The MV Reinbek finally docked in Liverpool at around 1800 hours on Saturday 16th December, but I stayed on board that night so that I could cycle in daylight the following day. In spite of a forecast of dry weather, Sunday dawned wet and miserable – just as I always expected – it made me feel at home. But, first, to go back to Montreal where I left off the last report.
As it was likely that I would be boarding the ship on Monday, I tried making contact with the shipping agent in Montreal on Saturday, a few hours after arriving – as instructed by the travel agent in Connecticut – but was only able to leave messages on answer phones. Consequently, I still had no idea how long I’d be waiting in the City but my hosts seemed determined to make sure I enjoyed the stay – they succeeded. Henry and Emily joined Victor, Hannah and me for dinner on that Saturday evening. It was like meeting old friends again; another very enjoyable get together. On Sunday, Henry volunteered to undertake a reconnaissance with me to discover the location of the Shipping agent’s offices. With the aid of his city map, we headed east along Rue Notre Dam on the very route that I’d cycled away from the City all those weeks ago. As luck would have it, the offices were right along side the river at Cast Quay, a large container terminal where the Reinbek was due to dock and turn around its cargo. In spite of it being Sunday, the terminal seemed to be in full swing, with many cranes doing exactly that, and we also managed to find at least one member of staff working in the agent’s office. He was able to tell us that the Reinbek had been delayed but didn’t know when it would arrive and advised phoning in the morning. Sunday evening was given over to culture. After dinner with the same four people, but this time at Henry & Emily’s house, we headed off to the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in another part of town to attend an Advent Concert featuring some of Mozart’s sacred music. The first part of the programme was instrumental, with the music being provided by an organist, two violinists and a cellist. Then they accompanied a seventeen person male and female choir who, among other items, sung one of Mozart’s masses. It was great to hear the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei sung in Latin as they were intended to be, and reminded me of my own school choir days, before my voice inevitably became the tuneless croak that it is today.
Another telephone call to the shipping office on Monday morning allowed me at last to speak to one of the agents named in the many e mails that I’d received from Maris in Connecticut. He confirmed that they had me listed as a passenger and that the ship had indeed been delayed. His best guess was that it would be docking near the end of the week and sailing at the weekend and suggested that I phone again on Wednesday when it was likely that he’d have a better idea of timings. On Wednesday, the agent confidently predicted that it would dock on Thursday and he suggested that I arrive at Cast Quay to board at 1400 hours on Friday, ready for a sailing that evening. At least now I had a date and time to work to.
The ‘social whirl’ continued throughout the week, interspersed with such mundane chores as shopping and dog walking. But even these simple things, carried on as they were in a, for me, strange and vibrant city, and with such wonderful people, were enjoyable. It’s difficult to pick out the highlights but I do need to mention some.
Hannah is currently undertaking a course of study at the Thomas Moore Institute, a prestigious academic centre in Montreal. Her last class before the Christmas break was taking place on Wednesday 6th and she invited me to tag along. We arrived at the Institute just as the twenty or so other ‘students’ were seating themselves round a large circular table and spreading out the various bottles and goodies to eat that they’d brought along, this being the festive season. The format of the class was by way of a discussion, based on the participants’ pre reading, jointly chaired by a man and a woman, whose names presently escape me. The course leader, a distinguished-looking senior practicing psychiatrist and academic, who I’d briefly been introduced to at the above mentioned concert, sat to one side and interjected occasionally as he felt necessary. Hannah must have talked to the group about me since my previous visit. When she introduced me, they seemed to know what I was up to, and the first part of the session was given over to me talking about the journey, with them asking questions. As one might imagine, the probing from a group such as this wasn’t limited to the more prosaic subjects that I’m used to by now – punctures, distances, weather etc - they were into more esoteric matters; my motivation for undertaking the venture, my feelings at various points, how I coped mentally in certain situations, people’s reactions to me etc. I found that being ‘put on the spot’ in this way was a useful exercise. My thinking on these questions is still decidedly fuzzy and having to respond has helped me to try and formulate some sensible answers. I’m not there yet but, according to Dorothy, the publishing consultant, these are questions that I must address properly if I’m going to turn this blog into a manuscript. I was invited to join in during the rest of the class proper. It was very interesting and I did get involved in the debate at a few junctures. If I mention that the course is based on a large tome entitled ‘Zen & the Brain’ you’ll have some idea of the nature of the discussion.
As previously reported, whilst in Halifax, I visited Pier 21, a museum on the harbour side dedicated to the comings and goings by sea of soldiers and migrants over the last couple of centuries. Part of the visit included a film and slide show, featuring stories from immigrants and officials of all kinds, mostly portrayed by actors. Victor, born in Canada and a Canadian citizen, is of Lithuanian extraction. His parents, both in their nineties, came round for dinner one evening and, after the meal, began to talk about their experiences before, during and after, WWII. After a while, they got round to describing their arrival in Canada as displaced persons. Victor’s mother, in her halting English, related so poignantly how they had left Europe, travelled across the Atlantic by ship, their arrival in Halifax, their dealings with the immigration officials, the lack of money, their onward journey by train and subsequent arrival in Montreal. She could have been one of those actors in the Pier 21 slide show. For me this was amazing. Here was someone sat across the table relating the recent history of Canada who had actually lived and experienced it. Victor’s father apparently kept a diary of these events but it was inadvertently destroyed some time ago. They both have such amazing stories to tell, and I do hope that someone manages to record them for posterity before it’s too late.
Then there was lunch with Matthew, Hannah & Victor’s son. He’s a very knowledgeable, personable and forthright young man, impatient to put the world to rights. We had a great meal in a little vegetarian restaurant near to where he lives whilst discussing politics, religion, war, green issues and all things metaphysical. We rearranged the world to our liking. Lunch finished at 4 pm.
On my last evening in Montreal, we dined at the home of Barry & Silvi. Barry is another student on the same course as Hannah, although he already has a number of bachelor and masters degrees I hasten to add, and is just doing the course “for fun”. The invitation came during the class earlier in the week but we couldn’t confirm the arrangement until I had a firm sailing date. They live in a beautiful house half way up the mountain overlooking Montreal, in the dining room of which some ten of us sat down to a tasty fish dinner with suitable wine and all the trimmings. Other members of the course were also among the diners and the after dinner conversation felt like a somewhat less formal extension to the class. The whole event made for a very pleasant last evening in Montreal.
Friday 8th December dawned bright and cold. I packed my panniers and after breakfast, donned my woolly hat and the warm sheepskin coat that Hannah & Victor had given me to keep out the biting Montreal winter, and headed out towards the shops. I needed some spare batteries and a few euros, the currency used aboard the ship, so I’d been told. Dressed as I was, the chill still penetrated through and my nose ached with the cold, in turn giving me a headache. I noticed that anyone who needed to spend time on the streets – policemen, parking attendants etc, wore padded clothing, plus scarves and/or balaclavas, so that only their eyes were exposed. Back at the house, Henry turned up and we sat down to an early lunch before loading my bike and luggage into the back of his car and setting off for Cast Quay, with Victor and Hannah following on behind. We could see the MV Reinbek berthed alongside adjacent to the shipping agent’s office as we pulled into the car park. I made my way to the barrier and explained to the security guard that I was a passenger and had a bicycle plus luggage to go on board and asked if my friends could come onto the dock to see me off. “No” was his immediate reply. “Only you can enter and you’ll have to be transported to the ship”. This quickly turned into a farcical situation. As we were having the conversation, we were virtually overshadowed by the vessel in question; I could almost spit on the damn thing! Port security sent a car to take me the few yards to the Reinbek, the boot (trunk) of which was full of security paraphernalia. Had it been empty, the bike would not have fitted in. Eventually, common sense prevailed and the security guard allowed Henry to drive his car, complete with bike, luggage, Victor, Hannah and me, to follow the port car onto the dock and deposit us all at the Reinbek’s gangway. Henry helped me lug the bike and panniers up onto the ship then we three posed on the quayside while Victor took some snaps near the stern of the ship. (check out the gallery) Farewell hugs all round and I climbed back up the gangway just in time to wave goodbye as they drove off the dock and back to Montreal.
Although he didn’t ask for it, I showed my passport to one of the Filipino crew on deck. He welcomed me aboard, grabbed some of my luggage and, with me carrying the rest of it, showed me to my cabin on deck 10. The gangway from the quayside reached the ship at deck 6 and there were two flights of stairs between each deck, which meant that we had to climb 8 flights. Many of the white-painted steel steps were covered in ice but my specially purchased shoes from Montreal coped well; cycling shoes with steel cleats in the soles would’ve been lethal in that situation. During the climb between decks, I did start to feel a little apprehensive. “If this is what it’s like in Montreal, what’s it going to be like moving between decks whilst being tossed about in the middle of an icy North Atlantic?” I thought to myself. We were going up the starboard side of the ship and, at that time, I didn’t realise that there was a completely covered-in stairway connecting all decks on the port side. Meanwhile, my bike was being whisked away to the bowels of the ship by another crew member, and I didn’t see it again till the day before we arrived in Liverpool. I was pleasantly surprised on being shown into cabin number 2. As one would expect on a cargo vessel it was small, but it contained a wardrobe, desk, table, chair, couch and a bunk. It had an en suite toilet, wash basin and shower and was equipped with a small fridge and music centre cum AM/FM radio. A porthole, or rather more a window really, let onto the fore of the ship, overlooking the open cargo deck. I dumped my bags in the centre of the cabin and went off in search of some coffee, which I was told would be available in the officer’s mess on deck 7 – using the covered stairway on the port side this time. (I don’t think the term ‘wardroom’ is used on civilian ships) Suitably refreshed, I made my way back to deck 10 and proceeded to unpack and settle in. Presently, there was a knock at the door. Another Filipino crew member dressed in white was stood there when I opened it. He introduced himself as Sharon, the head cook and steward, and handed me a box of chocolates. “Compliments of the Captain” he said, and went on to explain about meal times and some of the ship’s routine. I thanked him and told him that I thought I was going to enjoy the voyage. I meant it too. After a slippery start, things seemed to be getting better all the time!
I met the Master at dinner that evening. He was Lithuanian, a thin dark-haired almost boyish man who certainly didn’t look his forty odd years. He was friendly enough but had a sort of brooding air about him. I was overjoyed when he offered me, weather and crew activities permitting, unrestricted access to all parts of the ship, however, with a caveat that, for safety reasons, I must let someone know if I was visiting the engine room or venturing forward on deck. There were 21 of us in total on board. The chief officer, chief engineer and electrician were all Latvians but, along with the master, were ethnic Russians and spoke Russian amongst themselves most of the time. The rest of the crew bar one were Filipino, the other being from Fiji. They proved to be a happy and efficient bunch but, like all seamen I suppose, admitted to occasionally missing their homes and families. All the paperwork that I’d received in connection with organising the voyage indicated that the Reinbek was a German registered vessel, in fact about 70% was written in German. So, imagine my surprise on boarding to see the Red Duster fluttering out aft, and ‘LONDON’ in large letters on the stern under the vessel’s name. Less than two years old, I subsequently discovered that the ship, although still owned by a German company, had been re-flagged just a few months ago in September for economic reasons. Apparently, German shipping rules state that the Master and Chief Engineer must be nationals of that country and consequently cost more, whereas us brits don’t make such demands; we merely insist on the crew being appropriately qualified and the ship meeting our safety standards, both of which were quite obviously apparent throughout the trip.
The agent had told me that the ship would sail at 2200 hours. When I boarded, the cargo deck was virtually empty of containers. The last few were being lifted out of the aft sections whilst another crane was loading the first few into the forward compartments. The cranes work swiftly and steadily but, even to my inexperienced eye, it was impossible to see how they’d be finished by 10 pm. At dinner the master rather optimistically revised the sailing time to midnight but later, the chief officer suggested it would be more like 0200 hours. I drifted off to sleep listening to the whirring of the cranes outside my window, and feeling the occasional shudder as a container was plonked down rather heavily. The ceasing of such sounds must have awoken me. I knelt on the couch, drew back the blinds and looked out of the window. It was 0315 hours. The cranes were idle. Our mooring ropes were no longer to be seen. Almost imperceptibly at first, and without any apparent change in engine noise, we edged away from the quay. The ship’s fore and aft bow thrusters must have been employed in this manoeuvre. Very gradually, we eased our way out into the middle of the St Lawrence, all the while spinning slowly round to head downstream in a north-easterly direction. I’d finally left Canada – terra firma that is; it would be another couple of days before I finally quite Canadian territory.
I went back to bed but sleep evaded me. I was just too excited. Like a schoolboy locked in a chocolate factory; I wanted to see everything, know how everything worked and experience every part of the journey. I made my way to the bridge which is in fact the top room on the ship, deck 13. The bridge roof is deck 14 and supports all the antenna systems, the radar and the emergency old-fashioned magnetic compass. There was a trip switch that turns off the stairway lights when one opens the door. The room itself is kept in complete darkness at night, save for the faint glow from the radar screen and other controls. I closed the door behind me and stood just inside for half a minute or so, until my eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, by which time I could make out the shapes of the people on the bridge. A young able seaman was stood holding the wheel (It’s called a wheel but is really just a very small semi circle, which looked as though it would be more at home on a go kart or gaming console rather than controlling a 169 m long ship). The first officer was seated in one of the two chairs in front of the main control console, it was his watch, and the French Canadian pilot was stood at the front of the bridge looking intently out of the window. The red and green lights on the buoys denoting port and starboard extremities of the shipping lane were just visible in the distance. I marvelled at how well the pilot knew his river. He would call out a bearing, which the helmsman would repeat, make the adjustment then repeat again once the ship had moved round to that heading. As dawn gradually crept over the horizon, I got into conversation with him. He told me about his early years of deep sea experience and about the six to ten years of training required to become a fully qualified St Lawrence River pilot. His latest interest was horses, riding and training them. About my age, he was looking forward to retiring soon and following his equestrian interests. Each pilot covers a set stretch of the and a cutter drew along side the ship in Quebec City where he left us and another one, also French Canadian, joined us.
And so we gradually made our way down the St Lawrence. Before Quebec City, and for some time after, I could recognise some of the villages and scenes on first the north and then the south bank of the River; they’d been part of my cycle route. But after Riveire Du Loup, where I turned south, it was all new to me. I had travelled along the southern bank during the train ride back to Montreal, but that was during the night so nothing was recognisable. Anyway, the river was too wide to see much of the land by this time. We dropped our last pilot off onto his cutter at 1900 hours on Saturday and continued on what was now essentially open water without navigational assistance.
There was no computer access for me on the ship but I did have a paper copy of my blog and should really have been working on turning it into a manuscript. However, there was too much to see and do on board; the copy sat on the desk in my cabin and I found it all but impossible to turn the pages. I settled into a routine. A visit to the bridge before breakfast, where I would go straight to the chart table, read off the longitude and latitude from the sat nav receiver and, in spite of the fact that the watch keeper had invariably already marked it on the map, I would plot our position for myself. On Sunday 10th December we were cruising through the Gulf of St Lawrence south of Anticosti Island. By this time the ship was pitching and rolling from side to side, but not half as much as it subsequently did when we hit the Atlantic swell proper. Three officers shared the watch keeping, rotating throughout the 24 hours, with the Chief Officer normally doing his stint before breakfast. We chatted before I went below to eat. He showed me how the complete voyage had been programmed into the ship’s navigational computer. The ship would proceed on a suitable bearing to each waypoint, then change direction in order to proceed to the next and so on, with a straight line between waypoints to the south of Newfoundland and the south of Ireland, before heading north again up the Irish Sea. All this without any human interference. Essentially, the watch keeper’s task was to keep and eye on the radar and/or a visual watch and make sure all the controls were functioning properly. Being an open-decked vessel, the bilges frequently took in water and an alarm would sound indicating this. It was then a simple matter to bring up a diagram of the pumping system onto the computer screen, then using the mouse to open the appropriate valves and activate the appropriate pumps to empty them out again; just like the ‘fly by wire’ systems on modern aircraft. Speed was set for 18.5 knots and never changed from the moment we said goodbye to the last St Lawrence pilot to the point were we rounded Anglesey Island. The third officer told me that it would take at least 3.5 nautical miles in order to effect and emergency stop going at that pace.
Apart from climbing up and down the stairs between decks, it was apparent that I wasn’t going to get much exercise during the voyage so, after breakfast on that Sunday I decided to try out the ship’s gym, located next to the engine control room. It was a very small affair consisting of a weights bench, a cycle machine and a tiny sauna in one corner. In the past I’ve normally scoffed at cycle machines, suggesting to users in a rather superior way that they should “get their kit on and hit the road”. People had jokingly suggested that I should cycle round the ship during the voyage but even with an empty deck and weather permitting, the walkways weren’t wide enough to allow such activity so, here was a justifiable situation to use one. I did 35 minutes with the machine set at its highest resistance which recorded a distance of 10 km; something near my normal road speed. Dressed in shorts and T shirt, it was enough to get me a good sweat on anyway and keep the knee joints working.
The 2nd mate had contacted me the day before and we’d arranged to meet in the mess just after the mid morning coffee break where he was going to give me my safety briefing. Presumably he’d arranged the time so that I was at least partly familiar with the ship but it was before we hit the potentially hazardous part of the voyage – the vast expanse of open water that is the North Atlantic. It didn’t take long. He told me about the different alarms, how they sounded and how to respond. He showed me how and when to don my buoyancy aid and/or immersion suit which I’d already located under my bunk in the cabin. We went to deck 6 where he showed me the general muster point, then to deck 8 where the main all-enclosed orange-coloured life boat was situated, on a slide where it could be quickly released to fall into the sea. We didn’t go inside but it looked so small that I doubted if it could accommodate all 21 of us. He assured me that it could and that it contained water and emergency rations. I was then shown the inflatable life rafts in their canisters which could be fired off the side of the ship. Finally, he got me to sign papers to attest to the fact that I’d understood all the safety measures. All in all, it was a thorough briefing and I could see that, at least in theory, all angles had been covered. It left me feeling that, if the ship did sink, we’d have a fighting chance of survival. We put the clocks forward by one hour on Sunday too, and did the same each day until we were off the coast of Southern Ireland; four consecutive 23 hour days.
When I checked the chart on the morning of Monday 11th, we’d reached a point off the southern tip of Newfoundland. The Atlantic swell was upon us now and the ship was rolling well from side to side. The bow seemed to swing through five or ten degrees as it came down off each wave but the automatic controls were able to maintain an accurate mean course whichever way the sea threw us. All the chairs had metal eyes screwed into the underside of their seats. Other eyes were secured to the deck equally placed around the tables, which were themselves bolted down. My cabin had the same arrangement. These eyes were now connected by bungee cords which prevented the chairs from being thrown about the cabins and mess decks. The tables were spread with cloths made of a sort of fine rubber beaded material which prevented plates, cups, utensils etc from sliding off. And I quickly learned not to fill a glass, cup or bowl more than half full. It was a rocky time!
Before dusk on Monday 11th December it felt much warmer. I looked at the outside thermometer through the bridge window at one point and noticed that the temperature was 1 degree above freezing; we were being bathed in the Gulf Steam. It was warm enough to stand for a few minutes in the sheltered part of the open stairway adjacent to my cabin wearing just a T shirt while I watched the sun go down; about the only time we saw it during the whole voyage. However, the rolling continued. I staggered bleary-eyed down to breakfast on Tuesday and told Sharon, the steward, about my sleepless night, being flung from side to side. “Sleep on your couch” he said “we all do at times like this”. All the cabins have their bunks fitted fore and aft, whereas the couches are at right-angles to these, port to starboard. So, the following night I did his bidding and, sure enough, sleeping head to toe in the direction of the rolling made an enormous difference; I slept reasonably well. Although a state of the art ship, less than two years old, this seems to be a design fault. The cabins could easily have been set up the other way at the fitting out stage. The 1st mate told me that the ship was really designed for work in and around the Baltic and/or Black Seas so perhaps, although perfectly capable of withstanding it and much more, wasn’t expected to put up with this type of rolling.
And so we proceeded across the ‘big pond’. During that time I read three books, did three more thirty minute, ten km virtual bike rides in the gymnasium and watched two DVDs; Broke Back Mountain, which I’d heard about but not seen, and the Alamo, which I last watched about 4 years ago in San Antonio right next to the Alamo itself. I spent one evening after dinner with the crew on their mess deck. It was given over to karaoke – a mindless activity which I normally find difficult to put up with. However, the pictures on the wide screen TV that the karaoke machine was hitched up to were all scenes from in and around the Philippines – very beautiful too. Although I only had a few glasses of wine, the alcohol was flowing freely and some of the singers among the crew were almost professional standard. Although missing home, they were a happy bunch of guys and very good company, so I had an enjoyable evening.
Much of my time on the bridge coincided with the 3rd Mate’s watch. A tall, slim young man of 23 years, he was rather shy and reticent during the early part of the voyage but I eventually got to know him quite well. He told me all about his sea training in college in the Philippines, his cadetship, his family and girlfriend back home, and we discussed Filipino politics; much of what I remember was from before he was born. I watched him at work – he certainly knew his stuff.
I was idly playing around with the automatic tuner on the FM receiver in my cabin on Friday 15th, not expecting to hear anything at all when, all of a sudden, it stopped on some music, which was quickly followed by Gaelic speaking. It was RTE; we were off the coast of Ireland. Back on the bridge, I was able to see the cost and plot the various lighthouses and land marks on the chart. Once we rounded the south-eastern tip and were heading north, we were surrounded by fishing boats; seen firstly as a multitude of blips on the radar screen, then as lights, mostly in pairs, all around, making the watch keepers task more arduous.
To enter the container terminal at Liverpool Docks, ships have to lock out of the Mersey and the master had pre-booked the lock for 1730 hours on Saturday 16th, which meant that we had some waiting to do. I awoke at 0430 hours and looked out of the cabin window. I could see lights off the starboard bow. “This must be Wales” I said to myself; and so it was. The anchor went down at 0520 hours. We were in a bay on the east side of Anglesey Island at the northwest tip of Wales. When I eventually went to the bridge, I could see nine other ships riding at anchor in the bay. This was obviously a convenient waiting point prior to entering the Mersey and Dee Rivers further along the coast. Back in my cabin I managed to find my favourite talk radio station – BBC Radio 4. The dulcet tones of John Humphries assailed my ears. Not my favourite presenter but familiar all the same. On my next trip to the bridge I was surprised to find all the other ships in the bay in different positions; totally confusing until I realised that the wind direction had changed so that all the ships appeared to have moved in relation to one another.
After numerous conversations on VHF with the Liverpool Port Authorities, we up-anchored and got underway again at 1300 hours. As we did a wide sweep in order to go about and head east down the North Wales coast, a pilot cutter left from a jetty on Anglesey and cruised steadily towards us, finally pulling along our starboard side, where the pilot scrambled up a ladder, met the first officer who then brought him to the bridge. Once he’d got his breath back and the introductions were made, he and the master disappeared below, after leaving instructions to head on a certain bearing to a point in the Mersey Estuary then call him. Once we’d reached the predetermined point, the suitably rested pilot, plus master, returned to the bridge. The pilot took over. By this time a helmsman had joined us on the bridge, taken the wheel and was responding to the pilots shouted bearings as we made our way between the marker buoys down the shipping lane towards the docks. I could see the skyline of Liverpool, including the unmistakable shape of the Liver Building, on the horizon against a darkening sky. We passed a couple of ferry boats heading out towards Ireland and made it to the lock entrance by 1700 hours. As we waited for another ship to exit the gates, the pilot radioed the lock keeper and negotiated an early entry into the lock. Having steered a 50 foot narrow boat in and out of canal locks many times, I had some idea of the task in hand. But taking a 169 m long, fully laden containership, with tug boats which by now were secured to either end, into a lock basin not much longer than the ship itself, and all with out touching the sides, is on a different scale completely. Members of the crew were stationed fore and aft to handle ropes and were being controlled over hand-held radios by the master. The 1st mate controlled the bow and stern thrusters from the slave console at the starboard end of the bridge. The pilot, in overall charge, had the daunting task of controlling everything, either by radio or word of mouth. They were all clustered into one end of the bridge. I watched in admiration, out of the way in the centre of the bridge.
We were tied up alongside ready for the cranes to start operating by 1815 hours. The pilot, a Liverpudlian, living across the border in North Wales, admitted that taking ships through the lock was a very stressful operation. He was in his early sixties but didn’t look it, and only three days away from retirement. Before leaving the ship, he showed me on the map roughly were the docks were in relation to Liverpool City and gave me some directions to the East Lancs Road, my route to Manchester the following morning. I wished him well and a long and happy retirement. He wished me the best of luck with my future travels. One last dinner in the officer’s mess and so to bed. The scene outside my cabin window was whirring cranes and swinging containers – just like Montreal.
I breakfasted promptly at 7.30 on Sunday 17th December, moved my panniers and other luggage down to deck six, retrieved my bike, which had been stored in a small cabin next to the containers, and carried it up to deck six, all ready to leave the ship down the self same gangway that I’d used to board it in Montreal. I said my goodbyes to the members of crew who were up and about on deck and a couple of them helped me take everything down to the quay; it was lower this time, consequently, the gangway was steeper. It took two of us to carry the bike down. I stood it in a spot near the ship out of the way of the cranes and where it wouldn’t disrupt the mini buses and vans that were buzzing about. No sooner had I started attaching the panniers than I heard a broad scouse accent announce “you’re not f—–g takin’ that thing off the dock!” It took a few seconds for me to realise that he was addressing me. I had the confidence of being back in my own country and wasn’t about to accept such dictates from petty officials, so I decided to answer in kind. “It left Harwich with me seventeen months ago and it’s f—–g well going home with me now” I responded. I think this rather took him by surprise and he softened somewhat when I explained that I’d been a passenger on the ship and was returning home. “Well, you can’t ride it off the dock” was his second shot. “Then I’ll walk” I said. “You can’t walk around the dock”. “Well it’s leaving the dock with me. You tell me how I do that then” And so the conversation continued until finally he agreed to take me in his minibus after he’d completed his present task. I waited. A little further along the dock were three men in yellow overcoats stood talking next to an open-backed pickup truck. I strolled over and introduced myself and inquired if any of them was the driver of the truck. One replied that he was so I asked him if he could give me, my bike and luggage a lift to the dock gates. He readily agreed and, inevitably my story came out. I got many handshakes and congratulations and, very quickly, six willing hands lifting my bike and luggage into the back of the truck. In a couple of minutes I was deposited just inside the main dock gates; more handshakes and the truck sped off. As I again started loading everything onto the bike, the dock policeman came out of the gatehouse and in another broad scouse accent asked if I wanted a cup of tea. I thanked him very much but declined, saying that I’d not long ago had breakfast aboard ship. With bike loading completed, the same policemen lifted the barrier, I gave him a wave and pedalled away from the docks. It occurred to me a few yards down the road that no one had asked to see my passport or any form of paperwork, nor had I offered any of it to anyone. I’d re-entered Britain without any checks whatsoever. So much for the facade of security!
When I awoke on the ship and whilst I breakfasted, the rain had been falling steadily, but when I left the ship, it had stopped. The Radio 4 forecast was for a dry day but the colour of the sky belied that prediction. Back in Canada, I’d downloaded a map from the internet and knew that my best cycling route from Liverpool to Manchester was the A580, the East Lancs Road. So, armed with this map, my son Martin’s directions sent by e mail some weeks ago (he and my daughter-in-law, Carrie, had moved house since I left home) and the pilot’s instructions from the evening before, I set off towards Liverpool City. I got as far as Bootle and judged that it was about time to turn left and head east to pick up the A580. Sure enough, I soon saw the route number sign-posted, bracketed at first until I reached the actual road itself. I got as far as Knowlesly with 13 km on the clock and the rain started again; drizzle at first but then the real stuff. I stopped, donned my full wet weather gear and continued on. There’s really not much else one can say about a ride in the rain between Liverpool and Manchester, except to relate that it gets quite rural between the two conurbations; rural enough to sport hedgerows which enable a cyclist to stop and answer a call of nature! It wasn’t long before I got to the turn off for my son’s house and, following his directions, by 11.30, and with 46 km on the clock, I was knocking on the front door of their new house. Martin opened the door, chewing the last of his Sunday brunch. Carrie, was upstairs on the phone. Domestic normality. I was home.
I’ve joined the 21st Century again and re-activated my mobile phone – 07950 250983 Callers welcome – but at sensible hours please.
Happy Christmas to everyone.