Grey weather, photo stream, and good weather

Today (Saturday 9th) it has been a very grey day, with the wind and rain driving at us while we took bunkers.

I have borrowed Raj's internet usb stick so while I still have signal I thought I'd upload a few photos.

 Another nice one of the rescue man from the helicopter drill

 I've managed to find coke (sin cafeina) here.  UK?

Just like the average day at home - stopping to fill up with diesel...

 

This is just the leg part of crane in Bayonne - you can only just see me as it's so huge.

Raj and I in Bayonne, just going to Seamen's Club

Seamen's Club

Rough weather in Bayonne - the river was fairly wild.  Unfortunately photo doesn't really show much except the white horses.

Rocker covers off on disel generator for resetting tappets

Tightening up exhaust valve main nuts.  Last time I did this with Cristi, and they have to be torqued to 650Nm!

The only climbing I get to do here...

I've managed to get photos of some of the crew too.

This is Rocha - He's from Cape Verde, used to be in the army and can do a lot of martial arts.  He's very quick!  We speak in a mixture of pigeon English and Spanish.  He's been on six months already, and leaves the ship at beginning of December.

Marius on the left and Rocha on the right.  Marius is the Second Mate and is from Romania.  He is tired and overworked today!

Jose on the left, Kumar in the middle, and Rocha on the right.

Jose is from Cape Verde too, and speaks very good English.  He's worked for Carisbrooke for ten years now and does nine or ten months on ship at a time. Kumar is from India, he's one of the two Kumars we have on board!  The photo shows lunch on Carbonara day.  It's the best meal on ship.

Preetam on the left and Raj on the right.  Preetam is the second Kumar on the ship.  He's working as a deck cadet at the moment, but he has a ticket.  He did it a while ago, then didn't use it so he's refreshing before getting a job as Second or Third Mate.

As I lost internet shortly after I started writing this it has now been a few days and we're just about to leave La Coruna again bound for Bayonne.  The weather is sunny and hot, not like the UK I expect.  We had bunkers this morning and had a delivery of oil for the diesel generators too, so we've been able to enjoy a few minutes in the sun today.  Hopefully it won't get that cold in winter here. 

A few more photos below then I've got to post - signal is dying on the internet - again!

Dinner last night.  You're probably thinking, 'where is the veg'?  So am I...

Suez Canal Search Light that I restored to action - second one I've done now.  Needed stripping completely and rewiring, new sealing to stop it leaking etc etc

This morning in Port when we took bunkers.

 My cabin, post clean of course.  I'm not sure if Emily has emailed these to some of you already or not.

Using crane to get our diesel generator engine oil on board this afternoon.

Oh, and regarding the internet usb key I mentioned at the start.  The Chief Engineer and I now own 50% shares each in this.  As Raj is leaving soon he sold it to us, and so Chief and I have internet for each month for 17.50 euros each, with a 2gb limit.  Not too bad considering we’re on ship.