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This ship has the rare benefit for a freightliner of an elevator. I have the aim to avoid using it. I had been prepared to not have one, and I know the 3 storey walk down to meals, and 2 storey walk up to the Bridge can only be good for me. I think I am using it about half the time (and no not only for the upwards leagues).

The crew are warming up, but we still stick with smiles, nods and “good mornings’. Conversations that divert from basic niceties often end up with random responses that indicate they have no idea what I am talking about.

The menu for the Officers Mess is on the door, and I use it to prepare myself for what we are going to eat, as well as the times.

When in the Officers Mess we are served by our Steward, Peter. He is not as socially out going as the previous Steward who got off in Melbourne, so comes across very shy. He hovers to try assist me to do everything, including pouring my drinks. I suspect this has to do with the very formal hierarchy on the ship.

There are 4 officers, and the captain, plus the 3 passengers who eat in the Officers Mess. We have assigned seating, and I always sit on the left of the Captain facing the Chief Mate. The Captain and Chief Mate get additional items with dinner, and often ask for changes to what we are served.

Breakfast was a sausage roll, with very buttery pastry and a kransky in the middle. It sits very heavy in my stomach. I can tell I am going to put weight on, and that walking the stairs is necessary.

The rest of the crew eat at the other end of the floor, in much smaller and plainer rooms. A strong smell of smoke hovering in the hallway indicates it is OK to smoke inside.

Our first day is very static, as the departure time of 1400 is changed to 1800 and then 1900. The Captain complains about how slow this port is, and that the crane drivers are not very good.

In the afternoon I take advantage of the fact the container loading is now at the front, and not as noticeable, to take a nap before dinner.

With the ship leaving at 1900, everyone is prompt for dinner and eat together. All of us have a sheen of sweat on our face, and say they are hot. Once the Captain gets up to check the air vent is working, and says its not very good, the engineers then get up every few minutes to continue confirming there is no cold air, and that we are all very hot.

Dinner is squid, which I have no liking for. But I smile and eat it, as I am determined to live this experience and be grateful for it. Plus I have no wish to offend the people whose world I am exploring.

I head up to the bridge after dinner to with the plan of watching us leave port. I am disappointed that it is getting dark and that I won’t be able to see as much, although the lights of Melbourne twinkle very prettily.

We have to wait for the ANL Wyong to dock first as they come across the front of us. The Captain and I are the only ones on the bridge and he says to me that it is very big. It takes 1000 more containers than the Spirit of Melbourne, which takes 3600. As soon as the ANL Wyong docks, we have two Harbour pilots come aboard. They are in dress uniform, as are our officers, (who are normally in shorts and jandals).

The tug attaches to us and we start our journey out of the harbour. The whole trip takes three and half hours, with our Officers controlling the ship and the Pilots giving instruction.

I continue to hover in the background and discover that in quiet periods both the Pilots and the Captain like to explain what is happening to me.

The Captain shows me on the map of the harbour and screen where we are and the line of the channel that we need to sail along. The Pilot in charge is flamboyantly confident, and guides us between the red and green channel lights that seem to flicker like Christmas lights as if he is putting on a show. They know the harbour well and each Pilot guides in or out roughly 200 ships a year.

As we get further out, he tells the captain to “increase to rock n roll speed” Our poor Captain does not have a great enough grasp of English to cope with the rapid rate of words and colloquial phrases that seem to pour out of our Pilots mouth. I am surprised that he appears cocky rather than solicitous to the fact our crew all have English as a second language.

In the background the other Pilot Raj tells me that he has been on a freighter before that had a passenger. She actually got on at the Heads by signalling the ship with a bed sheet off a jetty. She was 84, and over the allowable age, but for some reason she was accepted on board and was a real character. It seems too crazy to be true, and I wonder if he’s been doing this job a long time, so knows stories from before safety was so regimented.

He explains he will get off once we have cleared the harbour by coming down the gangway and then climbing the last few metres by a rope ladder. Regulations say noone may climb more than 9 metres by rope ladder, and as we are not very heavy, we sit high in the water, making the gangway necessary.

I watch the pilot speed boat come along side, and the two pilots slide down the ladder far below me.

They soon zoom off, and we move into larger waves, and the dark night. There is nothing but blackness in front of us, so I head downstairs for bed.