I’m two and a half weeks into my trip (well, just over two really, but who’s counting ❓ ) We’ve left the african sun behind us now and we’re headed back to the UK. We’ve just finished a two day stop-over in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. We took on some fuel, and changed out the damaged main lift wire on the ships 150Tonne crane. We left the port early this evening and we’re scheduled to be in Newcastle on the 28th of December. It’s funny really, a lot of britons come to Las Palams on holiday at this time of year, for a bit of winter sun.. and it did nothing but rain for the two days we were there ❗ I’m glad work is paying me to be here, I would have hated to have paid for a holiday and had that weather 😆 Anyway we’re on our way now, with the usual reduced crew that we have on-board for a transit. Only about 30 of us instead of the usual 99. The ships crew have put up the decorations in the mess hall and recreation room and I suppose it is looking a bit festive.. but I think we’d all rather be at home ❗ We have a lot of maintenance and re-fit work to get done in the next week, but with just the ‘technical’ crew on, with no grown-ups or project people to bother us, we should be able to get everything done and ready to roll as soon as we reach Newcastle. With the way that the schedule is planned for when we arrive in Newcastle, I may end up with my next crew-change being a couple of days earlier than expected, so with that in mind, I’m just about halfway through the trip. I guess that the eary crew-change is a little consolation for missing Christmas and New Year at home 😆
