Brugge to Tees

We arrived in Brugge on Sunday. It is approached from the sea through the port of Zeebrugge and then down a canal where we berth just before the city of Brugge. It's about a 30minute walk from the ship into the centre.
The Captain went up into Brugge to have a look round. It's a lovely city, hubby and I have visited once. More recently I have seen it as the star of the film 'In Brugges' starring Colin Farrell, an actor who is very easy on the eye! I have seen this film a few times now, which as a non film person is quite an achievement.
Captain came back very happy. He'd taken a few photos of the lovely buildings and then had come across a big group of people gathered in the square. On closer inspection he found that the subject of the attention was a group of British 1970's cars, Capris, Cortinas, escorts. More photos were taken of these.

Discharging ashore

We commenced discharging our cargo at 5am on Monday morning, just as it was getting light.

Prior to discharge



The bucket wheel in the middle of the photo turns and discharges
the cargo onto the discharge conveyor belts.



Looking down the canal to Brugge.

Cargo discharge took about 5 hours and then we set off back down the canal again. We stopped at a berth in Zeebrugge to load fresh water, we were getting low and we don't go to many berths where you can easily take fresh water. This done we set off back upto a dredge area near the Humber Estuary. We washed and cleaned out our hold because the next cargo was a sand cargo to Tees.

Sand cargoes don't usually take very long to load so in no time at all we were on our way north. It was lovely clear night on the passage up the coast. When I came on watch at 4am it was already beginning to get light.

We passed Flamborough Head, Filey Brigg, Whitby and I took some lovely early morning photos of the sun shining on the land but with the moon faintly visible. As if it didn't quite want to go to bed yet!

Good morning



We  anchored for a few hours before the pilot came aboard and we sailed up the river to our berth and we discharged our cargo of sand.


Its just a song

Isn't it strange how hearing a song can take you back in time so quickly. Whilst on watch to day I managed to tune into a great radio station, the music was such a varied mix, I found myself transported back to many different events in my life. Clicking on each title should take you to a Youtube version of this song.

 1) Love Shack by the B52s

This song took me back to 1989 when I was just 15/16 years old. I was going out with my first boyfriend Mark. I used to follow him and his mate around whilst they did their paper rounds! I'm still friends with Mark actually, he is in the army now and married with a family living in Germany. Very strangely he has the same birthday as my hubby. Hearing it took my back to happy carefree times with the whole future ahead of me.

2)Take it Easy by The Eagles

In the late 1990's my brother spent several summers on the Greek island of Zakynthos. He and his mate Mark (another Mark!) played guitars and sang and formed a band called Bomba Blue. They played in different bars around the island. I went out to visit several times and this song is one of the numbers they did. The reason I remember it so well is that it is one of the few songs that my brother actually sang himself. He has a great voice but never sang that many songs. So this always reminds me of him and hot weather and sunny skies!

3) Mr Blue Sky by ELO

This is definitely a 'going on holiday in the car' song. When my grandparents lived down in Cornwall we would make the 4-5 hours journey down there to visit several times a year and of course we had lots of music cassettes in the car to listen to. As children of course we were ruled by our parents choice of music so ELO, Bread, Roy Orbison and Richard Clayderman were all part of the 'car music system'.
Hearing this song took me instantly back to a motorway journey on the M5 south passing certain landmarks along the way and knowing we hadn't got long to wait til we were there! My dad always had his seat right back so woe betide the child who sat behind him and accidentally kneed him in the back. Watch out the arm to come sweeping round to move your legs out the way!

4) Hungry Eyes from Dirty Dancing

When I heard this song I had very mixed emotions.
Little did I know back in 1987/88 when my mum brought home a video called Dirty Dancing how much effect this film would have on my life. I can't be the only person who saw it and instantly fell in love with Patrick Swayze. I lost count of how many times I watched that film and I so wanted to be Baby's character and have a chance to dance with him. Of course I always believed that he was beckoning to me  -

Both Mum and I swooned over Patrick for years. We even went down to London to see him when he was in Guys and Dolls. It was brilliant and I remember how excited I was to be so close to him and my mum will be forever sad that the time of the last train home meant we couldn't wait to see him at the stage door.

This song made me think back to that day and also to the film but also it made me sad. We were both so sad to hear Patrick was ill with pancreatic cancer and we would check news about him regularly to see how he was doing.

I remember waking up to the news he had died and shedding a few tears and then having to phone my mum to tell her because I knew she wouldn't have heard the news.

Patrick you were a Star!

5) Thriller by Michael Jackson

I have never been a big Michael Jackson fan but when I heard this song it took me right back to primary school. My best friend Sarah had an older brother (his name was Mark too) and he and his friends were big Jackson fans. They had managed to get a copy of the Thriller video and we all packed into their living room to watch this video of Thriller. I remember being a little scared but also thinking what a great video and song it was. Watching it again in researching this blog I can't believe I wasn't more scared and also just how young does Michael look!! Amazing!

So what songs take you back and where do they take you to?

Yummy tea

Just had to post a photo of what I just had for tea.
Normally going away to sea would be a good way of loosing weight, only normally having 2 meals a day because of our watch system. Plus some cooks food is best avoided. Every now and again though a good cook comes along. Ken is not the regular cook on here, but since he's been on board he's turned out some delicious food. Last night I had the tastiest braised beef I have EVER had. So tender and well I ate it all!
Tonight he did a lovely chicken curry with rice and poppadums followed by the Strawberry cream puffs.
Most delicious.
At this rate I'll go home just as big as I was when I joined if not bigger!!

Work at last.

Well after over a week at sea we have finally loaded our first dredged cargo.
We left Purfleet and went up to load on a dredge area up near Great Yarmouth.
We can't just load anywhere. There are special areas which have been surveyed and then a licence is issued for that area. We have to dredge within these areas and the ships position is constantly monitored and fed back via computer. Huge fines can be delivered if you are found to have loaded outside the area.
Dredging is done for aggregate rather than clearance purposes so we load sand/gravel which is then landed ashore and processed into concrete, cement, road surfacing.
Dredging is done by lowering a large suction pipe with, what looks like the head of a vacuum on,over the side, this connects to a valve in the ships side which opens and once the high powered impeller pump is started this sucks up material from the seabed,

The pipe is lowered over on the port side. It is held by
three wires.

Material is sucked up through the pipes and over 2
screened towers which help grade the cargo.

This shows us the angle of the pipe when it is underwater.

The ship moves along very slowly whilst dredging - about 0.5knots. The cargo took 9 hours to load.

We have come back down to anchor off Southend until Friday morning when we shall sail up the Thames to Denton, near Gravesend to discharge our cargo.

If you would like to see a video of dredging in action click on the following link. It was filmed on my husbands ship by a trainee onboard. Its really good and really shows what happens.

Click on this link to see dredging in action.

This afternoon we had our Fire drill. The fire alarm was sounded and all the crew (12 of us) mustered at our muster station up near the bridge. Our scenario today was a fire in the paint locker.  It is fitted with a sprinkler so we did  a walk through drill where all the crew learn about every aspect of what to do if you discover a fire and how you would tackle one in the paint locker, This included the location of fire fighting equipment and the sprinkler system for the locker plus starting the emergency fire pump.

This week I have also started my study for the Open University course which I have signed up to do.

Its on the subject of diabetes which quite a few of my foot patients suffer from and I decided it would be good to extend my knowledge further on this subject as Diabetes seems to becoming evermore prevalent in our population.

Finally I really appreciate all the page views I have had to my blog, thank you for reading. I would love to read any comments you have about my posts and also any questions you may have. To make this easier I have now changed my settings on the comment box which hopefully means you don't have to sign in/up to be able to leave a comment.

Finally don't forget that if you would like to see where my ship is at any time you can click on the marine traffic link to right of my page and type in my vessels name. Its really quick and easy to use. I know my mum has been looking up where both me and hubby are and in fact when i spoke to her earlier she told me where I was!!  however beware!! Mum has got so addicted to looking at it that she managed to burn a pan of peas dry the other day so if you are going to use it make sure you're not cooking at the same time!!

Working with the stars!

Its official - I'm working on and with TV stars.

Until last August this ship had been 'laid up' for a couple of years. The reason was that there were not enough cargoes to justify running so many ships so the company decided to lay up the Arco Beck. All the crew were moved to other ships except for the Bosun and Chief Engineer(Mr C/E) who were kept to look after the ship. They worked on the ship during the day and being fairly local they were able to lock her up every night and go home for the night.
They kept her in good shape because last year she came back into service again.

Anyway whilst alongside they were invaded for a few days by a production company filming the ITV drama Vera.  The ship was featured both outside, as a car chase led the police to the ship as a criminal had apparently escaped onboard the ship which was about to sail.  It' s engine room was also featured as the criminal tried to make his escape!
I remember being told ages ago that the ship had been featured and exclaiming surprise as I watched the episode in question and realised how much of the ship was featured, I didn't realise though, as the action was going so quickly that both the Bosun and Mr C/E had both landed roles as 'ships crew'.
Apparently they had  a good laugh filming it too.

I've tried to find a link for this episode but just can't find it anywhere. Maybe now the second series is out now there may be some way of viewing it in the future. Who'd have thought a rusty sand and gravel dredger could play such a glamourous role as a getaway vehicle!