A necessary update

After many days in somewhat constant internet and telephone shadow, I have found my way back to the blog and to the internet reality. Our schedule doesn't suit my need for web surfing since I am at work during two arrivals/departures of three each day, and during the last mentioned, I am enjoying my beauty sleep. But today we have been moored in Trelleborg all the day, a circumstance which has given me some free time in front of the computer. Therefore, this will be a long update with some photos from the last week. Because, as you will see, even though I do not have access to the internet, I have done my homework concerning the photographing part. The weather has been mostly bad, just the constant wet gray tones which I have got really tired of by this moment, so instead of beautiful views over the sea and the harbors, I have focused on some documentation of the ship and the daily work.

2nd mate caught me working

Photo: Fredrik Schrewelius

The first picture in this blog post is one that I did not take by myself. Instead, the 2nd mate who was a designated camera holder while I was checking the railing's position in relation to the bow ramp while lowering the ramp/opening the estonia port, took the opportunity to capture me while working. As you can see, I'm wearing a comfy bodysuit (winter coverall) in beaver nylon, which is by far the most well invested money I have spent on a article of clothing the last months. Well, the coverall and my winter working boots shares the top position together, I hate to freeze.

The bulb bow in the frosty Rostock waters

As you can see above, the winter still holds us in its hands, and I can't see any change on that front in the foreseeable future. Tonight the weather reports has promised us storm with winds up to 28 meters per second, so I have to secure my cabin for the sea's temperament before I go to bed this night.

Before I leave the photos from the bow, I take the chance to show you one HDR photo I took from the inside. It was a little bit difficult to keep the camera steady for all the three different exposures, so I cheated a bit, but I think the result still turned out quite good.

HDR details from the bow

Among seafarers photography is a very common hobby. Don't ask me why, maybe it is because we tend to visit more exotic places than people do in general, or it is because of the fact that we don't have anything better to do with our spare time onboard :) One important detail in the camera bag as a photographing seafarer is a massive tele lens to capture all the ships and seabirds around you. Unfortunately, I am not in possession of one of those lenses, so I have to improvise and take photos through the binocular to get that 7 times zoom. Or I can just borrow the tele lens from one of the 2nd mates, that is way more easier. But, to be completely honest, I am not too found of the tele lens. It requires good weather with little or no particles and moist in the air, and it is hard to both focus, zoom and parry the camera at the same time as you change your exposure settings. It feels better to keep to my 24-70mm lens or to the wide angle lens which are known waters to me.

Another 2nd mate in photo action

I realized that I haven't post any photos of the ship herself yet, so in order to correct that faux pas, I give you two different photos of the ship. First, the shot from the day when the sun shined for the first time in many days:

M/S Huckleberry Finn in Trelleborg port

And then, the same ship, the same date, the same harbor but in night mode:

Trucks and their ship, view from M/S Peter Pan

A couple of days ago I experimented with my wide angle lens and tripod on the bridge. I wanted to capture all the small details that is just visible to you when your eyes got used to the weak lights. But in order to get the picture as I wanted it, we had to turn on the red lights. These are not usually used, it is like going into combat mode just turning them on (every time these lights are on I just think about the underwater scenes from "Das Boot", which is by the way the best war movie ever). I have used 30 second long exposure time, so the second mate sits really really still.

Red night watch

Before I leave you again for this time, I have one last photo to show. Last saturday I was ashore in Rostock with the ambition to capture the ship when she was at an unordinary berth, but the lights where too weak and I didn't thought that the photo would turn out good, so instead I photographed the main deck in an unloaded condition. The picture below shows "Combideck" (also known as deck 2 or Hauptdeck, the latter one in german), the view is from the bow to the aft. Every side has three files with space for eight long units in each file. In the middle there is the casing, where among other things, the entrance and the lift to the upper decks are located. This is one of our three cargo decks, as you can see the ship used to transport train sets before, but nowadays the tracks are filled up with plastic substance. Today we load trailers, mafis, chassis, LKWs (trucks) and sometimes PKWs (ordinary cars) on this deck instead.

The long and winding roads

Listen to: Johnny Cash – Unchained