GALES

EELCO'S BAD LUCK WEATHER VOYAGE ON mvAvalon

What initially seemed a simple trip down south turned out in a trip with in the first part gale after gale after

even a stronger gale and shortage of fuel . It was unbelievable how much bad weather we had from the start. Half a day after we left Skutskear, Sweden, we had our first good gale . So our Christmas celebration had to be delayed for a day till the gale tamed a little. We went over the top from Denmark at Skagen . There we made our first bunker-stop . We dropped anchor behind a small island to have some lee from the full blowing gale, but the bunkering went on . A bunker ship same size like ours came alongside and by means of a hose connection we bunkered 60 Cubic meter gasoil . Just before we left and once past the top we had our first North Sea gale but it was not too bad because the wind was southerly so we had some lee from the shore . The middle part from our North Sea crossing went fine . But while we came near the Dutch coast we had one gale after the other. It did not stop anymore. Looking at any weather chart made me and everyone else depressed. This weather with gale after gale continued one day after the other and of course we made not much progress down south at all but the gauge from the fuel tanks went steadily down . Near Chergourgh there was a gale with force 10 Bft coming so it was time to look for shelter what we did by mean of dropping anchor in the anchorage of Baie Du Seine . There we stayed 5 day's . The anchorage was full and even very big containers vessels were waiting for better weather . On Tuesday the wind went down . That morning we went to Le Havre in order to bunker again and to get some provisions on board. The bunkering took the whole afternoon and by evening time we were underway to Turkey again and up till now it is a good and normal trip .

TRASH FREIGHT

WASTE and SALT

Household waste is burned in Delfzijl Holland, to produce electricity. In Cork we were moored in the middle of the city. The first pub was in close proximity of the accommodation of the ship - what a shame??? – had to go and invest. The loading of the waste took 1.5 days. We took this cargo to Delfzijl in the north-east of the Netherlands. Discharging of the waste took 2 days of 24 hours nonstop.

After that was out we had to clean the hold very good in order to get the smell of the waste out. In Delfzijl we also had to load again, this time

3300 mt of salt in bulk. And according the information I got from my company we had to load "wet "salt. Which meant we did not had to stop loading while it was raining. Good. On Sunday we shifted from our original berth to the loading jetty of AKZO NOBEL, the salt company. Once alongside there we started to take our ballast out, to make way for the cargo, which took a few hours. Only then a man from AKZO came onboard to have a look at the holds and said "sorry, you first have to paint the sides of the hold as now it's not good enough". So we started straight away but halfway through the day they told us to move away because

they needed to load another ship at that jetty. But in order to move we first had to ballast the ship again what took 5 hours! Only then could we move to a waiting berth. This was in the evening and the next morning – the paint job was done and dry – we moved back to the jetty and after some of the ballast was out again, we started to load the salt. The rate of loading was approximately 700 mt / hour so that went fast. Six o'clock that night the last of our ropes were free and we underway to Stockvik in Sweden. This trip went by the Kieler Kanaal again and took us 4 days. Once empty in Stockvik – after one and a half day – we sailed 110 nautical mile south along the Swedish coast to Skutskaer and there we loaded a full load – 3500 mt – of woodpulp for two harbours in the Sea of Marmara in Turkey.