Trader Heads For The Far East
After 2 years out in the Caribbean, the British Trader is heading back to whence she came, although it's neither Japan or Korea that we are headed. This is my first report since returning to the Trader at the beginning of August.
After at joining at anchor in Trinidad, my thoughts were focused on catching up on all that had happened since I left in May. Our loading date was a few days off so there was no real rush to get everything organised for our port call.
Then we received orders that we would be heading for japan after our next cargo and from there on to Spain for dry Dock. That suddenly kicked up everything a gear - had we enough bunkers? What about stores and provisions? Who was due off before we headed to Japan?
It was a busy start to the trip, with just a quick run up to Cove Point, followed by a dash down to St Eustatius for bunkers en route to Trinidad before we loaded for Japan.
Stores lists were prepared, provisions ordered, charts examined - would we go via the Cape or through Suez? How much bunker fuel would we really need? Our arrival date for Japan was 16th October, some 7 weeks away, which at the time seemed a lifetime away although we needed to be prepared.
The run up to Cove Point went well and we took all the stores and provisions needed for the next 6 weeks or so, whilst alongside discharging. After leaving Cove Point we headed for St Eustatius for bunkers.
However, the first hurricane of the season was sweeping through the Caribbean, and was forecast to pass by St Eustatius the day before we were due. Hurricane Dan turned out to be quite ferocious and caused much damage and rough seas in its wake. The proposed bunkering at St Eustatius on the ballast leg was postponed at the last minute due to the backlog of shipping waiting there, caused by the rough sea conditions, and we headed straight to Trinidad instead.
After loading we then sailed for St Eustatius to top up our bunkers to get us round to Japan. Evenutally we set off via the Cape. The relatively slow speed needed to arrive by the 16th October meant we could take the longer route and avoid the canal charges if we had gone via Suez.
Our departure was not without some excitement though. Hurricane Felix had just popped up on the weather maps and was forecast to track north of Trinidad, just whre we were heading. Hurricanes are welll worth avoiding at all costs, so by increasing to full speed we managed to get ahead of it before it hit Tobago. It bought home just how serious these weather systems are when the local TV news was declaring an emergency and closing the airport before the hurricane arrived.
The voyage across the Southern Atlantic was uneventful, with mainly fair weather and little shipping traffic. Even the fabled albatross of the southrn oceans appearing only briefly when we about two days from Cape Town.
We called at Cape Town for a small top up of fresh fruit and vegetables, and to do some crew reliefs. The morning we arrived for the launch rendezvous could not have been better, with blue skies, a calm sea and Table Mountain standing high above Cape Town with just a blue haze surrounding it. It would have been great to spend some time there, but once we had our crew reliefs and stores we were off again and headed for Singapore, the next leg of our voyage to Japan.