New Beginings - 22. NB Chapter 22

I stared at the screen of my phone for what seemed a long time, as it read just over $687,000 Australian, “This is... I just...” I stuttered, “It is yours dear cousin, to spend which ever way you want too, you are a wealthy man now, so just relax and enjoy it” Sebastian said to me. “Easy for you to say, you have grown up with lots of money around you, our family has struggled to keep the farm going, and keep me in a private school” I replied.

“Well you have no financial worries any more” Sebastian said to me, “So, how does it work regarding management and decisions?” I asked, “That is why I have got you working in administration, so you can start learning about this Southern Ocean Freight contract, and eventually everything else in regards to Wagner International Investments.

The boys are not old enough to understand business, so it will just have to be us, it will be nice to have to share the decisions, instead of it being just me. Don’t forget that the money in the bank is your money from annual profits in the company, you also get this” Sebastian said to me as he handed me an envelope, and looking inside, I found a brand new company credit card, with the company and my name on it.

“That is for you to use for anything, it is set with a 6,755 Euro monthly limit, which is around $10,000 Australian, make sure you use it” Sebastian said to me, I was just too shocked to say anything, so putting the card back into the envelope, I put it into the desk drawer, and went back to checking emails.

For the next six days, I kept myself busy in the office, working from 10am to 4pm Perth time, to make up for the changing time zone, the further we travelled West, and as we were approaching our first destination in the late afternoon, Seb came into the office. “There you are, come and have a look at Amsterdam Island” Seb said to me, and I followed him to the Storm lounge, where the boys were standing at the front looking at the small island, in the middle of the Southern Ocean.

“By the way, starting from this trip, we will be calling into two additional research stations, firstly Gough Island, a South African research station, which we go to before Bouvet Island, and after we have been to the South Georgia Islands, we will be heading South west to the Orkney Islands, where there is another British research station. I have adjust the schedule to make it fit, it will be 24 days to Cape Town, and just 6 days there to load up and to continue on the journey, we are also taking supplies to the Falklands this time as well.

We will be there for just 3 ½ months, so we can get through the trip without having to worry about ice, so the departure date from Stanley is now Feb 1st, not stopping at the Orkney’s on the way back, and again just 6 days to load up in Cape Town, for the return journey to Albany, arriving back on March 18th, if all goes to plan” Sebastian informed me.

“Wow, sounds like quite a trip, I look forward to it, so far it has been great, apart from that first night” I replied with a smile. I have more news, but that can wait till we are on our way again” Seb said to me. Once we had unloaded the cargo at Amsterdam Island, we headed to the tiny Isle St Paul, which was less than 100 kilometres to the south, where we unloaded their cargo, and since the seas were calm, we anchored there overnight.

At 6am the next morning, we left St Paul and headed south - south - west for Grande Terre, a 2 ½ day journey, where our French passengers, minus one, will be leaving us. After the captain’s talk, the passengers had been very well behaved, having seen what happens they didn’t want to be offload the ship and stuck with a hefty bill. By the time we arrived at Heard Island, Australia’s own territory islands, we were a day ahead of time, and the crew were given permission, to go ashore on a guided tour.

The majority of the crew plus the twins and myself, accepted this offer to see the island, and the twins loved every moment of it. Because we were so far south now, we had to wear very warm clothing and wet weather gear, to keep out the dampness in the air. I worked out later that we were approximately 1700 kilometres south of a line with Albany, which was a long way.

When we returned to the ship, I noticed that we were no longer flying the Norwegian flag, which I thought we should be doing if we are still registered as a Norwegian ship, and I went looking for Sebastian, and after a while I gave up looking and headed for a phone, and pressed Intercom.

“Attenzione Sebastian, per favore, venga all'ufficio di amministrazione” I said calling Seb to come to the admin office. Moments later he arrived, “What’s up?” he said as he entered the administration centre, “Err, when I was coming back on board, I noticed we are no longer flying a Norwegian Flag” I commented, and Sebastian chuckled.

“Took you long enough to notice, while we were in Fremantle, and had a chat with my lawyers, and we jointly decided that it was best to remove Norway as our ship flag, since we no longer have any Norwegian Crew, and don’t intend to have any more, and surprisingly it was quite easy to change it” Sebastian replied. “So, what did you change it too?” I asked feeling a little frustrated, “Didn’t you notice the new flag on the aft mast?” Seb said to me, “I saw a flag there, but... wait a minute, yes it was the Australian Flag” I replied, and Seb smiled and nodded his head.

“I wanted to register it as a Falkland Islands ship, but they don’t allow it, so I chose my adopted country of Australia, well not adopted. Oh, and another thing, I learnt while in Fremantle is that the twins and I have joint citizenship, because our mum was British, it makes it a little difficult with Australia, but for now we are on a business visa, that has to be renewed every two years” Sebastian replied.

“I wonder if I have joint citizenship with Britain as well?” I asked, “You probably have, we can check when we get to Stanley” Sebastian replied. “I have something to mention to you as well, which I only thought of last night, you remember me mentioning that Tom and Margaret at Douglas Farm, have a Chilean farm hand? Well if my suspicions are right, we may have a new boyfriend for you when we get to the Falklands” I said with a huge grin, and Sebastian just laughed.

“Starting match making already are you cousin, maybe we should do the same for you, find a nice Falkland Islander girl for you” Sebastian replied, which made me blush a little, that made Seb laugh even louder. “So what was the other news you were going to get around to telling me sometime?” I asked, “Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, it’s two bits of news actually, last night after dinner, I had a call from our lawyer, and he right royally chewed my head off, for nearly causing a diplomatic incident” Sebastian began.

“Apparently the French Antarctic Division, is not happy that one of their researchers, has been stopped from going to his post on Grande Terre Island, and being deported from Australia. I was informed that the French, were threatening to cancel the two year resupply and researcher transport contract, for having to caused additional expenses, to get the researcher home to France.

I explained to the lawyer, the reasons why the researcher was flown back to mainland Australia, and when he heard this, the lawyer apologised for being so angry at the start of the conversation. I informed him, that I was happy and didn’t care if we lost the French Contract, as I had just secured another month long contract, from late April to the end of May each year. Our lawyer, said that he would call them back, explain exactly what happened, and inform them, that they can take the option to cancel the contract without any further financial penalty, once this trip is completed,” Seb announced.

“What is the other bit of news, is it this other contract?” I asked, “Yes it is, a 33 day long round trip, once a year, starting after we have had a few weeks off. We set off east to Tasmania, to get loaded up in Hobart, to resupply one Australian and two New Zealand research stations, on remote islands in the southern Tasman Sea. The trip will include almost a week’s shore leave when we arrive at Invercargill, which is at the very bottom of the South Island of New Zealand, plus three days of shore leave in Hobart” Seb announced.

“Wow, that is awesome, I have been to Auckland briefly, when in transit between Australia and Chile,, and I would love to see some more, it is a beautiful country, have you made an adjusted schedule, with the possible changes to the main run?” I replied happily. “Yes, it is on the notice board in the crew lounges, apart from the shore leave they get between ports Sebastian answered.

“What do you do for crew annual leave and that sort of thing?” I asked, “Well firstly, if we do drop delivering to the French research stations, we will still have Heard Island and Marion Island in the Southern Ocean to visit, and Gough, Bouvet and South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean to visit, we will have about four days less of travelling time, with the changes, but the crew still get 6 days of shore leave during both trips to Cape Town.

In Stanley, they get six days of shore leave, when we arrive in mid October, and six days just before leaving in late January. I am hoping for the rest of the time we are down their that we can get some charters. When we get back to Albany, in mid March, they get 2 weeks of paid leave.

After the crew’s leave ends, we start our new contract to Tasmania and New Zealand, they will get 3 days shore leave in Hobart in both directions, plus six days of shore leave at Invercargill, New Zealand, which makes a total of 30 days of shore leave. With the changes to the shedule, we will be back in Albany in late April, where the crew will have four weeks of paid leave, then they have three months holidays, over the winter months.

It will be the only time that the ship will be vertually empty, apart from any maintenance workers, that may be on board to do some work. We will travel down to Albany from time to time, to check on the ship” Seb said in reply. You know with the Tasmania and New Zealand trip, we could easily do a circumnavigation trip” I said to my cousin, “Yes I have been thinking about that, but wanted to discuss it with you first, and wait and see what happens with the French Contract” Sebastian replied.

“If we plan it right, we could do two runs a year, during the southern Summer and parts of Spring and Autumn, and give the crew plenty of shore leave, at the safe harbours,, and hopefully have Christmas at home in Toodyay” I said with a smile. Straight after dinner, Sebastian headed off somewhere, and I stayed with the twins and we watched a movie together in the storm lounge.

About an hour later, there was still no sign of Sebastian, so I decided to go and look for him, and I went to the admin centre first, and he was there chatting in German to someone on the phone, so I sat down and waited for him to finish the call, which was a good fifteen minutes later. “About time, you can talk so fast in German, I couldn’t understand a word of it” I said casually, “I didn’t know you understood German?” Sebastian said in a shocked manner, “I don’t, I just wanted to tease you” I replied, jumping out of my cousins reach, as he tried to swipe me.

“You are getting as bad as my twin brothers” Seb replied when he sat back down at his desk again, “Nah, they are good little boys, busy watching a movie when I left them” I replied. ‘Well it is official, the French have taken the offer to drop the contract, effective the moment we have finished the final delivery at Possession Island, which is our next stop, and some contacts of mine have put me onto a new possible contract, that will fit in nicely, if this double circumnavigation works out well” Sebastian announced to me.

“So how are you going to work that out, with our current contracts?” I asked, “Give me a few days, and I should have a draft put together, which we then have to present to our current contract clients” Sebastian replied. For the next nine days we battled very large seas, as we completed the final two deliveries before we approached South Africa from a south- east direction, and I was glad of some calmer seas, as we approached Cape Town.

The crew were pleased when the captain announced that everyone had 4 days shore leave, and Sebastian suggested that all officers, also take some leave, leaving just Seb the twins and I left on a rather empty ship, and for security purposes, we decided to lock all external doors from the inside, for our safety, and the protection of all the inside of the ship.

“Does it always get that rough” I asked Sebastian, as we ate dinner that night, which we just had to heat up in the microwave, since all the galley crew were onshore. “That is only the second time we have copped so really heavy weather, and I am surprised that we didn’t get any more damage, apart from some plates and glasses from the galley” Sebastian replied.

“I am not sure I want to have to go through that twice a year for goodness knows how long, I think I would prefer to be either at home in Toodyay or on the farm at Douglas on the Falkland Islands” I responded. “If we do this double circumnavigation, we will be there twice a year, I estimate just over three months apart” Sebastian replied. “Well did you manage to put something together about that?” I asked.

“I did, but it took a bit longer than planned, with all the rough weather seas that we had, I will show it to you after dinner, and I think we could do some cleaning up of our mess as well, so it is reasonably tidy when the crew return” Sebastian added. Once we had eaten and cleaned up, we organised for the twins to have a shower and get ready for bed, while we headed to the office.

“Firstly, let me tell you of another contract that we have been able to secure, it is a once a year contract at the moment, but it could be made two if all goes well. It is to the Christmas and Cocos Keeling Islands, we will be able to time it so we can have some shore leave at locations, which will be great, as I hear that it is a nice place to visit, during the dry season” Sebastian said to me as soon as we sat down in the office.

“Wow, yea that would be great to go up there, I hear that it is awesome” I replied, “Now that we know that we no longer have the French contract, I have worked out that we can two circumnavigations a year, avoiding the southern winter storms.

We would go the opposite way thou, that will help with getting better weather, winds and ocean tides, Leaving Albany on September 15th, with the first stop at Hobart. With three stops at research stations, out next stop will be Invercargill, on the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand” Seb explained.