Lovely Rita

The trip to the Canary Islands took us from Tuesday morning to Sunday morning. We arrived to the island of Lanzarote, the largest eastern island. We chose to anchor in Puerto de Nao. We are directly next to the commercial shipping docks and surrounded by reefs. We arrived at 0430am and slept until 0900. Once up, Jeff and I decided to take a trip in the inflatable dingy to the closest beach. We were hanging out playing backgammon and talking when we were approached by some crazy talking African. He was half in the bag and kept spewing frontier gibberish. We thought he was just asking us for some Euros, but we said we didn’t have any with us. Thinking that might finish the conversation, we were wrong. He ended up talking to us but we were hard pressed to understand a word the guy said except for “You know what I am saying” which he said after everything.

After the African took off we were approached by a guy in a Speedo banana hammock. Jeff and I were thinking this was just our day for talking to random people. Come to find out after a few minutes of questions and answers, his name was Vladimir and his friend’s name was Stas. Both are working on a freighter named Rita in the commercial dock next to our anchorage. Vladimir is Russian and is the 2^nd Officer. Stas is Estonian and is the 2^nd Engineer. Rita is a mid-size freighter that has a crew of ten aboard. We spent two hours talking about stuff and drinking a few beers. Stas needed to get back to the ship and Jeff and I offered them a ride back in the inflatable. They were happy to get a ride and we took them around the harbor wall and they climbed up the ladder. They invited us aboard and said to come back to the boat in 20 minutes so they could get the boat ladder over the side for us to climb aboard. We went back to Quest grabbed our camera and a warm layer of clothing. When we came around the ladder was in place. Climbing up the side of a freighter is not the easiest thing to do with the dingy constantly moving and trying to get a solid footing on a rope ladder was very exciting. I know I said my prayers that I could keep my feet underneath me and use my legs not my arms to get up the ladder. Notice the small line going into the water along the side of the hull on the port (or left side) of the boat. It is the ladder we climbed up.

We met most the crew including the Captain, 1^st Officer, Cook, Chief Engineer, 3^rd Mate, come to think of it must have been everyone. The crew is made up of men from Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, the Philippines, or Germany. After a few beers we took a tour of Rita’s superstructure and engine room. Both were impressive. The vessel is German owned, built in 1995, and is very ship shape. We spent about two hours aboard and enjoyed our new friends.