I’ve said a few things about my boat journey to Africa already but so many people were so intrigued by it (being a slightly unusual way to travel), that I thought I’d write up a more detailed report for those who are interested. (I have made the aforementioned video too, but am struggling to find an internet connection that will cope with me uploading it...)
My 14-day voyage was hosted by the Italian freight company, Grimaldi. I’d heard of them through some missionary friends from my church in England who also travelled this way to South America. I actually took the same route they took (remembering to get off half-way) - my boat’s stops were:
Hamburg, Germany
Tilbury, England (where I embarked)
Antwerp, Belgium
Dakar, Senegal (where I disembarked)
Vitoria, Brazil
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Santos, Brazil
Montevideo, Uruguay (where all the other passengers were heading)
The Gambian capital, Banjul, has a port, but there didn’t seem to be any cargo ships going there which would take passengers. So after a lot of Googling I couldn’t find any alternatives and booked with Grimaldi to nearby Dakar. (The prospect of Italian food sealed the deal.) There don’t seem to be many cargo ships that take passengers these days. But my one was a “Ro-Ro” - “Roll on, roll off”. That means they have a big ramp for vehicles and most of their cargo filling up the 12 decks was vehicles (Range Rovers, JCBs, all sorts). It also means that, if you want, you can drive your own vehicle on and then drive it off at the other end, like an inter-continental ferry. That’s what my 7 fellow passengers were all doing - off travelling in South America with camper vans (3 couples) or a motorbike (1 individual). (One couple’s interesting website, featuring their amazingly equipped truck, is here.)
You have to be prepared for quite a bit of flexibility travelling this way. All along, since booking 6 months in advance, I only ever had an “estimated date of departure”. This moved from 23rd Sept, to 25th Sept, to 26th Sept, to 29th Sept, then finally to 2nd October. Such are the unpredictabilities of the shipping industry’s timetables. I was told that it was my responsibility to log in to a webpage to check this date - I wouldn’t be informed otherwise!
Boarding time
Finally the day came: I headed to Tilbury Port on the Thames in Essex, just next to an old fort which “protected London's seaward approach from the C16th through to WW2”. After weaving through the modern port’s maze of huge yards full of containers and vehicles, a small Grimaldi office (shed) appeared. I was then told I could just walk up the ramp on to the ship and be signed on! Time to say a final goodbye to Mum and Dad…
The quite senior 3rd Mate (an Italian officer) showed me to my comfortable cabin and I happened to bump into a friendly English fellow passenger, which was reassuring - having no idea at that stage how many (if any) fellow passengers I’d have.
Settling in
Our meals were in the same dining room as the 10 or so (Italian) officers. The non-officer crew (mostly Philipino, about 15 of them) had a separate dining room, wafts from which had a distinctly more Asian smell. Our food was good, if served in a slightly odd way! Breakfast was straightforward enough, then lunch (11am!) and dinner (6pm) always began with pasta (very nice) then we’d be asked “Beef?” and given a slice of beef on a plate. Then, “Fish?” and we’d be given a piece of fish on a plate. With iceberg lettuce. Every time. I guess it keeps quite well. Then a piece of fruit on a plate. It seems that the idea of putting meat or fish in with pasta would be a bit radical…! Couldn’t complain though, especially with bottled water and wine included. I had opted for an “outside” cabin - i.e. with a window - which was a pleasant enough space to bunker down when it was a bit blustery on deck. About 10 days in I finally figured out how to open the window (with the help of a rubber mallet). I had an en-suite bathroom, a fridge, and a few days in they even installed TVs with built-in DVD players! Thankfully some other passengers had a stash of DVDs.
Amusing curiosities
We couldn’t help but feel certain things had a whiff of Fawlty Towers about them… In fact, put Ben Elton and co. on a boat like this and I’m sure they’d be inspired for a sit-com. After a busy first few days for the crew, as we navigated in and out of the English Channel and loaded up at various ports, they seemed to get to work on all kinds of areas on the boat. It resembled the Golden Gate Bridge - constantly work was needed on something. So for most of the voyage the boat seemed to be going through Operation Refurbishment, with some mealtimes dominated by hilariously unaware(?) / unfussed(?) banging on the dining room walls. Every now and again the kitchen door would fly open with goodness-knows-what heated Italian being exchanged on the other side. “How is everything?” / “Yes, fine thank you - excellent!”
The crew were friendly and helpful if you ever needed anything, though they would never volunteer any information! Not even safety information - until day 8, when a disconcerting alarm sounded, along with the announcement (thick Italian accent), “This is a drill. This is a drill. All crew and passengers report to the Meeting Room.” Thankfully we hadn’t sunk in the first 8 days, and were finally given a safety briefing.
We were shown that we had amazing evacuation suits in our cabins, dry suits which would prolong your survival in the ocean by a considerable time. We were told all about the lifeboats (there were plenty - i.e. 2) and the rations inside. I paid considerably more attention than when on a plane, out of sheer interest!
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| Challenging the Master and Chief Engineer - they were amazing! |
What did I do?!
I’d drawn up a draft timetable to identify what I wanted to spend time doing - books to read, time to spend in prayer and Bible-reading, a bit of exercise. Sleep was often not great, with the boat moving around a bit. But there was plenty of time for a nap or two during the day. And it was wonderful to have hours and hours of uninterrupted time to pray and read and think. So hard to find in normal life.
I had precious time meditating on God’s word, particularly Genesis, Exodus, Mark and Romans. In terms of books, I was glad to familiarise myself with some course material I’ll be teaching in the Gambia, made good progress on a more academic book, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission (Köstenberger & O’Brien), was encouraged greatly by Jim Packer’s Weakness is the Way, and devoured the wonderful stories of God’s grace and power in Warriors of Ethiopia (Dick McLellan). I’d recommend them all!
It was fun to spot a bit of wildlife. Sadly no whales and only a few dolphins, but they were the first I’d seen. There was the odd big seabird out fishing alongside us, and flying fish seemed to enjoy shooting off from the waves around the boat.
The gym had a treadmill (added fun when on a moving boat), weights and table tennis. And since there were 3 other friendly Brits in the same boat(…), we ended up spending a fair bit of time together (DVDs / table tennis), which was an unexpected bonus. They had lots of travelling stories under their belts, and were interested in what I was off to do in the Gambia. It was comfortingly familiar to get some good English banter flying around; I quickly acquired the nicknames “The Surfing Preacher” and “The Banjul Spinner” (table tennis). After eating 3 meals a day with them for 14 days, it was sad to wave goodbye at Dakar!
The ship
Grande Nigeria was her name. I must say I’m glad that (I think) my parents didn’t happen to see the photos that Google reveals of her having had a rather serious crash a few years ago… Slightly alarmingly there was a collision between two vessels in the Antwerp channel whilst we were in Antwerp. Our Master was baffled by it, saying there seemed to be no good explanation.
We were about 200 metres long and weighed about 57,000 tonnes which, judging by what else I saw at sea and in ports, is kind of a middly-size. We cruised along most of the time at about 15 knots. The Bay of Biscay made for a slightly sleepless night but otherwise we were thankful for pretty still conditions - the size is certainly an advantage: at times it felt fairly calm, then you’d look down and see much smaller boats being flung around by the waves!
The Chief Engineer gladly showed us round the Engine Rooms. Wow. It was hot, sweaty, noisy and enormous. I’m just sorry that - not being more technically-minded - I can’t repeat what I imagine were pretty mind-boggling stats about it all. But it was impressive! Quite something to think they’ve got to keep that all running and maintained on the move.
The cabins were all on the 12th deck and you could wander round outside there with decent views off the port and starboard sides. But the best views were from the bridge - within and around the control centre, full of gadgets and gizmos and radars, plus an old-school commitment to paper maps and charts, with our route being plotted by pencil and compasses. The crew were more than happy for us to wander in and nose around.
The English Channel felt like a shipping motorway, with lots of other vessels around. But once we got out beyond there, especially beyond Spain and Portugal, there were amazingly few other boats around. It was quite a strange experience to stare out to simply sea on all sides, sometimes with not a soul in sight. Then the stars, shooting stars, and planets at night were stunning.
A gradual end
When we left Tilbury our ETA at Dakar was 10 days later. We ended up spending 3 days in port at Antwerp (longer than they’d planned, because of how long it took to load, etc), so the ETA shifted 2 days on. Then as we approached Dakar we were told we wouldn’t be able to enter port until a day later than our ETA, so it shifted on another day. Then just as we were rounding the peninsular of Dakar itself we found out we’d have to drop anchor out there for a night, since our berth in the port was occupied! So in the end we came into port 14 days after leaving Tilbury.
There was then a surreal last day on board in port, tantalisingly close to land. We crawled into port (probably wise not to rush manoeuvring these kind of vehicles) at about 9am in pouring rain. It then took several hours for immigration officials to come on board and check everyone’s passports, etc. Finally, at about 3pm I was free to disembark onto dry land!
Added complication was - the rain had made the roads to where I was meant to be staying in Dakar impassable… Expensive mobile data thankfully meant I could keep in touch with the friend of a friend of a friend who was meant to be picking me up. In any case, I had to go to an immigration officer at a police station on land to get my passport seen again, so I knew I had some time to play with. Dakar isn’t exactly the kind of place you want to be with nowhere to stay though… Options were: find a nearby hotel and hope for vacancy, or find the next flight to the Gambia (though I’d been planning to travel by road with a Gambian friend). Turned out there was no flight that day anyway. Then, thankfully, my contact was able to make it through the floodwater to pick me up from the police station, where I’d been welcome at first, but after a few hours was beginning to sense they didn’t want me sitting around indefinitely.
So I was very glad to be picked up! And to make it to the headquarters of SIL, where I had a room for a night before my onward journey to the Gambia itself… (see next blog post)
Large and infinite distances
My hopes for this voyage were for:
The voyage caused me to muse on true distance. It’s humbling to think of people in generations gone by who took the good news of Jesus to those very distant corners of the world - and they are distant! Many think that Christianity is a Western religion, but it’s from the Middle East and most Christians today are East Asian, African or South American. As that shows, people took the momentous news about Jesus all over the world, even up to those funny lumps of land we call the British Isles. “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” (Isaiah 52:7) May we remember them with deep gratitude, who walked or rode or sailed many many miles to take the good news to our lands.
Reading some of those classic missionary biographies (C.T. Studd / Hudson Taylor / John Paton), the sacrifice they made makes a mockery of what we call sacrifice today. It’s almost unimaginable to think of boarding a boat that would take months to reach its destination (if it made it). Post would then take that long, to hear any news from home. And it would take that long to go back home, if you did. Life today (and crossing cultures today) just doesn’t compare.
Reading the history of the Gambia, it was sobering to read the shockingly short life-expectancy of missionaries to West Africa in centuries gone by. Not for nothing was it known as “the white man’s grave”. Many were shipwrecked. Many died of malaria. None expected to last more than a couple of years. And yet, in obedience to Jesus’ command, they kept going. Would I have done?!
Most importantly, their faithfulness and sacrifice did not spring from a heroic self-determination, which will seem intimidating and unattainable to us in our very different age. Rather, their faithfulness and sacrifice were the fruit of the seed of the life of Christ in them. He travelled the INFINITE distance - leaving the glory and splendour of heaven, the eternal and intimate joy of divine love, to walk on to the surface of dusty, hot, smelly, painful Earth. God is the Great Missionary: the Father sent the Son to save us, and the Son obeyed and went. And so with His power at work in us, may God strengthen you and me to be faithful to Him, obediently going to make him known, whether it means crossing oceans and cultures or crossing roads.
The gym had a treadmill (added fun when on a moving boat), weights and table tennis. And since there were 3 other friendly Brits in the same boat(…), we ended up spending a fair bit of time together (DVDs / table tennis), which was an unexpected bonus. They had lots of travelling stories under their belts, and were interested in what I was off to do in the Gambia. It was comfortingly familiar to get some good English banter flying around; I quickly acquired the nicknames “The Surfing Preacher” and “The Banjul Spinner” (table tennis). After eating 3 meals a day with them for 14 days, it was sad to wave goodbye at Dakar!
The ship
Grande Nigeria was her name. I must say I’m glad that (I think) my parents didn’t happen to see the photos that Google reveals of her having had a rather serious crash a few years ago… Slightly alarmingly there was a collision between two vessels in the Antwerp channel whilst we were in Antwerp. Our Master was baffled by it, saying there seemed to be no good explanation.
We were about 200 metres long and weighed about 57,000 tonnes which, judging by what else I saw at sea and in ports, is kind of a middly-size. We cruised along most of the time at about 15 knots. The Bay of Biscay made for a slightly sleepless night but otherwise we were thankful for pretty still conditions - the size is certainly an advantage: at times it felt fairly calm, then you’d look down and see much smaller boats being flung around by the waves!
The Chief Engineer gladly showed us round the Engine Rooms. Wow. It was hot, sweaty, noisy and enormous. I’m just sorry that - not being more technically-minded - I can’t repeat what I imagine were pretty mind-boggling stats about it all. But it was impressive! Quite something to think they’ve got to keep that all running and maintained on the move.
 |
| The Master intentionally sailed close enough to the Canary Islands for the crew and passengers to get phone signal for a bit! |
The English Channel felt like a shipping motorway, with lots of other vessels around. But once we got out beyond there, especially beyond Spain and Portugal, there were amazingly few other boats around. It was quite a strange experience to stare out to simply sea on all sides, sometimes with not a soul in sight. Then the stars, shooting stars, and planets at night were stunning.
A gradual end
When we left Tilbury our ETA at Dakar was 10 days later. We ended up spending 3 days in port at Antwerp (longer than they’d planned, because of how long it took to load, etc), so the ETA shifted 2 days on. Then as we approached Dakar we were told we wouldn’t be able to enter port until a day later than our ETA, so it shifted on another day. Then just as we were rounding the peninsular of Dakar itself we found out we’d have to drop anchor out there for a night, since our berth in the port was occupied! So in the end we came into port 14 days after leaving Tilbury.
There was then a surreal last day on board in port, tantalisingly close to land. We crawled into port (probably wise not to rush manoeuvring these kind of vehicles) at about 9am in pouring rain. It then took several hours for immigration officials to come on board and check everyone’s passports, etc. Finally, at about 3pm I was free to disembark onto dry land!
Added complication was - the rain had made the roads to where I was meant to be staying in Dakar impassable… Expensive mobile data thankfully meant I could keep in touch with the friend of a friend of a friend who was meant to be picking me up. In any case, I had to go to an immigration officer at a police station on land to get my passport seen again, so I knew I had some time to play with. Dakar isn’t exactly the kind of place you want to be with nowhere to stay though… Options were: find a nearby hotel and hope for vacancy, or find the next flight to the Gambia (though I’d been planning to travel by road with a Gambian friend). Turned out there was no flight that day anyway. Then, thankfully, my contact was able to make it through the floodwater to pick me up from the police station, where I’d been welcome at first, but after a few hours was beginning to sense they didn’t want me sitting around indefinitely.
So I was very glad to be picked up! And to make it to the headquarters of SIL, where I had a room for a night before my onward journey to the Gambia itself… (see next blog post)
Large and infinite distances
My hopes for this voyage were for:
- Time to think, pray, meditate, read - tick.
- Time to process the emotions of saying goodbye, in advance of arriving and starting a new life - tick.
- Time to appreciate the distance travelled - tick.
The voyage caused me to muse on true distance. It’s humbling to think of people in generations gone by who took the good news of Jesus to those very distant corners of the world - and they are distant! Many think that Christianity is a Western religion, but it’s from the Middle East and most Christians today are East Asian, African or South American. As that shows, people took the momentous news about Jesus all over the world, even up to those funny lumps of land we call the British Isles. “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” (Isaiah 52:7) May we remember them with deep gratitude, who walked or rode or sailed many many miles to take the good news to our lands.
Reading some of those classic missionary biographies (C.T. Studd / Hudson Taylor / John Paton), the sacrifice they made makes a mockery of what we call sacrifice today. It’s almost unimaginable to think of boarding a boat that would take months to reach its destination (if it made it). Post would then take that long, to hear any news from home. And it would take that long to go back home, if you did. Life today (and crossing cultures today) just doesn’t compare.
Reading the history of the Gambia, it was sobering to read the shockingly short life-expectancy of missionaries to West Africa in centuries gone by. Not for nothing was it known as “the white man’s grave”. Many were shipwrecked. Many died of malaria. None expected to last more than a couple of years. And yet, in obedience to Jesus’ command, they kept going. Would I have done?!
Most importantly, their faithfulness and sacrifice did not spring from a heroic self-determination, which will seem intimidating and unattainable to us in our very different age. Rather, their faithfulness and sacrifice were the fruit of the seed of the life of Christ in them. He travelled the INFINITE distance - leaving the glory and splendour of heaven, the eternal and intimate joy of divine love, to walk on to the surface of dusty, hot, smelly, painful Earth. God is the Great Missionary: the Father sent the Son to save us, and the Son obeyed and went. And so with His power at work in us, may God strengthen you and me to be faithful to Him, obediently going to make him known, whether it means crossing oceans and cultures or crossing roads.
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