just another day at the office

Well actually today wasn't really a day in the office. In support of the project, I have committed to taking every second Friday to do practical work and help with some of the jobs that my team are responsible.

So 2 weeks ago I helped preparing the front of our main meeting room, the Logos Lounge, for building the stage. Myself and one of the AV guys cut holes in the concrete for the steel uprights to be welded onto the deck.

When it is finished, the stage will be used for many different types of events both internal and external and it needs to be able to take the weight of a group of Scottish dancers among other things.

Today I was back and it is amazing how much progress has been made. Thanks to a young welder who is the brother of one of the girls onboard, many of the steel supports have been welded into place.

I spent most of the day measuring up the steel and marking up where to cut. I also did a bit of cutting with a grinder. It was a sobering thought that my first experiences grinding were more than 22 years ago on Doulos, before any of the guys working with me were born!

It is funny how some people here think that you can only be working hard if you do physical work. I always get comments when people see me dirty but I always say that I am not doing harder work, just dirtier. However, there is a lot to be said for the sense of achievement that comes at the end of the day when you can look at the fruit of your labours.

One other significant event today, Kara went to her first Ballet lesson. A local lady has offered to take Kara each week along with her daughter and they would pay. Kara is so excited - it will be interesting to see how she gets on over the next weeks.

Farewell Logos 2

Today was another momentous day as the Logos 2, our sister ship which was supposed to have finished operations last year, set sail for the Caribbean.

For the past few weeks, we on Logos Hope have been working hard to make Logos 2 ready to leave. Over 20 of our community have transferred over to the other ship. After all the hard work to put new floors in the dining room servery and the clinic, it was good to get the all clear from the health inspector yesterday. It was a bit bizarre though that the port authorities decided to start digging up the quayside right in front of Logos 2 this morning an hour before she sailed!

I guess it was a bit cold then!

It has been a bit touch and go over the past week or so but today everyone and everything was in place so at 10am, the mooring lines were all off and Logos 2 briskly moved away from the quayside and out into the river, heading for the Kiel canal to sail to Holland.

She will be there for 2 weeks restocking with food, provisions and books as well as more crew before heading across the Atlantic to Bermuda, The Bahamas and then the Caribbean islands. On a cold wet winters day in Kiel, that sounds very appealing.

It was very kind of the Logos 2 crew to leave us a wee message before they sailed.

No more firm news but it seems quite likely that we will be heading to Sweden for the drydock in April, and then on to Copenhagen to finish the outfitting. It will be good to move on again to another stage in the project.

It's great to have Jennifer visiting again from our church in Edinburgh - she was here as a project worker in October and has come back for a flying visit. We are really excited about all the friends and family who are plannig to visit in the next few months.

A half century

Today I am writing our 50th blog - surely a memorable occasion. I wonder where we will be when we write our 100th! One thing is for sure, it won't be Kiel.
This week we heard that we must leave this berth by 16th April so now there is the very real possibility that we will sail from here to drydock in the second part of April and then to another berth which could be elsewhere in Germany or further afield, perhaps Copenhagen. It is exciting to think we could be on the move again in just a couple of months.
This week was also significant for several other reasons - we had the most beautiful sunset we have seen this winter, the best since Trogir - see for yourself.






This week we had a representative from the company who are building all our bookshelves as well as our main service desk. He held discussions with the bookfair team and did all the measuring up. We have now received the money for that work and hopefully the fittings will be onboard and getting installed within the next few months.

Also this past week, we had the ships Executive Leadership Team onboard for 2 days of meetings and then on Friday the OM Ships Board held their quarterly meeting here.
Lots of discussions were held on strategic issues that will impact the future of the ships so we are waiting to hear the decisions that were made.


Many people have arrived this week to sail on the Logos 2. Following a health inspection by the German authorities at the start of the week, it was necessary to undertake major work replacing the floor of the clinic and the servery area of the dining room in order for the ship to be cleared to sail. We now hope that Logos 2 can leave Kiel and sail on to Holland on Wednesday.


It was interesting this week to look at my Google Analytics site to see where some of you are reading this blog - so a special hi to Andrew & Carol in Mexico and Brad & Kara in China who I think have been reading recently.


Ok, it's Sunday evening and there are a couple of episodes of Series 6 of 24 to watch so that's it for now.