A night on the ship

I was invited for a tour and dinner on a ship named Maersk Teal which was docked on the port of New Jersey. Maersk's caption was friend's uncle and we were a group of 9 people gathered for this opportunity of visiting the ship. It took a while for us to reach there since we were not driving so had to take a subway then path then light rail then cab and finally walk onboard.

As we approached the port and the sea, the view of statue of liberty on the backdrop of Manhattan skyline was beautiful and from the ship's bridge it was almost breathtaking. This was a carrier ship capable of carrying 4000 cars at a time. First thing we did on the ship was to have dinner in the spacious canteen and then start for the tour.

We went to the navigation room, the place which is so often shown in the movies with a steering wheel. This place too had a wheel but much smaller and automated. There were all kinds of navigational equipments radar, map, radio and all other safety gadgets.We moved on to the entertainment room which had a gym, a small library and TT table.

Next was the engine room. It was about 4-5 storeys below the sea level. We climbed down the winding stairs and could see lots of pipes and pistons everywhere.We saw the ignition part, the shaft attached to the propeller which makes the ship move forward. There was also a electricity generating plant, water treatment plant for sewage and a plant to extract drinking water from sea water. The ship was almost like a mini city self-sufficient in its way.

We then moved to the kitchen, the fridge and the freezer. It was full of groceries, milk, fruits and vegetables. The freezer had two parts for veg and non-veg separately. We could see lots of frozen fish and meat. It was all so tempting that we collected some fruits, milk for a snack after this eyeopening tour.We went back to the kitchen and nibbled on some food amidst heated discussions on India, politics and almost everything.

The discussion continued into the smoke room and to the captain's suite till late night or rather morning 3 am. Since it was too late for me to travel all the way back to flushing, I decided to stay there overnight with my friend. We were given a guest cabin where we slept soundly to be woken up for breakfast calls next morning. Had a sumptuos breakfast of eggs and sausage and moved out of the ship with memories of a wonderful experience.