had wondered who had booked the single cabin as i had wanted that room as it was a little cheaper than taking a double as a single person rate. Alan had joined the ship in Hong kong and Tokyo was the second stop after china. We agreed to sit down to have another cup of tea and i thought how i felt like i was in the officers mess at sandhurst as he was an organized chap steely and intelligent not freely speaking as i wear my heart on my sleeve he is cautious. He didn’t look 75 years old but much younger and you could tell he had experience of an organized past.

Alan had booked with the same company as i had in London and this was his second journey on a freight ship with this company, the company we booked with has a policy not to take any passenger over 75 years old so he just manages to get onboard he had to undertake a medical as did i, he had taken all his papers to london and had met the Cruise Company in London as he felt this was easier for him, Alan lives in Hythe southern England and has been in the army for 34 years and has lived all over the world in postings so he is used to Gibraltar Belize Hongkong and other military places overseas, before Alan retired he moved into military intelligence and now he has retired and lives a quiet life helping his local community in Kent. Alan was married until his wife passed away in 2005, he told me how is wife would never have gone on a ship like this and when i asked why he said well she wouldn’t have enough to do. Well i have known Alan for about 48 hours and i don’t know too much about him as we mostly talk about general small talk about the ship or what i am doing, i think he is curios of what i am actually doing and who i am, he asked me at dinner when i was going to settle down and also when i was late for breakfast looked at me with surprise and said “I didn’t think you would be here for breakfast” and “I no someone like you who is useless in the mornings too” their is no doubt he is from another generation that maybe would find it difficult to see exactly how my life works and life on this vessel with its very organized crew of officers and Captain would remind him of his former life in the forces and would give him some comfort that he may have missed before the death of his wife.

Mr Alan Whipp i think it is such a fitting name for him and he looks so much like your dad’s army type of military man. He is on this ship reliving a journey he took in 1956 when he traveled on a troop ship from Southampton to Japan via the Suez canal he had spent some time in Japan and Korea before returning a year later sailing around the Cape of good hope as the suez canal was closed. I think he would have some incredible stories to tell he told me of how the Japanese inflicted horrid torture and the war years must have been hard times but do we learn anything from the past i wonder. Alan will disembark in Vancouver where he will spend some time with family before heading to New York for one of those “well i will never come here again” kind of few days and he is splashing out on himself for a night at the Opera which is his main passion.

07/11/2008

I have enjoyed the company of Alan and we have had a laugh about our differences and he told me i’d be no good in the Army and that’s positive to know because i would never want to be in the army. He did tell me that i was good at the project that i was working on and that many would have given up faced with some of the logistic set backs that i have faced, overall our meeting has been positive and i admire him, for he is in the real world doesn’t go on about the war and can send a txt message and email people, some 60 year olds can’t do that, he has a good sense of humor too, more 75 year olds could try sailing around the world on freight ships, it certainly is getting him out the house so to say.

Alan hope you have a safe and enjoyable trip across Canada to New York and return home safely. From Tim

GMT+10

I am very lucky to be traveling on the same ship as my car and i managed to do this by finding a company that would take me onboard first then finding another company to load my vehicle onto the same ship, the company that own and organize the ship is N and their office is near to Hamburg, you can book onto one of their ships either through their office or through one of a few selected companies that they use to sell their cabin space to the public, there is a few companies offering this service and you have to do some research on the computer before you find what route you need and who operate a route to where you want to go to, the advantage of freighter ship travel for me is it allows me to travel over land and sea together with my car so i am more in control of the loading and unloading, it is far cheaper than having to get short notice flights from one strange place to another, it is more ethical as the ship is moving cargo too I’m told my travel of myself and the car has very low impact on the environment, and gives a great sense of adventure as it is slower than air travel so you feel more involved in the adventure example is when at sea you can view the plotted route and sea islands and coast that you would never normally see and thats without mentioning wildlife like huge whales.

This is the forth container ship i have travelled on and is by far the largest, the ship is called Mv Hanjin Madrid and was built in June 2003 in Pusan South Korea, the ship has a maximum displacement weight of 92,315.5 tons and can carry 5,752 shipping containers thats 68,110.4 tons of cargo, it is 278.80 meters long and 40.30 meters wide and from the keel 56.30 meters tall, it has a direst diesel Hyundai Sulzar diesel engine with a power output of 74,700 Horse power and burns between 4 to 7 tons of Diesel an hour, the engine runs at a very slow speed of 100 revs per minute to give a steady cruise speed of around 21 knots, it is an amazing place to be at this very moment, so i must tell you how i came aboard.

Yesterday at 12 p.m. i had stepped onto the ships boarding ladder and didn’t meet my first crew member till i got to the top of the ladder he looked at my passport and entered me on the register, the first thing i noticed was how relaxed everyone seemed compared to the Japanese, the deck crew got on his radio and called the second officer Oliver Haak, Oliver arrived within a few minutes of starting his shift, he shook my hand and welcomed me aboard the ship, he looked young maybe in his 20’s keen and happy to have a passenger on board, he asked me to follow him into the crews quarters which is about 60 meters from the stern which i think is the back, we took a lift from the U deck up to F deck where their is 4 cabins one of which was to be mine, the Pursers cabin. Oliver took one of my bags and i took the other into the cabin which is a mini apartment on the sea, it has a hallway to hang coats put shoes and a full height mirror then you have a curtain and then a large office sitting room about 18 ft by 15 ft this has two windows looking directly to the front of the vessel over the tops of all the containers, their is a good desk with a telephone to call up to 40 locations on the ship from the mess to the engine room to the right of that is a mini hifi system then two settees and a coffee table then an empty drinks cabinet a TV and a DVD player, to the right of that an empty fridge, the bedroom has a large double bed maybe king size, their is another side board desk with another telephone then at the end of the bedroom a large wardrobe with an emergency equipment cupboard above it that contains a submersion wet suit and a life jacket, next to that is a bathroom with shower, I am more than happy with the accommodation on board.

Oliver then asked me if i wanted some lunch as it was lunch time and showed me down to the officers mess, he said he would meet me after lunch in my cabin to give me a safety briefing. The mess room is situated on B deck a few floors below my cabin on the port side of the ship, it is large and airy with blue linoleum flooring and three round tables, the mess hand showed me to my table and place which is to be where i will sit every time i eat for the next 10 days, it is the passenger table and is next to the captain and 1st officers table then the third table has second third and 4th officer on that, on the starboard side is the crew mess and in the middle is the galley and luckily the cook like listening to the Eagles so I’m happy about that. The food is good and so different from what i have been eating in Japan much more European in fact i think i will put weight on, that i have lost in Russia as i won’t be doing as much exercise and their is much more food than i would ever normally buy as to buy this kind of food in Japan would prove very expensive indeed. At lunch i met the 1st Officer and the Captain Mr Jaworski a friendly Polish man that looks in his forties, he welcomed me onboard too and i told him of my adventure of how i got to Japan by car and the Russian ship i took to get to Japan and he enjoyed my story, he said i could now take it easy and relax for the next few days and enjoy the sea crossing, i told him that i had worked on ships in South Africa in the 90’s and it was lovely to be back onboard a working ship.

After lunch i returned to my cabin and started to unpack the few items i had, i noticed i only have one polo top and a T shirt and one pair of trousers, i’ve really got used to traveling around as light as possible and i learnt this in Tokyo as you see backpacker’s with huge heavy rucksacks and i can’t see why they carry jeans sometimes two pairs and loads of tops for going out drinking i think the younger modern backpackers are on a different travel holiday but they mainly go from hostel to hostel and temple to temple and go to bars and get drunk and spend huge amounts of money too. I went out in Tokyo and was amazed at how much money they spend on Beer.

Oliver came back up to my cabin and told me i had to get into the inmersion suit and put on the life jacket this was important and after this he showed me the muster station in the event of an emergency which is on A deck one deck above where i boarded on the starboard right side of the ship, i thanked him for the introduction and returned to my cabin, it all was a lot to take in the change from living in the hostels around Tokyo the largest city in the world with all the hordes of people and doing the paperwork involved it setting up my travel to Canada now i have peace and just the open sea and no people except the 25 crew who you seldom see, no mobile phone or internet connection for nearly two weeks surely this has to be good, also the huge cabin and three hot meals cooked for me every day, I’m really very happy and lucky to be in this situation. Thank You

GMT+9

Above in the picture is from left Mr Kuni the customs broker, then Shin my friend i met in Russia, Shin fell off his friends motorbike at the weekend and is now on crouches again, and Mr Kohta Takemoto the shipping agent in Japan who is working under instruction of the german shipping agent Transglobal Solutions.

I couldn’t sleep last night, it was the same when i left Russia by ship, with all the work involved to get myself and the car onboard i kept thinking about all the possible scenarios that could happen also i had received an email from the ships owner to say that i didn’t need to pay the agent Nippon express for immigration and embarkation and this was chargeable to themselves so the Japanese company should not be charging me for anything, i am only liable for my own transportation between offices and the ship but it was best to cooperate with them as the Japanese like to perform everything to the letter.

I left the Yokohama youth hostel at 8 am and made my way by foot to Ishikawacho station about 10 minutes walk and took the 20 minute ride to Yokohama central station where i changed for the Keikyu Line to Namamugi where i met up with my friend Shin who i first met in Russia and Kohta Takemoto the agent for the shipping in Japan DGX Tokyo.

It is very cheap to travel on any of the public transport system except for taxi’s they are very expensive and are only necessary when the the trains stop running at around midnight, i couldn’t understand that in Tokyo the biggest city in the world that the underground or buses don’t run around the clock.

So at Namamugi station Shin and myself and Kohta walked to the offices of Tsuda Unyu Handling which is a customs Broker company that is handling the export paperwork for the car, we met Mr Kuni there and took his car to Central Yokohama to customs house 1 to get two stamps on his and the ships export papers then we walked to immigration and they completed my departure from japan by closing my entry visa and stamping my passport with a departure stamp, it is all going really smoothly much more easily than i thought, i was happy to have two agents with me that could speak english too, so on paper i myself had left Japan and we all got into Mr Kuni’s car and drove to customs house 2, this customs need to finish the Carne de passage which it started last week but wouldn’t stamp and sign till the saw the customs house 1’s stamp telling them that the consignment was now on board the Mv Hanjin Madrid, they checked my documents my passport and then completed the papers, Kohta gave me a copy of the Bill of Lading and we went downstairs where we took some coffee and relaxed as all the work is now over i just needed to collect my bag that i had left at the container loading company and board the ship. It was now 11.30 and we drove to KUK’s warehouse to collect my bag, i thanked them and we left for the ship.

It is so much easier to board a commercial ship than say an airplane, we drove up too a security barrier and the agent’s car was let into the ships berthing area where many ships are loading thousands of contains stacked around like a steel city stacked high like blocks of flats in a Giants lego set,

as we approached the Mv Hanjin Madrid which i had only seen on the internet i asked Mr Kuni to stop the car as i wanted to take some pictures of the ship before i boarded, it is gigantic maybe five or six times bigger than a ferry i will have to find out exactly from the Captain, we pulled up next to a metal personnel ladder which was taller than any ship i have ever been on before, i got out of the car and we took some photo’s before i thanked them for all the work they had done for me over the last few week’s and Shin hoped to maybe see me in South America when he ships his motorbike over to travel their next year. Shin took some pictures of me at the bottom of the ladder and i walked up towards the deck, at the top i stopped and waved them off.

I would like to thank everyone in Japan that has befriended and helped me, i have had a great time and have learnt a lot about your culture that i never really understood when i first arrived. Thank you Sayonara Tim san

I am back in Yokohama after an intensive few days visiting Tokyo and the surrounding area, it is such a huge city the largest in the world and it is not possible in 5 days to visit everything. I stayed every night in a different hostel or capsule hotel, the capsule hotels are a great idea as you sleep in a small oblong box that has a TV and radio, you slide in and pull down a door and sleep, for washing they provide towels and a dressing gown and have showers on every floor. The hostels were so busy and booked up that is why i had to move every night. Tokyo was highly recommended to me and is very popular with western tourists, the highlights of the visit for me was to be on the 50th floor of the Tokyo park Hyatt hotel in the New York bar and meeting the jazz band from New York, I walked all over the place even had an appointment at the Apple store to learn about my Apple Mac computer, i took a look at the electrical stores and the temples, i am not really into the big city’s and i am happy to be out off Tokyo and back in Yokohama.

I arrived back last night and booked back into the Yokohama hostel village which is about 2000 Yen a night i think its a similar price to the uk youth hostels, this morning i visited the immigration office to make sure they would complete my application to leave and also visited the customs building to check whether i needed to complete any customs forms for my side of the travel, i then called the ships agent Nippon Express and spoke to Mr Nagata and mentioned to him that i could do immigration on my own and i didn’t need to do any customs, as he had told me last week that i had to use Nippon Express as an agent for these formalities and it would cost me, i had heard from the cruise people in london that i could do this by myself if i wanted to, Mr Nagata told me on the phone that he was ok for me to do Immigration on my own, however i have had a call from Dessey at the Cruise company in London and Nippon Express have made a complaint to the ships owner and that if i didn’t wok with Nippon Express they wouldn’t let me travel so i am a little confused, but everyone i have spoken to today seem positive so i will go with that, Dessey said they try not to board people in Japan as the agents can be difficult.

I took a phone call off DGX they are shipping the car on the same vessel as me, and Mr Kohta told me that the ship is due into port at 08:00 am tomorrow morning and hopes to leave tomorrow at about 16:00 hrs so i am meeting him at Namamugi station about half way back to Tokyo, i will also meet my friend Shin that i met in Russia as he would like some information from DGX about shipping his motorbike to South America in December.

At Namugi we will meet Mr Kuni who is our broker and he will be taking us to customs and finishing our Carne de Passage forms also known as an ATA Carne the customs then remove the car from my passport and i can then go to Yokohama on my own and start my own immigration.

I have had an amazing time in Japan very varied and i do like the lovely countryside all the huge mountains and Volcanoes, crazy fast cars, very polite people and my visit to the Toyota museum, The highlight was to be given the opportunity to speak to children in schools in Kyushu the southern island of japan and share with them my adventure and the work of streetKids International and that their are kids less fortunate than themselves.

On the ship i hope to get my blogs up to date and include more about what i was doing in Russia and a section about paperwork and stuff like that, i have now got an Eblogger account and for Canada and the US I hope to be more productive with my updates, maybe using an IPhone to send small updates more often via a website called www.ping.fm this will send what i am doing to my RamblingRat@Eblogger account, its not all up and running yet but i’ll keep you all posted. Thats about it for now, i send my love to anyone that knows me and look forward to updating you from the other side of the Pacific in Canada, i am very excited to be on a freight ship again and hope i see some big whales in the Pacific Ocean.

Tim x

Tim is traveling on the Hanjin Madrid container ship tomorrow and leaves Japan at 16:00

I am making preparations for being at sea for the next two weeks on board a freight ship to Vancouver Canada.

Had a great night in China town Yokohama with Aya she works at the Khaosan Tokyo hostel.

Ended up getting filmed as part of a Japanese TV program, call Rena Miyazaki for details of when it will be screened Tel: 03 5455 2881

I’ve arrived at the Yokohama Hostel village to stay the next two nights.