"Northern Magnitude" - passenger number 1! :)

 

 

The "Northern Magnitude" became my 9th containership within the Saga...and within my life for that matter. Something I've never thought about before is how much it means where and when a ship was built. Our planet went through a global financial crisis in 2007-09. It's still felt today in some places although the recent immense drop in oil prices is now the huge economic factor for many. You should know by now that the financial partner of the Saga has from day 1 been Ross Offshore (www.rossoffshore.no). As the name gives away they are in a business which makes them highly sensitive towards the prices on the oil market. But they continue to create a "deeper understanding" and I'm still privileged to feel their support. So we all owe Ross a huge THANK YOU for bringing the project this far.

 

The "Northern Magnitude" was built in South Korea back in 2003 which makes it a formidable ship! I've never seen an indoor pool on a ship before and this one even had a sauna! Wow! It apparently also handles well ;)

 

 

The crew onboard these ships are hard working and hardly have time for such luxury. But it certainly helps boost the spirit onboard. In my opinion the Captain is also paramount to the wellbeing of a crew. And this crew was amazing.

 

 

Out of the 9 ships I've seen, only two have been really large. This one was 300m long and could carry 6,967 containers! Think about that for a moment... That's 3 football fields floating at sea! I used to live in a twenty foot container 16 years ago. It was for a job and the containers we lived inside were created especially for the circumstances and hosted 3 men each. Now think about 6,967 containers!!

 

 

The "Northern Magnitude" carried me from Mauritius (country 116) to Durban in South Africa. They would have brought me all the way to Port Elizabeth which was their next port of call after Durban. But there was congestion at the port due to high wind speeds, which meant that the port cranes couldn't operate for 6 out of 8 days. The congestion started long before we arrived and the captain had naturally already been advised by the agent in Durban well in advanced. So at sea we drifted for a while. That means the captain gave orders to stop the engine at sea, so that we saved bunker (heavy fuel), which is good for the environment and for the ships economy as well. However, with our deliberate delay at sea, we still had to wait at anchorage for several days outside Durban. Everyday the captain would receive new notice about when we could come along side...and the day and time for that was pushed again and again...

 

 

You see, when your containerized cargo is delayed, its rarely due to the ship, but due to all sorts of outside circumstances. In this case the port of Durban was full of ships waiting to be unloaded and loaded, so at anchorage outside Durban it was much like a parking lot full of huge ships. A spectacular view! As the days went on I was eventually forced to leave the ship in Durban and not in Port Elizabeth which is much closer to Cape Town. Why did I so badly need to go to Cape Town? Well I'll keep that a secret for a little while longer. But I'm working on something big for the Saga and for all of you ;) Cape Town is well out of my way geographically. To be more exact it's 1,688km (1,049mi) in the wrong direction from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania which I'm trying to get back to.

 

 

For me personally, something extraordinary is currently going on within the Saga. We have successfully completed visiting the great island nations of Comoros, Madagascar, Seychelles and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean! It took two "soul sellers" (worn down minor ships) and 3 containerships. Two of the containerships were "Panama Class" and the last one was, as described above, much larger! Now I need to backtrack around 4,872km (3,027mi) over land to get us back on track. And I plan to due this via Victoria Falls in Zambia to revisit a good friend and to pick a route I'm familiar with.

 

 

I've already written much about being onboard containerships so I will not repeat myself, but instead share pictures with captions. You can use the "search function" on the top right of the webpage (www.onceuponasaga.dk) to find the other stories. 

 

And I cannot stress enough how much the kind cooperation of Maersk Line (www.maerskline.com), the worlds largest container shipping company, has meant to the success of doing what we have recently done.

 

And as a final note I must repeat that traveling on these ships as a passenger is highly unusual, a great privilege and not something you can easily repeat ;)