GENT - CHAPTER 3 OF EELCO'S JOB ON mv AVALON
Gent is a beautiful old city and everything is in walking distance
from each other. I went ashore around 11h00 and only came back to the ship around 17h00. Two shipmates accompanied me and we were picked up by the bus of the wonderful seamen's mission in Gent. They also arranged a good taxi service for us to go back to the
ship. The next day we started to discharge at 06.00 and at 11.00 we were empty. Once empty we had to shift to another berth in the port of Ghent and in that berth we had to load fertilizer for La Pallice, the commercial port of La Rochelle in France. But before we could load again we had to clean the hold very good. This took the whole Sunday and most of the Monday. Monday
afternoon the surveyor checked the holds and they were approved. Loading started Tuesday afternoon by means of a big crane with a grab that shifted the fertilizer from canal barges to our hold. In total there were 4 barges that had together the cargo we were to load. On Wednesday afternoon we sailed for La Pallice where we arrived on Saturday early evening and we went straight alongside inside the small dock, lucky us again. Why?? Because discharge only started on Monday so I could play the tourist once again.
