My Life Onboard Höegh Jeddah: Week 1

Here’s a free advice to publishers who struggle with authors who never keep their deadline: Send him or her onboard a cargo ship for a few weeks. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and the internet is very slow. It’s the perfect Writer’s Prison. The last few days I have written more than I did the entire last month!

The perfect Writer’s Prison is going through some big changes, however. The last couple of days, many of the crew members have been busy installing cables for Marlink, a new and faster Internet system. For writers, internet is a curse – all too often I end up spending half of the working watching cute dog videos and reading heated Facebook-debates about topics that I’m not even interested in – but for the crew, internet is nothing but a blessing. They stay far away from their family and friends for half a year or longer in a row. Hopefully, faster internet will make the distance feel shorter and the months pass faster.

At night, the ambience onboard changes completely. From being a peaceful, tranquil place where everyone is busy performing their assigned tasks, the vessel turns into a floating “Philipinas got Talent”-show. The crew onboard sure knows how to party! They are all experienced karaoke singers and very skilled dancers, which is more than can be said about me, but what happens onboard, stays onboard – unless someone, God forbid, uploads it on TikTok.

As we left Santander and made our way through the Bay of Biscay, the sea was rather rough. Before boarding the ship, people told me that you cannot feel the waves on such a big vessel. They either lied or had no idea what they were talking about. Today we reached the African coast, and the air is already noteworthy warmer, and the sea is, thankfully, calmer. This adventure is heading in the right direction.