Even though I have only been to three ports so far and only got off at two, Yantian has easily been my favourite.
With the travel time into the heart of Hong Kong it ended up being a very rushed visit for such a large city; Yantian was a different story however. As we were in port for two days instead of the usual few hours, our shore leave started at 1600 and ended at 0400 the next morning so we could leave at 0600. The first day in port was a rush if you were an engineer. An inspector from Lloyds Register, which is our registering company and acts like our insurance, wanted to come onboard and inspect the condition of our boilers. So, at 0800 on the Wednesday morning we started to switch off the boilers and drain them. Despite the primary controls being handled by the more senior engineers in the ECR, this was a relatively simple task. All we had to do was remove 8 covers and then slowly open the hatches and doors to let the steam and water inside to escape, this took some time as we only turned each screw a half rotation at a time then let the steam escape. Only when the flow of escaping steam has slowed down could we then turn the screw another half rotation and wait again. We had to work through lunch to get both boilers empty and then the Inspector arrived.
He was exactly as you would imagine, dressed in a crisp white boiler suit with the word “Inspector” printed on the back he looked in each hatch took a few pictures then moved on. For a whole morning’s work, he was in the Engine Room for all of five minutes before he decided he had enough evidence and left. And then the process was repeated, place the hatch back in, cover back on, screw in, move onto the next one. Because we didn’t have to let any steam escape this time, we ended up finishing early at 1600.
I was in my cabin for all of two minutes before Matt called and said a taxi was on the way to take the three of us to “The Seaman’s Club”. Pretty much every port has a seaman’s club so that Officer’s can have a meal and drink. In my mind this was some big club house next to the port that sold proper meals and had big comfy leather recliners that you could spend hours in. When the taxi arrived, this image was still in my head, our driver was a cheery young guy driving a lovely top of the range Ford Focus and said he would take us straight there. Our drive through the city of Yantian was very different to Hong Kong, all the streets were immaculate, and the main road was lined with glass skyscrapers and palm trees. When we arrived at the club however, we saw that it was a shop just like the hundreds of other convenience stores that literally sold everything from suitcases to drones and razors.
We were shown to our table which was a small coffee table in the entrance to the shop and the large comfy recliners I had imagined were plastic stools that you would use to stand on. Despite this they offered Wi-Fi, the beer was cheap, and they even told us the good restaurants nearby, top of the list was McDonalds, they obviously thought we ate nothing else.
After a few drinks we decided to walk around and explore the neighbourhood. Our first stop was the bank to take out the local currency which is different from Hong Kong’s even though they are literally an hour apart by boat. We decided that five hundred was a acceptable amount to take out because our meal in Hong Kong had been so expensive, we got this VERY WRONG. It was pretty much impossible to spend over fifty in the city, between us I think we could have bought our own car to take us back to the boat. Callum threw himself into the local lifestyle and started buying food from every food vendor there was, and I decided to copy, Matt went for the trusty McDonalds in the end.
After an hour of walking round and trying food we grew tired of everyone staring at us and decided to head back to the lovely Seaman’s Club. We later figured out that I was probably the tallest person in China by at least two foot and that’s why everyone was staring. If the night couldn’t get any more weird, we then stopped in at a small shop to get a few things before going back to the ship. The storekeeper was so excited to have British Sailors in his shop and ushered us into a back room where he told us to get comfortable before showering us in sweets, more local beer and cigarettes. Another hour was then spent in some other randomers shop at no expense, can’t beat the Chinese hospitality. He even gave us some parting gifts as we left so, I am now the proud owner of a Porsche Jet Lighter, two bars of Toblerone and a Chinese box of cakes which are basically large Mr Kipling’s. Think you can guess why Yantian is my favourite port by now.
It is now a four-day sail to the Port of Vung Tao in Vietnam,
102 Days to go!!!