Days 147-151 : Like ships in the night

High Point : Scoring 100% on the karaoke machine (those things never lie)

Low Point : Never really getting my sea legs

Favourite Deck : 5

Favourite Side of the Boat : Starboard

Number of times we eat rice each day : 3

Caffeine intake in 9 days : 1 cup of tea

Find of the week : box of broken biscuits on the bridge

Error of the week : only finding out on the penultimate day that tea (with cake) is served at 3pm

Sing it loud and sing it proud : There have been plenty of very random and surreal moments of this trip. Remembering back to Stage 1, Ben Battye would often look at me and simply mutter the word “random”.  4 months on the randomness of FTFE does not let up as we find ourselves in even more peculiar situations. The surreal stakes were upped on Sunday : “Funday Sunday”. Everyone get’s a little excited on board the great ship LeMans on Sundays as the evening always ascends into Karaoke. Certainty a situation where you have to pinch yourself as you sit on board a cargo ship in the middle of the sea singing karaoke with 22 Filipinos. What makes it even more Magic-FM-tastic is the song choices, they do enjoy a good old love song with the majority of tracks coming from artists like Chris DeBurgh, Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, Ricky Martin and Celion Dion. Like SingStar the Karaoke machine scores the singer on how well he (or she) nailed the song. This is the hook that kept me up far too late but worth it when just as the Captain and Chief Engineer were off to bed I scored the perfect 100 with the Wonder of You by the King!! Back of the net!

B-Ball : Offloading some cargo in Melbourne allowed part of deck 5 to be cleared out, which meant there was room for what everyone had been waiting for, a basketball court! One of the cadets fixed up the board and before dinner for the past few days we have headed down to deck 5 for a bit of prison rules B-Ball. Awesome. Great to get a sweat on (and it means doing laps of the boat is not needed luckily as the weather has closed in). 2 hours of basketball on a ship is certainty a different experience as the boat moves a lot, which makes the game a little more interesting. New skills whilst living on the boat : playing sport in a room that is constantly moving.

A Day In  A Life : Living on a cargo ship is a strange old sausage. The confined space (nobody really ventures outside) at first makes you a little crazy but then you settle into a routine and drift off along on auto-pilot. Yes we were sick but it would have been a very tough experience if it wasn’t for the 22 super chaps that crew the LeMans. They welcomed two outsiders into their world with open arms. For the ping pong, basketball, karaoke, tours of the engine room and bridge, random chats and not goading us for our sea sickness, THANK YOU!!

NAPA (by Partnership Shipping Global) : Your very generous gesture to provide the fire engine and crew with complimentary passage across the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean is crazy kind, especially in a tricky time for shipping.  Driving and shipping a silly red truck around the world is an expensive challenge, one that is only viable with the donation of services by people like NAPA. We are super proud to be a a very unique expedition where all monies received go to the charities.

If you like our blogs, please do remember the reason why we’re doing all this, you can donate online at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/FollowThatFireEngine

Stephen 100% Moore

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