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Maersk Line: "You can checkout anytime you like, but you can never leave"

Surely this is one of the most famous song lyrics ever written, if not the most decipherable. But the Eagles had it wrong. They were singing about Hotel California but I’ve found that in reality that this applies to Berth No.42 in Odessa, Ukraine.

But to ‘check-out’ out first of all you have to ‘check-in’ and that was also far from easy. Two weeks of sub-zero temperatures had meant that a 30cm layer of ice had covered the inner harbour. And while the ship will easily push through this without much fuss, when it comes to a lateral show of strength, the ice wins every time. Having crept carefully into the harbour basin we were a mere 20 meters from the berth when we just stopped. What was stopping us?

Water! Hard water! Or as a scientist might put it: ice.

With nowhere to escape in the enclosed harbour the ice between the hull and the berth proved to be an impenetrable barrier that all the might of the tugs and thruster could not defeat. To overcome this, the 4 tugs that were assisting with the berthing operation switched into ice pushing mode. They circled the ship for three hours until the ice had been mashed, bashed and pushed out of the way.

In this picture you can see the tugs working hard to clear a path for Maersk Lota to berth.

As we secured our ropes I gave a sigh of relief, however what I didn’t know then was that the weather was to strike back. Having waited 4 days at anchor to get in, it proved even more difficult to get out. As the last few containers landed on the deck of Maersk Lota they were accompanied by a blanket of dense fog - and now there would be no intervention - we had to wait. Moored in such a tight basin, having such a narrow exit channel departure could only be completed with good visibility.

So for a whole three days we waited and waited. In this photo you can see just how little we could see.

Then on the 3rd day the fog parted and we were ready to leave. Given the congestion in the port we had to wait some 12 hours for our pilot. But as he boarded I felt the whole ship was happy to be moving. But remember what the eagles said.

"You can checkout anytime you like, but you can never leave "

Just as we secured the tugs the pilot received a call from port control. The ice in the channel had shifted some of the buoys so that our route was blocked. After a brief analysis we could see that the ship could not safely transit the channel. Again we would have to wait.

Thankfully the Port acted quickly and the buoys were repositioned within four hours. The pilot came back onboard. We secured the tugs, let go the lines and then…

"You can checkout anytime you like, but you can never leave "

The fog came back. In the space of five minutes we went from having five miles of visibility to 25 meters. We waited 30 minutes to see if the situation would improve, alas it didn’t. So we again secured the vessel alongside and I said goodbye to the pilot.

Another 2 days passed and finally again the fog lifted. This time we were first in the queue. With a slight sense of incredulity Maersk Lota slipped out of Odessa. All in all that port stay had taken 11 days when in fact we were scheduled for 2. As a consequence we are missing our next port to try and make up time. On top of this we are proceeding at best speed towards to Suez canal to make our vital slot which will allow us to arrive in the Far East on time.

Next time I’ll let you know how the race is going.
Source: Maersk