Costa Rica - Homeward Bound
31/10/2007
It was the perfect finale to an amazing three weeks which we had just spent touring Costa Rica, a fascinating Central American world of active volcanoes, tropical rain forests teaming with wild life and rich fertile plains.
We had toured a Del Monte banana plantation, watching the harvesting, grading, packing and palletising of the fruit in preparation for the short journey to the small port of Moin on the sunny Caribbean Sea, and now, after a rendezvous with the port agent to complete our paperwork, we were going to be joining those bananas on their 12-day voyage to Dover on the refrigerated cargo vessel MV Horncap.
The MV Horncap is one of three vessels operated by Horn Line of Hamburg, which is in turn owned by Del Monte. They all make monthly round trip voyages between Dover, Antwerp, Hamburg and fruit loading ports in South and Central America and luckily for us, they all take up to 12 passengers.
We spent the rest of the day unpacking, watching the cargo handling, which finished with the swinging inboard of nearly 100 refrigerated containers of exotic fruits, and waiting for the return to the ship of our ten German fellow passengers who had all been off for a welcome spell of sightseeing. We somehow missed their boarding but then, on entering the dining room for our first evening dinner, my partner Jenny got a big surprise...word had somehow got back that it was her birthday, so we were greeted by all our fellow passengers, champers in hand, singing ‘Happy Birthday’.
Then, a by now slightly overwhelmed Jenny, was presented with a birthday cake by the chef, together with a huge bouquet, and a Horn Line Ship’s umbrella from the Chief Steward.
Life quickly slipped into an easy pattern of days reading in comfortable sun-loungers on deck with occasional plunges into the ship’s small pool and early evenings spent, glass of chilled white wine in hand and watching the sun sink slowly behind a distant horizon.
Highlights of the voyage were undoubtedly the on-deck Caribbean Night barbecue enjoyed by all the passengers, officers and crew, and the Captain’s farewell dinner, held three days out from Dover so as not to interfere with all the preparations for docking and cargo discharge in the European ports.
We had flown to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica on a 12-hour one-stop hop from Gatwick with First Choice Holidays and spent the first week at the excellent all-inclusive Occidental Allegro Hotel on the lovely Gulf of Papagayo. Then a most helpful young lady at the hotel’s Customer Services Desk, assisted with our DIY tour by booking all our onward accommodation and flights with Nature Air, Costa Rica’s most efficient internal airline. We flew first to the Ossa Peninsular, one of the world’s last true wildlife wildernesses, and then across to the Caribbean to board our banana boat.
So for enquiries about that ticket or world-wide cargo ship voyages in general call Cargo Ship Voyages on 01473 736 265. Email cargovoyager@btconnect.com or visit the website linked below.