As you can see from our opening shot there was something unreal about the whole crossing. The 17 days on board went by in a flash and by the time we made it to Prince Rupert in Canada, which was on the 15th day, we were taken by surprise, we’ve arrived!! On a daily basis we had plenty to do, from day one we put in place a strict regime and what follows are just some of our the highlights.

Our cabin or I should call it our small suite was located high up, we were on “F” deck just one floor separated us from the Bridge. We were about 35m up in the air with a rope that unraveled from the cabin ceiling which was the fire escape and things below looked very very small. There was only a few rails between us and a lot of open space and my fear of heights returned in a flash, as for Malene, she would have swung from the railings with one hand had I not kept warning her of the danger of heights.

Each day I got braver and stronger so as we approached the end of the trip one could hardly tell of my phobia and we raced about the ship as if we were born to it.

On day two we were given a tour of the decks and introduced to various members of crew, on day three it was more serious business as we were given a tour of the ship’s workings by the ship mechanic, engine room, auxiliaries, fire fighting, propeller shaft, ventilation and all types of engines and machines that would make a car’s V8 not worth bothering with.

The huge 15m long, 3 story high, ten cylinder turbo charged engine which is the main driving force has a consumption rate of 22 meters to the gallon (!!!!), to put it in layman’s terms  it uses 60 tones per day of a type of crude, it takes half an hour to come to a stop and when flat out at 25 knots it consumes 170 tones per day. We traveled at about 16 knots or 30 km per hour.

Did you Know?

As we headed north beyond the coast of Japan the sea temperature dropped, from 14 to 10 and then 7 degrees in the Bering Sea.

The next day we joined the crew on an evacuation and rescue drill. We donned our life vests and hugging our immersion suits (water proof suits with seals at neck, wrists and ankles) ran to the deck and piled into the one of the life rafts, strapped in, engine on but thankfully nowhere to go. From there it was off to rescue someone from the hull and so on.

It wasn’t all just sitting and looking. We had 3 meals a day, and two coffee breaks, we would visit the Bridge to catch up on the latest, we would then go to the gym followed by a game of Ping Pong, which considering I never played before and Malene only just played as a girl we are now pretty good. We had our books to get through which were proving a challenge and 20 movies not to mention a download of the TV series Breaking Bad, in addition we had to walk the deck and observe our surroundings. All this plus having to put our clocks forward twice a day for 9 time zones, half an hour at 3pm and by half an hour at 8pm. Not easy!!!

What we saw

 

The colours in the photos are close to real, if anything they were even more vibrant and varied.

Made a few friends on the way.

And before we knew what hit us it was all over.

THE END

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