On Saturday, August 31, the captain of the Hamburg authorized a party and all crew, officers and passengers were invited. At first I really didn't get what was going on or the scope of this thing. I was invited to the party in about seven different accents. At first I thought it was just a little get together. I was wrong! About four o' clock I began to smell something grilling outside. That's unusual in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I looked out my window and down on the A deck I noticed the crew roasting a pig! I grabbed my camera and went to investigate.
Pig roasting on the high seas!
There was a young Filipino with a pig on a spit and he was rotating the pig with something that looked like a steering wheel. He had done this before! Where has this pig been the last couple of days? There was also meat being grilled on the pilot deck. There was chicken and lamb being grilled by the officers and other crew members.
The ship's chief carpenter offering me some lamb
Party supplies had to be transported from the lower decks to the pilot deck. That would have meant a lot of walking up a lot of stairs but, remember, these guys were sailors and expert crane operators. The supplies were lifted by a set of ropes and pulleys in a laundry basket.
Bringing up the party supplies
By six that evening the party/feast was read to begin. Since females were in short supply the karaoke machine provided most of the evening's entertainment. These guys loved the karaoke, but that does not mean they were good singers. There was no dancing despite what you may have heard about sailors.
The guest of honor
An impressive spread
If karaoke was not your thing you could always just go out onto the deck and enjoy the fresh sea air and listen to heated discussions in Filipino.
Later that night I went to the pilot deck and you could see millions of stars. I located the North Star and it was very high in the sky. At my home in Asheville, NC I am more used to it being closer to the northern horizon. I spent a lot of time speaking with the Chief Officer. He is second in command of the ship after the Captain. He was from Estonia and had served in the Russian Army. We discovered that we had both been the army at the same time, just on opposite sides. We both thought about our it was funny that 30 or so years ago we never would have thought that we would be partying together at sea. We decided it was not our problem, but the politicians. He proposed a toast to "all of the f***ing politicians on both sides".
The crew enjoying themselves
I went to bed about 11:30PM but the party was still going strong. The next morning it was very quiet at breakfast. Most of the crew and officers were sleeping in.
The crew amused themselves in other ways too. In the afternoons they would have heated basketball games on the A deck. A net would have to be strung up to keep the ball from going overboard. They really weren't very good (I never saw anyone make a basket) but they ran around a lot and seemed to be having a good time!
Basketball at sea
The net seemed to be greased and indeed it was. One of the crew members told me this was to keep the salty sea air from destroying the cotton netting.
We were getting closer to Antwerp, Belgium and the crew began to get more serious about the arrival. A lot of work had to be done before arrival. We would be in Antwerp for four days and most of it would be spent unloading and loading the ship. That will be covered in my next post.
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