More cargo

Decks #1, 2, & 3 had the highest head room of the 11 decks and held all kinds of equipment that needed more space, including 8' tall containers and heavy machinery. Here on deck 3 right inside the ramp opening were two very familiar machines, a Caterpillar bulldozer going to Israel, and a John Deere crop sprayer going to Izmir Turkey. Interestingly enough, our experiences as Americans ashore in those two countries were exactly opposite. The Turkish people we met, including the security people at the port, were very friendly and helpful, whereas the Israeli officials we met were almost rude and very demanding. I just hope that bulldozer wasn't going to be used to destroy more homes and build more walls. As well as this bulldozer, on deck #3 near the ramp on the way from Antwerp to the Mediterranean Sea there were several huge New Holland tracked backhoes, a huge steel cylinder on two trailers, and several hundred 8' by 40' containers, filled with who knows what. 

Yes, the green paint of John Deere is getting seen all around the world. This is the sprayer that got off the ship in Izmir Turkey. We got off the ship there as well for a few hours after the Captain told us that we wouldn't be leaving for the next port of Limasoll Cyprus until late that night or early the next morning. So we got our shore passes (the ship's 3rd Deck Officer kept our passports locked in his safe almost the whole voyage), threaded our way through the forest of shipping containers between us and the front gate of the port, and headed off for town. On the way into the harbor we had seen through our binoculars a waterfront street that looked like it had some outdoor cafes along it, and indeed there was at least a half mile of nice but pricey waterfront resturaunts and sidewalk cafes, complete with chess sets and table top tap beer dispensers. The patrons were very young and stylishly dressed, with very few head scarves on the women. And this, we wondered, is a Muslim country? It is, but a fairly low-key form of Islam rules there, at least in its cities.

This is another import to Israel, a bomb-proof amoured personnel carrier, much like the ones we saw in South Africa in the 1970's. Behind it was a large front end loader, and in front of it was another piece of heavy machinery. The port of Ashdod Israel had two "duty-free" shops where the crewmen could shop if they had time to go ashore at all, but in most of the ports the crew worked all night long supervising the loading and unloading. And as far as we could see, most of what was sold in those duty-free shops was alcohol, cigarettes, and high priced perfume. But the biggest seller were the international telephone cards where you could get several hours of calling time anywhere in the world for about $16. The problem is that you had to use all those minutes in the country where you bought the card, so we saw long lines in front of the telephones that were outside the duty-free shops of crew members waiting for those on the phones to use up their minutes calling their families around the world. The Italian crew members all seemed to have cell-phones that would work anywhere in Europe as long as you were within sight of land and a cell phone tower. As soon a land was sighted when we crossed the Med crewmen would be seen up on the highest decks trying to see if they had any "bars" on their phones, and if they did then they were busy making calls home. Modern technology has made phoning easy, but you still can't use the internet from the ship, at least on the Grimaldi Line.

 

This big cylindrical object was one of two that were loaded at our last stop, Setubal Portugal. We saw it being loaded because we had to wait at the ramp for the Gramaldi Line's port agent to take us to the Portugese Immigration office so that we could enter the country and get ourselves to the Madrid airport for our flight home. As we said in our earlier post, Portugal was the other "most friendly" country we visited, from the officials we met at the Immigration office to the train and bus station attendants, and even just plain folks who were traveling and met us in the waiting rooms.