Quick London Run

Didn’t think that I’d be updating this blog again so soon, but here goes. I was in London recently for a quick trip. I was invited to apply for a sponsored internship to attend an environmental planning workshop hosted by Nauru Ocean Minerals Inc (NORI). The original venue was Ghent, Belgium, however it was changed to London following the Paris attacks and ensuing raids in Belgium.

I was only told on the Monday that I had been selected to attend, which was really short notice considering I left the Wednesday of the following week.

So off to London I went armed with rum and sweet treats for my cousins, whom I’d be seeing at some point.  I don’t know if those trans-Atlantic fights (15hrs) earlier in the year between New York and South Africa (en route to Namibia) broke me in, but I felt like we reach London quick! 

Once I arrived in London I made my way over to and onto the Gatwick Express. This service takes you directly in to the centre of London in 30 mins. I was once again back in jolly old England; except that there’s not much that jolly about England in December! I then took one of those typical London black cabs to my hotel... And what a hotel it was. I was booked into the London Marriott County Hall, and all I can say is location, location, location!!! The entrance to the hotel is right off Westminster bridge. Step outside and I could see Big Ben and Westminster Palace across the bridge. Look out my window, and there was the London Eye!! The location really could not have been much better; right on the Thames. Easy access to all the action.

View from my hotel room window

My face when I see the view from my room window

I had gotten in early enough that I figured that I would be able to walk about and explore a great deal still that day, however jet lag had other ideas for me. I was only able to bestir myself when the pangs of hunger roused me. I was then finally able to get it together and hit the road. I really didn’t have to go far, as I mentioned before, just a couple steps and I was in front of the London Eye and all the Southbank activity.

Boom baby!!

Namibia!! Part 2- Cross Country Adventures!

Day 4

The first stop of the day was the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Otjiwarango. We got there in time to experience a cheetah run (before the sun got too hot and they would prefer to chill out than run). I'll just have you know that there are no fences or barriers between us and the Cheetahs during the video below....

We were standing RIGHT there as they ran past. The cheetahs could easily come right up to sniff us if the were so inclined. Thankfully they were not!

The primary goal of the centre, as their name suggests, is conservation of cheetahs. One of the strategies they are currently employing is raising special puppies to defend livestock. These puppies (Anatolian Working Dogs) are raised with sheep or goats. They will then be sent to farms where they will then protect their "family" from cheetahs. Cheetahs tend to be non-confrontational and as such these big dogs intimidate them. They don't attack the flocks, and the farmers don't shoot them: they live to see another day. huzzah!

PGee and I were quite taken with the affable pups and spent a few minutes cuddling them.

 Then this happened....

Yes, the goat in question is attempting to eat my hair. I was not amused.

We spent a few moments exploring their museum before lunch. After which of course we had to hit the road again right away... I think you may be picking up on a pattern here; our scheduling was verrrry tight most days. Impossibly so some of the time I must say.

We were then on our way to the famous Etosha National Park!!

We had a few moments to observe the wildlife at a water hole and then we were off again.

Elephants!!!!

Springbok

On the way up we finally spotted rhinos!

Namibia! Part 1- Hello Mama Africa!

The government of Namibia invited World and Olympic sprint champion Ambassador Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce and her husband, Jason, for an official visit to their nation. Myself and three other friends (Peta-Gay, Serika and Nicolle), as well as Shelly's social media admin Sherie, comprised the remainder of her delegation. Shelly has been a friend of mine since our days at Wolmer’s Trust High School for Girls. So no, she didn’t just up and invite me on this trip out of nowhere (in response to the “So how you get to travel with Shelly?" questions usually asked with a tone of the utmost incredulity). :p

Airport Welcome

When we landed in Windhoek, everyone was dying to stretch out a bit, freshen up a bit etc. Little did we know what was awaiting us. As we stepped off the plane: cameras, people cameras, noise, excitement! We were met by a sizable party on the tarmac and quickly whisked away into a press conference. We hardly knew what was happening. There were welcome speeches from government officials, Shelly had to speak, dancing, photos- and all while we were also trying to sort out luggage and immigration details behind the scenes. All on the heels of a nearly 15 hour flight from NYC to Johannesburg and then another 2 hour flight to Windhoek!!

Following that we were again whisked away in luxury vehicles into the city for a motorcade around Windhoek’s downtown (during which, I'll admit, I fell asleep), and then impromptu visit to Namibia’s parliament. (Still hadn’t had a chance to eat or freshen up at this point). 

By the end of it  all, I believe we were a little zombie –like. That is until we entered the gates of Gocheganas nature reserve!! ... And almost immediately saw a giraffe. That excitement was short-lived as it took nearly another 10 minutes to actually get to the hotel.

Hello Mama Africa!!

We examined the rooms, which were quite fab I must say. I was particularly enamored with the outdoor shower! Took a peek of the view from the patio just in time to see a warthog scuttle by. We had been told that a few of us would be able to receive massages if we made it down to the spa in time before they closed off. You know who did!! It was just what was needed after 2 days of non-stop activity. After the massage I went for a swim in the indoor heated pool which had an amazing view.

 We were supposed to have dinner in the city that night, but thankfully it was cancelled (the resort is about 45mins out of town). That night was P Gee’s birthday and so we had a nice dinner together at the resort restaurant, and she was surprised with a cake. At dinner I had the first of several experiments with new game meat. I chose a Hartebeest steak as my main. Quite yummy!

Happy Birthday P Gee!

Ok guys.... I initially wanted to write up this trip in the way that I usually do. However there is just so much to say that I fear  I might never finish it. So I’m going to try a slightly different approach. I will focus on the pictures and write some narrative around them.

Day 2

First thing we had our first taste of safari with the morning's game drive.

Safari Chic

Final Post!: Last Days At Sea And A Bit More Mauritius

Finally got around to completing my record of this trip. Firstly I will show you this:

Yes, that's me... and a colossal Moray eel. I will come back to that later in the post, but you're hooked in now right? :p

April 23rd

Getting information around here has been difficult sometimes. The language barrier has caused me to miss a few notifications, and then there are just some times when they just forget to tell me things! For instance, I knew that I had to submit a report to the Seabed Authority once the cruise was over, but nobody told me (until yesterday) that I had to submit one here (to the chief scientist) as well!!! Luckily I had made a start on the other report so I wasn't caught with my pants completely down. Also, I just found out in casual conversation a couple days ago that we actually get moved to a hotel when we get back to harbour until we leave. Yeah!

Grr... found out that I still have duty somewhat even though we've completed the prescribed work. I don't have to be physically in the dungeon all morning anymore, but I'll still have to come down here and record. Also, we still have to stay on the ship till the 30th, as opposed to moving to the hotel on 29th when we dock. *sigh*. Not to mention, we're actually getting back a day early, but we can't dock till the 29th. So we'll be able to see dry land, but won't be able to get off!

April 25th

In the afternoon we took a lot of group photos up on deck.

Scientific Staff and Officer Corps aboard the 4th leg aboard RV Da Yang yi Hao's 2015 cruise

Later in the afternoon we had fun making hundreds of Chinese dumplings which would later serve as dinner.

 The problem was, I'd noticed that cabbage was one of the things that caused my tummy some trouble, so I had been avoiding even smelling it. The main filling in the dumplings was chopped cabbage with garlic, and then shrimp as the meat. As such I decided to only eat a few so that it wouldn't cause me any problems. Dumplings were the only item on the menu for dinner that night. My friend Cou, one of the senior engineers, took pity on me, and that was how I ended up at a private party! I had no idea it was even going on. In another dining room the captain, chief scientist, and most of the other senior people on the ship were present. They had a whole feast going on with about fifteen dishes or so. Everyone was interested in having me try various Chinese wines, and then there was all the toasting- even I gave one. I think I may have had a wee bit too much to drink. Let's just say I had a very deep sleep that night.

Life at Sea Part 3

April 11th

Ever been in a situation where you are given something to eat, you have no idea whatsoever what it is, but you eat it anyway because the alternative is to go hungry? No? Well I have. lol. God alone knows whatever it was that the chef gave me last night. I know it may seem like I've been talking a lot about the food but honestly I've come to dread meal times a little. To me, a lot of the food is quite salty, even the veggies, so I feel my stomach isn't quite happy about some of the changes. I realized something else was wrong, because I wasn't seasick anymore, but I still felt uncomfortable at times. I've now learned what to avoid eating ( I KNEW the food had something to do with it!) and that has made a huge difference in how I feel in general.

Finally got some good weather again so I took the chance to do some laundry. Yay fresh clothes!!! I had hand washed some in the meantime, but hanging them up in my room was no good. Hanging them to dry on the lines on one of the decks is so much better!

Today a lot of time was spent trying to recover a piece of equipment that had been deployed to the sea floor on a previous leg of the cruise. It's supposed to come back to the surface once it receives an acoustic signal from the ship. Supposed to.... Put it this way, they started looking for it at about midday, and at 8 pm it still hadn't been recovered. Lost cause for tonight, hopefully it turns up early tomorrow.

April 12th

Finally got around to snapping the cat! He's gotten very bold now. At first he just used to stay on the decks, but now he's making himself comfortable inside more often. Here he's in the computer lab rubbing up on one of the seats. They better hope he doesn't have any fleas!  

Brazen Kitty

Today is more or less the half way point! Yippee!! I'm grateful to be here, and I love the sea, but I'll be happy when I'm back on land. Hardcore mariner I am not. It's all fine and dandy during the good days, but during bad weather?.... Another story entirely. I've been told that this weather is on the milder side of what the ocean can really get up to at times out here. 

I was speaking to one of the officers and he's usually at sea for around 260 days of the year.... 260/365..... I know I couldn't do it. He told me he tells himself that he's strong. For some of the scientists, this is their second consecutive leg.

One of the things that has been a huge change is the isolation. With no internet, there is really no way of keeping up with the world at the level I'm used to. News? Google? hah! Social Media? - What's that again? There are so many little things we take for  granted. Something occurred to me randomly one day and I wanted to double check it. Usually Google would be my friend in this case, but nope, none of that here. Granted, even if we did have the internet, this is a Chinese vessel, so some things would probably have been blocked anyway. You also realize that there are many people who live like this all the time. That is, in blissful ignorance of what's really going on, and not just those on ships in the middle of nowhere.

Speaking of the middle of nowhere, it occurred to me the other night that if anything really serious were to happen, we'd be in serious trouble. let me show you were we were...

Location of the South West Indian Ridge (SWIR)

Life at Sea - Part 2

April 2nd

Oh what I wouldn't give for a juicy burger right now! Or some Fried Chicken with curry gravy! Or a piece of Easter Bun! Fried dumplings!!!!! Random choices I know, but see with me, I'm dreaming here.

April 3rd

Last night I went fishing; Or rather squidding, if that's a thing. I went up to the bridge to visit one of my officer friends on duty. He pointed out to me several lines cast off the starboard side of the ship. I had wondered before if anyone actually did any fishing; there was my answer. Some guys actually caught some!

I doubt they will go to waste. I strongly suspect they might turn up in a meal somewhere. I didn't stay long as I hadn't planned to be there and had some other things to do, but I think I'll go back some other night.

April 6th

The days tend to blur here. It hardly matters what day of the week it is. What is a weekend? lol. There's work to be done and so it's done. The only marked difference is that there is a little extra at Sunday dinner (the coca-cola, beer and extra dish I mentioned).

This Sunday dinner was a disaster for me, even with the extra dish, there was nothing, nothing that I wanted to eat. My chef friend was most distressed on my behalf.

Life at Sea - Part 1

I wrote these updates while I was at sea, but since I had no internet access, I wasn't able to post them at the time. The next few posts record tidbits during the course of my 6 weeks on my life on board a vessel.

March 26th- 27th

Parting Shot- No land again for 6 weeks!!

I will refer to these as the lost days. Days that I spent mostly horizontal feeling very sorry for myself. Days when just the slightest whiff from the kitchen made me feel like hurling myself off the side. Days where I was subsisting on mainly bread and yoghurt and the mere thought of going to eat would upset me. Days when I really wondered what I had gotten myself into.....

 You may be thinking but heyyyyyy you got to eat Chinese food everyday! Awesome! Welllll let me stop you right there. I was to learn very quickly that everyday Chinese food is not what we know and love as Chinese food. Let's not even get into the mystery meat that would make an appearance ever so often.  There was a struggle. Once we hit the open ocean, I think my body had too much to adapt to at once and started to rebel, which as you can imagine did not end pleasantly for me. I think the change in food, even more so than seasickness itself was causing me to feel ill. At first I thought hmmm maybe I'll lose weight on this diet. That soon changed to hmm maybe I'll get hypertension instead (the food sometimes tended to be a little salty to my may taste- very salty at times actually) . Then there was even hmm.... I might just waste away and die! Luckily, the latter option did not come to pass. I may in fact have to check out that hypertension thing though. I had been to sea before so I expected my sea legs to return more quickly than they did, but I really think the food was a major contributor to my discomfort.

Out and About in Mauritius Part 2

General Observations

I'll start off this post with some general observations about Mauritius. There were really sometimes that it reminded me of home. I suppose there are some threads of small island life that will be similar wherever you go. For instance,  I don't know if this is an island people thing or what, but Mauritians sure seem to love their KFC. Just like in JA, they dot the landscape.

Maurituius is an interesting place. From what I observed, there is quite a dynamic racial mix, with Indian ancestry far and away being most dominant. However, the mix is such that on more than one occasion, I was assumed to be Mauritian and addressed in the creole. Speaking of Indian descent, as a side note, I did spend some time thinking about the money I could possibly make exporting hair back home from there. With so many women of Indian descent, it's a bit of a weave lover's paradise. Hey, hair is big business in Jamaica, it could work. lol . The people are also multi-cultural and have multiple faiths. I saw lots of women walking around in traditional Indian garb ( Kurtas, Salwar, Sari etc) and Hindu temples, Churches and Mosques alike all over.

Almost everyone that I encountered was multi-lingual. French, English and the local French- based creole are the dominant languages. In fact, I think it would be a little difficult to properly navigate life there without at least some basic knowledge of  both French and English. When you drive along, billboards, road signs etc are either in French or English. Supermarket labels tended to be French. I noticed that people would most likely address you in French first. I hadn't actually practised speaking any of the French I picked up while living in Bordeaux for the longest while, but I was happy to note that I remembered far more than I thought I did, which was very helpful.

Diving day - Trou Aux again and Grand Baie

The next day took me back to Trou Aux Biches; the Negril like beach I mentioned. By the way, there is actually work related to this trip guys, I promise that's coming up :). My bunkmate and a couple of the engineers wanted to try out diving. Of the five of us that set out (including Tiphaine), only one had ever gone diving before, and I was the only one who was licensed. The others were complete novices.

This time we took public transportation to get to the beach.

Bus Time!

Out and About in Mauritius Part 1

Out and about in Mauritius

The evening of my arrival, I was told by one of my roommates that there was to be an excursion the next day. The only details I got were that it involved an island off the coast of Mauritius. I decided to jump on it; at least I would get to see a bit more of Mauritius than the port!

Ile Aux Cerfs

After a bus ride of a little over an hour and hammering out some detail with the tour operator, we took a speedboat en route to the Ile Aux Cerfs, which as I mentioned,  is an island off the Eastern coast of Mauritius and a popular tourist spot. 

The boat captain first took us as part of our tour to a waterfall, which was pretty neat. 

On the way back out the channel, we noticed some Macaques chilling in the trees on one bank. The captain asked if we had any fruit and someone turned up some apples. I offered mine and she gladly accepted. Here's the shot to prove it...

Getting to Mauritius

In 2014, I was selected by the International Seabed Authority for a training programme aboard a Chinese research vessel in the Indian Ocean. The ship departed from Mauritus in March 2015 and returned to same at the end of April . These next few blog posts chronicle my time in Mauritius as well as my 6 week stint at sea.

Getting There

So for those of you who had been following my previous blog ( Ren In Europe ),  you may have noticed that I almost never have what could be considered a normal trip. Somewhere along the way, the bizarre usually creeps in. Luckily enough on this trip we can get it out of the way early, right off the bat. A woman was arrested on my flight to London. I kid you not. Apparently she had been creating quite the disturbance which included a strip show as well as some indecent exposure).  Based on where I was sitting I didn't realize half of what was going on around there, but if you would like to read further, you're in luck, my lady made the news.