The sun is shining and there is a slight breeze and we’re miserable! We weren’t loaded Sunday, our original load day, and we weren’t loaded yesterday, our second load date and we will NOT be loaded today. Tomorrow there will be boats left to load. We are supposed to be loaded tomorrow. At this point when isn’t as much of a concern as "if" though the loadmaster seems very confident that we’ll all be loaded. He finally came around yesterday to look at the keel of some of the remaining boats. About bloody time! He may be a great loadmaster, and thankfully he seems to be, but he definitely feels no need to communicate any type of reassurances to the cruisers; updates come from other cruisers and that’s about it. He did tell us that we would be lifted by our loading rings rather than the way other boats are being lifted so we don’t have to take down our front headstay. We’re guessing that might mean we’ll go last if they have to change rigging to do it. They won’t want to change things and then change them back for the other boats even though on the paper list we should be first. Thursday is the last day to fly and get the cheaper group rate. Friday is the last day of our check-out time after which we are here without permission. Friday port offices are closed. Best case scenario is that we’re loaded early enough on Thursday to fly out Thursday night with the group ticket rate. Next best scenario is that we fly out Friday morning and pay an additional $100 per ticket. If we miss that we may have to wait until Saturday and then extend our visa…and who knows. But all that will be acceptable if we at least get loaded. Randal seems fairly confident and I guess I am too but not 100%. We’re not even thinking about the possibility of not being loaded because that’s just too awful to contemplate. We have no Plan B. And really there’s no reason to think we will need it. Actually I just really want to stop thinking about it at all. We will get everything totally ready for our load tomorrow. That’s all we can do at this point.
We have taken down all of our shade canvas so it’s pretty hot during most of the day. We have taken up our dinghy so can’t go anywhere, partly because the loading order kept being changed so you just never knew if they would call. My Internet card expires tomorrow just to add to the level of uncertainty. Randal has some on his time card but not much so we’re saving it to make our hotel reservation in Istanbul when we actually know we’ll be going. This morning the remaining boats are discussing what will happen today and all the info is coming from cruisers and not from the loadmaster. The Netherlands office of Seven Stars has reassured us that no one will be left behind and that is reassuring. Their office actually caused some of the problem by taking on too much cargo for the hold so the ballast containers have to sit on the deck taking up enough room to make the loading of the yachts like a very tight puzzle. After they are loaded then they have to be moved again into a tighter fit. Also, it appears that one yacht will have to be loaded on top of the ballast containers! With a good CAD program and a bit less greed this all could have been avoided. You would think they would have planned to have too much space given the odd shapes of boats and rigging.
As I said in an earlier email, this time next week we should be in Istanbul and we should. And I guess we won’t miss the cold weather there because Randal received an email from cruisers already there and heavy coats are being worn by the Istanbulites, I think that’s what they’re called.
So that’s where things stand. We’re down to about 6 slices of bread, peanut butter, one apple, some cranberry juice and lots of canned stuff neither of us really wants. At least we have water. Some yachts have almost run out and their watermakers have been shut down to prepare for disuse over the next several weeks. Ours is shut down too because it has been "Pickled" and to use it after that would be a major production. But we have lots of water so we’re ok and have offered some to others. Our friends on Voyager are just speaking with us now asking if they can do anything for us. We’ve just decided to go with them to Hulhumale for lunch and just to get off the boat which will be great!
So that’s it.
Ru