Even at 3am the humidity was impressive, and our lack of sleep was starting to tell. From our position outside the port we could make out our ship quite clearly, potentially even our very bedroom which we longed to stagger into. An hour later the agent returned to take us inside, the customs official wiped the sleep from his eyes and took our passports, casually flicking through trying to find our Costa Rica entry stamps without a hope in such dim light. Leaning on the bonnet of the rusty car he stamped us out of the country.
We made our way over to the MV Bonavia and climbed the surprisingly sturdy gangway onto the ships deck. A member of the crew met us at the top and led us into the ships office, where we were introduced to two of the Bonavia's officers who needed to inspect our bags, even though they conceded we didn't look like traditional smugglers (I'd left my eye patch at home). After discovering nothing more incriminating than a few bags of coffee we were shown to our cabin, high up the ships tower, where we finally passed out.
Without much to do the following day except a brief tour of the tower structure and some safety instructions, I decided to take a stroll on the dock so that I could get some exterior short of the boat. I popped down to the office to ask permission. "One moment please sir, I must check with the master" said the steward. When he returned I was granted permission, with the important caveat that I must wear a hard hat at all times, and given what had just happened I must take extra care. Except nobody mentioned what had just happened.
I made my way down to the dock and began hunting for suitable angles to snap the ship. As I made my way about, carefully checking for moving vehicles and cranes I discovered what had just occurred. From the look of the scene in front of me there had been a terrible accident, it appeared as though somehow a container had been dropped on top of a stevedore. Several men stood about, some obviously in shock, while men in uniforms took statements, just yards away from a blood soaked blanket. I decided to return to the ship at this point, docks are dangerous places at the best of times and the last thing this poor man's colleagues needed to see was a snap-happy tourist waving his camera about.
Later we met the captain and asked him for the details. He explained that the crane drivers are often unsighted when moving the containers around, relying on radio instruction from the ground. In this case, one of the men on the ground, an experienced stevedore in his sixties, had dropped his hard hat underneath a descending container and dived under to retrieve it. It's little consolation, but everyone felt terribly sorry for the man, his family and of course the unfortunate crane driver.
Because of the investigation into the accident, all loading work stopped for several hours,and the crew spent the time preparing for the voyage, so we didn't have much of an opportunity to interact with anyone. Having experienced this before, we knew there would be plenty of time to meet everyone on the voyage, so we just relaxed in the cabin with our books, enjoying having our own room alongside use of the captains lounge and his private kitchen.
The following morning we were woken by the smell of bacon being cooked - five floors below us. We threw our clothes on and ran downstairs, enticed by the prospect of proper bacon (we're fed up of the American, glass-like bacon out here). Whilst we were tucking in two tugs began attaching lines to the Bonavia, and by the time we returned to our cabin we were leaving the port of Moin behind us. Within minutes the ship was bouncing around on the waves, and we both realised we were going to "feel" this voyage a lot more than onboard the Miami. Looking out of the porthole you could clearly see the ship dip, then ride the wave, then dip suddenly again. We moved a surprising amount considering how calm the sea looked.
Still trying to recover from the effects of our last night only land, we couldn't muster up enough enthusiasm to explore the ship, and it was too rough to wander to the bow anyway, so we spent most of our first day at sea in the cabin. We had two singles beds and a small seating area, as well as a small shower and toilet. It wasn't quite as luxurious as the Miami, and the interior decor as bit dated (the ship was built in 1995) but still more than sufficient for our needs.
As darkness fell over the Caribbean sea the wind and waves picked up again, we were both woken several times during the night as the Bonavia lurched awkwardly, causing us to roll, or objects in our cabin to fall. It wasn't quite a storm, but more than enough to hint at the power of the waves. By the time we woke, nearly lunchtime, we were both nursing sore muscles from all the movement in the night. I was starting to turn a little "green" but some food made me feel better.
Then next couple of days passed peacefully enough, we fell into a routine based around the daily meal times (breakfast: 7am; lunch: midday; dinner: 5pm). On our third day at sea we spotted land through our cabin porthole, the island of Hispaniola (one third Haiti, two thirds Dominican Republic), and prepared for our first stop at Puerto Caucedo. As the afternoon turned into evening the lights on land shone like little beacons, so we put on our shoes and prepared our wallets. We were a little premature, however, not landing until nearly 8pm. By the time we had docked, and customs had cleared the ship it was gone 9pm, and no-one could give a definite answer as to what time the ship would leave.
Rather than spend 100 dollars for a taxi into Santo Domingo, we joined the Captain, his assistant, and the Port Agent on a dash to a supermarket. We were given shore leave passes as if we were crew, so the five of us raced down the gangway into the agent's pick-up truck. We sped through the modern, surprisingly well equipped port (more like a smaller version of Busan than dirty, dangerous Moin), showed our shore leave passes to the officials and raced out into the darkness. The Port Agent, our driver, constantly fingering his Blackberry whilst steering (I've noticed all Port Agents never seem to leave their phones alone).
We reached the Supermarket 30 minutes before closing, so while the captain and his assistant sped around grabbing all the fresh vegetables in sight, we did likewise in the soft drink and snack aisles. Without the time to evaluate our purchases we ended up with $40 of junk, but fortunately I had enough money left to lend the Captain $30 to pick up some cigars he had been hankering after, he'd maxed out his card on two entire trolleys of fresh food.
By the time we returned to the Bonavia the container operations were well under way. We fell asleep to the sound of mechanical cranes lifting and dropping those great metal boxes. Until we were woken briefly but abruptly at 5am when a random alarm sounded. As we staggered out into the hallway, our bleary eyed and half-dressed shipmates told us we could go back to bed, it was a false alarm. When we awoke naturally we had left the Dominican Republic behind us, and were once again bobbing about on the Caribbean.
We didn't see land again for another two days. For some reason I had imagined we would constantly be spotting little islands, trying to guess their names. Instead we'd spent most of our time reading. But eventually we were able to watch with curiosity as the mountainous, green island of Martinique fell into focus, appearing far larger than I had expected it to. Over dinner the Captain explained that we were not due to land until the next day, but he invited us onto the bridge to watch him "park"the boat.
Up six flights of stairs (not easy after a heavy dinner) the Captain was receiving his instructions from the port authorities through his radio, then issuing commands to a junior seaman stood at the wheel. We watched from the front as a huge raincloud enveloped the land, hiding it from our view, before creeping over the ship too. The rain lashed against the bridge reducing visibility considerably, thankfully the GPS equipment did it's job.
As soon as the anchor had been dropped the Captain excitedly asked us if we liked fishing, and told us to head down to the back of the ship. By the time we got there several of the crew and officers had already cast their lines out and were fighting over the best spaces. Someone had rigged a light so that it shone just above the surface of the water, and an optimist had already fetched the ice box from the galley.
Marco, the third officer, gave us his line as he was due to report on duty, so we took it in turns to try our luck. It was a crude form of line we used, but not without it's merits as Gemma landed two fish on her first attempt. I wasn't so successful, reeling in a large tangled mess of seaweed (and getting the line all caught up in knots), but perseverance paid off and I eventually caught myself a red snapper.
Amongst the Philippine crew members the fishing got quite competitive, with several lines becoming tangled during the proceedings, but everyone laughed, drank beers and shared in each others success - particularly as the Cook had promised to rustle up something special for lunch the next day. On top of our normal large portions he prepared us a whole Philippine style fish each, which was delicious, but there wasn't much of it because of the size of fish we'd caught.
An hour after lunch we docked at Port Pointe de Grive on the outskirts of Fort de France. Strangely the customs officials didn't even bother with the boat, so the Port Agent drove us downtown without any hassle. It wasn't how I'd imagined a French Caribbean town to look. There were odd touches of colonial France such as the pastel coloured shutters on windows, and splashes of the Caribbean like the Rastafarian themed t-shirts for sale, but somehow I felt the capital of Martinique was disappointingly ugly when viewed up close, it felt a little unloved, a forgotten outpost.
I wondered whether this changed the moment a cruise ship was spotted on the horizon. Does someone run around removing the graffiti whilst his friend repaints the shutters to look more like the postcards, and yet more people begin setting up stalls selling coconut or seashells in the grey expanse of the concrete car park. Does travelling in the way we are, as the only two passengers on the only cargo ship to arrive that day, give you the chance to see a town with it's proverbial pants down? Not that I either want, nor expect a town to put on a show for me. I just didn't feel any of the charm that has supposedly made Martinique a playground for the rich and famous.
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