The statement that we are in Sweden this weekend is an incredible understatement of the miracle that has occurred in the week since I last wrote our blog.
This past week has been an amazing roller coaster ride of emotions, rarely experienced in our lives or in OM ships.
At the beginning of the week, after celebrating getting the PSSC, we were trying to understand what still needed to happen to sail. After completing our ISM audit on Monday, we knew that the last big hurdle was likely to be getting a Bunker Convention Certificate, a piece of paper that said we had insurance in place to cover us in the event of an oil spill.
Without going into details, the process to obtain the BCC was incredibly complicated and we were told it could still take weeks. Then we heard that it might be possible to sail without it because Sweden and Netherlands, our next few ports, didn't require it.
However, on Monday afternoon, as soon as we received all our certificates from the ISM auditor, a member of the Danish Maritime Authority came onboard and declaired that the ship was detained because we didn't have the BCC.
On Tuesday morning, our office in Germany thought they had exhausted options to get the ship released wihout having a BCC in place issued by Denmark and we were told the best case would be another week.
Now 2 weeks ago, we had sent a "line up" team to Gothenburg to prepare for a possible visit if we could sail in time from Denmark. On Tuesday lunchtime, a decision was made to cancel the visit to Sweden as it seemed impossible that we could get there. All the events and programmes in Sweden were then cancelled.
On Wednesday morning, I was sat in a leadership team meeting when we received a phone call from our head office to say that incredibly, the Danish Maritime Authority had decided to issue us with the BCC. We were to get ready to sail next day.
The whole ship community was called together and given the news and the whole place erupted in cheers and tears. What an incredible feeling to be told we could sail the next day.
Wednesday afternoon was a rush of activity to get the ship prepared for sea, loading gangways, vans, bikes etc.
Thursday was sailing day. All over the world, people excitedly logged in to the Logos Hope website to watch the webcams and see us sail.
Everyone was out on deck, the snow was falling and the Chief Executive of OM Ships was on the quayside to lift the last mooring line.
At 3.20pm the ship began to move away from the quayside and reverse out of the berth and the port after 8 months in Koge.
It is hard to describe the feelings of elation and excitement at finally setting sail after such a long wait. It was freezing cold as we waived goodbye to Denmark and finally turned around and begin making way out into the open sea.
The voyage overnight was smooth and on Friday morning we were back out on deck to see the approach into Gothenburg. At 7.30 am it was minus 15 degree centigrade plus wind chill. I don't remember the last time I was so cold.
But it was a beautiful sail in through snow covered islands and as we came up the river, we saw more and more inlets completely frozen over.
The berth that we were headed towards had been completely frozen solid the night before but an the ice had been broken up in to large chunks by a tug earlier in the morning.
For most of us it was a first to have to break through ice to reach a berth on an OM ship. As we came alongside the berth it was snowing and there was only the 2 line up guys and one other couple to welcome us. Yet this is our first ministry port and for everyone of us, the excitement was incredible that finally we are sailing and bringing Knowledge Help and Hope to the nations.
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