Monday 1st July 2013 +3hr BST Archangel (Arkhangelsk) Russia: Duel at the Economia Berth!!

We arrived a little ahead of time in bright sunshine.  Archangel lies some distance down the estuary of the Dvina River.  The landscape of dense forest down to the marshy riverbanks, thick with reeds reminded me of the Danube Delta at Talcea on the Black Sea some 3,000 miles to the southeast!

I suppose like Murmansk I had expected to arrive to a dock somewhere close to the city but Braemar was too big and was therefore docking at the cargo port some 14 kilometres from the city centre and this is where the fun began.

I was standing on the bow as we approached the dockside.  I could see the usual wooden planking placed across the crane rails towards the extreme end of the dock and near to where the gangway was expected to be set.  As we got closer I realised that the dockside was note straight but had a kink in it at just about the point where the Braemar’s bows would be.  Suddenly an argument erupted on the bridge-wing above me between the Russian Pilot and the ‘linesman’ on the quayside, accompanied by frantic waving of hands for them to move forward to moor beyond the kink.  The bow thrusters came on to move the ship away from the quay and we moved forward some 200 metres.  The Captain had noted that where the authorities wanted the ship to moor was right across the kink meaning that there would be an expanse of clear water under the gangway.  A complete ‘No, No’ as the captain later explained.

The ship was duly moored and ‘clearance given’ only to be rescinded some minutes later.  No explanation was given but it was pretty clear from a very hot and bothered dock supervisor in a multicoloured shirt that he was not happy about the ship’s mooring position.  Through the ship’s agents it became clear but no solution was offered and the Harbour Master was called to meet with the Captain.

Unfortunately the Captain could not get-off the ship since he would have transgressed immigration rules and the gangway could not be lowered for this official to come aboard.  A heated argument then ensued, all of which had to be conducted through the auspices of the ship’s agent ashore.

Eventually the Harbour Master issued an ultimatum – either the Braemar moved back along the dock or the authorities would undertake a full immigration procedure, as for Murmansk, which would take 8 hours to organise and complete. 

The Captain decided reluctantly to try to move the ship back to a safe mooring and did so by pulling the bows of the ship back behind the kink but leaving the stern protruding some 20 metres into the river with a strong cross-current.  Having satisfied himself that this was a safe mooring the ship was eventually cleared after a stand-off that had lasted for over 2 hours.  Luckily this still gave time for my all day excursion to go ahead although we did lose an hour at the Museum of Wooden Architecture which was a bit of a shame.

The local authorities were clearly not used to cruise ships of the size of the Braemar – so goodness knows what would happen if a ’block of flats’ tried to visit but as the Captain put it at his Farewell Cocktail Party, “A report will be made to Olsen’s and serious consideration will have to be given as to whether this port is visited again given the berthing difficulties”.  I very much hope something will be sorted out since the visit proved to be very interesting and worthwhile.