All Aboard!

"Attention Africa Mercy Ship. This is your Captain..." That's how it always starts.

For the last few days, as you may have read before, things have been getting crazy here, what with preparing to sea. The galley (as well as everywhere else on the ship) has been tying up and crating smaller, moveable objects to prepare for open sea. There have been several drills in the last couple of days, where we have mustered in our assigned areas, gathered our life jackets and practiced going towards our life boats.

This morning (Thursday), we are finally ACTUALLY departing! The Deck 3 gangway, for commercial goods and workers, stayed in place until the last minute while the Deck 5 gangway was folded up. The last part of it was then unhitched from the ship while it was pulled to the top deck of the ship with a crane which is part of the top deck.

Friends that had been made while in port came to wave goodbye and the bowlines and aftlines were systematically released. (And yes, there were actually more friends to wave than just these few gentlemen.)

One of the last views of the dock where the ship has been since early September, 2010, when it arrived in Durban for extensive updates and repairs.

A port pilot joined the ship as we were leaving. He belongs to the Port of Durban and must be on any unfamiliar ship entering or leaving the port. If he is not allowed to board and direct the foreign ship while in his port, the ship is not allowed to enter and dock. The ship is also escorted by 2 tugboats. As the Africa Mercy enters the open sea, the tugboats leave us and the port pilot is picked off the top deck of our ship by a local helicopter. Everyone not involved in the pickup was ordered inside the ship in case something were to go wrong with the helicopter. After the pilot was picked up, the ship was considered at sea and the port went back to its regular activities. So did we.

In the meantime, most of the ship went out and watched the departure of the ship through the port itself. The first photo is a postcard of the port with the white, folded paper indicating where we were docked during repairs. From this photo, you can see how far we had to go through the entire port in order to get to sea.

On our way out we passed numerous other local and foreign ships and the rest of the city of Durban:

a grain ship -

scrap metal -

Wilson's Wharf, a little port shopping/eating center (like a small Seaport Village) -

a car carrier -

more of I don't know exactly what, from I don't know where -

and one of the beaches I didn't get to visit while I was here. This was just before we hit open sea.

We will be at sea for 2 - 3 days until we reach Cape Town, which is the southern tip of Africa. We should have about 24 hours there to shop or see the sights.

Catch you later, when we get there...