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Check out the Captain’s log
Manxman and her crew are sailing from South Korea
With 11 days having sailed by since Manxman departed South Korea bound for Manx waters, the Steam Packet has released the first of Captain Andy Atkinson’s log detailing her journey.
Manxman left Ulsan, South Korea at just before 7am our time on Saturday May 13.
Captain Andy’s log from that first day details: ‘The pilot disembarked at 1532 and we were Full Away on Sea Passage to Singapore, our first stop on the way home, at 1550. Immediately after clearing Ulsan, we passed between the Korean city of Busan, and the Japanese island of Tsushima and continued to head South through the Korea Strait. By midnight, the ship had done its first 136 miles of the trip home.’
For the next couple of days, he detailed Manxman sailing through the East China Sea, past 200 miles east of Shanghai and entered the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and mainland China.
Tuesday May 16 found some ‘slight fuel contamination’, which is what led to the Manxman’s unscheduled trip to Hong Kong. Captain Andy said: ‘We spent the day in a holding position until we had the appropriate clearances from the Hong Kong authorities for our entry. As Hong Kong is an hour behind Korea, we put our clocks back today. We will do this seven more times on our way back home.’
Wednesday finally saw Manxman enter Hong Kong for fuel and stores, being ready to leave again just before midnight their time.
Thursday and Friday passed by with little incident as Manxman traveled by the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, but Captain Andy said: ‘The traffic’s getting busy; there’s lots of fishing boats offshore, as well as the shipping traffic between China and Singapore and Indonesia.’
On Saturday the Manxman and her crew passed 160 miles off Mekong River Delta and headed further south until they were east of the Gulf of Thailand.
Captain Andy’s first blog ends on Sunday, when Manxman reached Singapore. He said: ‘This evening we arrived at the Port of Singapore, which is the world’s second-busiest port, and the world’s biggest ship refuelling centre. We’ll take a short break here to assess the ship’s systems after a good shakedown at sea on the voyage so far. Before we leave port we’ll also take on additional fuel for the next leg of the voyage, to Colombo, Sri Lanka.’
You can track, find out more and even check out the webcam on Manxman by going to the Steam Packet’s website.
