End of the adventure

This blog is dedicated to the late new romantic guinea pig "Waffle" - R.I.P

When we were offered a tour of the engine room I for some reason imagined poking our heads round a door of room where an engine would be housed.....how wrong I was.  We toured numerous hot, noisy, rooms which were reminiscent of the Poseidon Adventure.  We saw where seawater was turned into our drinking water, the big pipes for seawater to come in and cool the engine, the main axle from the engine driving the propeller and as well as keeping the engine running for the propeller, all the refrigerated containers need electricity constantly too.  It's a massive operation.

This is the engine control room

The ships steering mechanism

Back up on the bridge with cadet Mirko, Chief Officer Peter, 3rd mate Dragan and 2nd mate Nemanja.  Dragan and Nemaja were leaving the ship as their four month contracts were finished.  They go home for two months then off to sea again.

Mess man and Cookie, Edgar and Jigo.

One last sunset in the Channel

The bridge at night. The radar which had been empty all the way across the Atlantic was now full as we came along the Channel.

We woke up to find ourselves in the Port of Rotterdam.  The previous night, while we slept, Mum and Dad were watching us from their computer coming up the river on a series of webcams!  Here's a picture they took....

Melanie and me with Jigo in mess room

Ralph disembarks

One last look back to HS Schubert

After a final breakfast and goodbyes to all the crew we left the ship and were quickly intercepted by Dutch customs.  A far cry from the aggresive American border control people, the Dutch customs guys were incredibly polite and friendly and satisfied that we weren't smuggling booze, cigarettes or drugs we were sent on our way.

After a quick stop for chips and mayonnaise at Rotterdam central station we headed to Amsterdam where we were meeting up with Dan and Natasha our camping companions from Yellowstone and Utah National Parks as they now live in Belgium.  Ruth and Chris from Biggleswade were also on their way to meet us.  

Ham and eggs for breakfast

The Amsterdam limo

Street art

Ethiopian food, yum

Pancakes

Ralph found it amusing to watch me and Ruth crossing the road.  There's so much to look out for in Amsterdam, bike lanes, mopeds, cars and trams, it's like being in a game of Frogger.

house boat on the way to the flea market

Playing Farkel, a dice game Ruth and Chris introduced us to and which we played a lot with Dan and Natasha while camping.  Dan is a particularly unlucky roller, defying all statistical odds but he did win this game!

A trip to the fun fair

Wooooooooooooooooo

WEHAYYYYYY!!!!!!!

AAAHHHHHHHH......

Leaving Amsterdam with Ruth and Chris for the journey home via ferry to Dover.

back in blighty

The front of the ferry gave good views of the white cliffs

Fi's parents are avid readers of the blog and even have hard copies!

Thanks to everyone who's been reading our blog, even those not quite as avid as Margaret and Grant, hope to see/speak to you all soon!

Schubert dip

Another boat and another fire drill, this time we were given the full kit for the drill

Bob the builder

The three passengers (we picked up Melanie in Kingston, she is from Germany)

3rd Mate Dragan was responsible for us during the drill and posed for our pictures

The second part of our emergency drill was to watch a video of what to do if you end up in the survival raft......tip out any Vodka that's been sneaked in to the raft apparently, but the captain Eduard (who is younger than me) did confirm that this would never happen in reality

On board entertainment, table tennis....

....Yoga - Melanie had been on a Yoga retreat and taught us the moves in the officers salon. One or two days were a little bit choppy for yoga. 

.....making fish decorations for Neptune

...make up lessons.  Mirko the cadet was going to be baptised along with us and another cadet and was told he did not look silly enough so Ralph drew him a moustache.

We couldn't believe the barbecue set up.  Tables and chairs had been brought out on deck, but seemed glued in place. The captain raided the medical supplies for his Neptune outfit, I would be surprised if there is any cotton wool left!

Dragan's role was a little unnerving as 'Doctor Love' - especially for Ralph who signed up for the full crew/cadet style baptism.

Mirko ready for baptising

Doctor "Love" inspected us so he could recommend treatment - this involved drinking a horrific cocktail of Romanian home made plum cognac, red wine, Jack Daniels, beer and of course Vodka yum!

The chief engineer then anointed us with diesel, but Mirko and the other crew members got extra from the captain.

Ralph's baptism with sea water

Fi downs her Jack Daniels only cocktail.  It was agreed that the girls would have a toned down version of the baptism, Melanie doesn't drink alcohol and neither of us want to get soaked, I managed a whiskey then Dragan got carried away and chucked a bucket of water over me and Melanie got caught out too.  

All worth it for the certificate and new names, I was "sword fish" Fiona was "blue whale" 

We drank and did karaoke until midnight, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake.  We were advised that the Captains home made Romanian plum cognac is so pure and wholesome that it gives no hangover......not so!

It took us two days to recover from the barbeque - we blamed the home made Romaina spirits, we were very ill indeed.

us with the captain in our Hansa shipping shirts

This may be Leonardo Dicaprio.  Our last day on board, we caught our first sight of England that morning then spent the day dodging traffic in the English Channel, it was flat calm ad sunny so we spent time sitting at the front where its eerily quiet as all the engine noise it at the back by the propeller.

Connect four anyone

Twins?