Being in a container port at night is like being in The Matrix. Huge machines work seemingly un-aided, loading and un-loading containers from ships, throughout the night. It’s not something that you normally get to see, but is critical to our transport infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Travelling on the container was a good experience, for a number of reasons. I got to see how the ship works, from the physical systems to the management hierarchy. I got fed well and didn’t need to do anything, other than amuse myself and fit in with the day-to-day workings of the ship. I got to learn a lot about how sailing a boat like Buxstar works, plus I got to meet the crew. It was also a good personal experience, as I got to cope with a long period at sea! This I managed to do without any medication, despite it being pretty choppy in parts.<\/p>\n
The journey was from Singapore to Fremantle (Perth) and would last 10 days. At least two of those days were spent sitting in ports, either in Singapore or Jakarta, but unlike my fellow passenger, David, I didn’t leave the ship at all during this time.<\/p>\n
My first impressions of the ship were roughly what I was expecting; the room was comfortable, I had a sitting room, a toilet and a shower and outside I almost even had my own balcony. Most things had a way of being tied down and there were rubber mats everywhere to stop things sliding around.<\/p>\n
Being on a container ship means that you are effectively treated as one of the crew. I got to see the engine room, go on to the bridge whenever I felt like it, walk around outside and sit in the crew recreation room. You eat with the officers and you have to take part in the emergency drills. Despite me taking 2 reading books, 5 new albums, an introductory guide to Chinese and a load of blog updates I had to do, I barely even started the reading books. Sticking to mealtimes, going outside and taking photos gave me plenty of entertainment.<\/p>\n
On the whole, the experience was very enjoyable. The sea was a bit rough in parts, mainly between Indonesia and Australia, but I got to see a lot, including Krakatoa, dolphins and flying fish. The crew were very friendly and they provided everything that I needed, including advice on how to deal with sea-sickness! I very much enjoyed my time on the ship and it was an important part of my round-the-world trip. Thanks to Buxstar and the crew, I had an even greater chance of making it to Australia (or New Zealand!) without flying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Being in a container port at night is like being in The Matrix. Huge machines work seemingly un-aided, loading and un-loading containers from ships, throughout the night. It’s not something that you normally get to see, but is critical to our transport infrastructure. Travelling on the container was a good experience, for a number of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-the-world-part-1"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":835,"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions\/835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomjay.co.uk\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}