Day 178 : My little China boat

High point: The Hoegh Beijing is 12 stories high!

Low point: Leaving the lovely Abela’s and beautiful NZ in a rush

No point: Steve talking to the Chinese crew in Chinglish, surely that makes him more difficult to understand!?

Sporting point: they have a basketball ring on deck, Steve is a very happy boy

Huge Fact : You can fit all the land in the entire world into the Pacific. It is that HUGE !!

As I write we have just boarded the Hoegh Beijing, our home for the next couple of weeks. We’re waiting to leave Auckland Port to cross the Pacific to Mexico. We need to leave the ship in Mexico and meet Martha in Grays Harbour on the west coast of the US. Due to the unprecedented nature of what we are doing, there are no USA customs procedures in place so attempting to disembark the ship in the USA could fail, the outcome; Martha is driven off the ship in the US… myself and Steve are stuck on the ship and head off towards Japan, not so cool! So Mexico for us, the USA for Martha. We have no real idea of where in Mexico we are getting off so fingers crossed it won’t be too nasty. A little adventure awaits. The good news… we still get to cross the Pacific and more importantly cross the date line and equator on board a ship! I believe there is a ceremony for both, wish us luck!

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Our departure came as a bit of a shock as we thought we’d be leaving tomorrow and hadn’t really mentally prepared ourselves. Initially the boat was late by two days then suddenly it was only a day. A quick dash down to the port, again not really knowing what we were doing as these boats don’t take passengers. Jamie and Kate waved us of as we crossed the port to meet our new home. So far the crew seem lovely, our room has a bed and a sofa (we’re going up in the world), we’ve located the ‘hobby room’ complete with pool table and exercise bikes and already spotted the karaoke machine!

We would all like to extend huge thanks to Partnership shipping for kindly donating complimentary shipping of Martha across the Pacific and giving myself and Steve the opportunity of a lifetime; crossing the Pacific by sea. Globalink Logistics have been magnificent YET again with New Zealand man on the ground, Scott Ellery, helping out this time.

I’m trying to be optimistic about our trip across the ocean, blocking out the inevitable sea sickness and boredom that we’ll soon be familiar with, and focusing on the plus points, I can’t think what they are at this moment in time but I’m sure they’ll come to me…

Amy

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