At long last, I have collaborated with Shane to get a firsthand account of his little boat trip across the Atlantic. It was a good experience for Shane--one that I believe he wishes to NEVER again repeat.
In Shane's own words:
I left my family in the States in the middle of November and flew back to Russia. I had only been in the US for 10 days before they said they needed me back at the farms. I was in Russia only 2 weeks before they said they needed me to leave in 1 week to go back to Garden City, KS to ride on the boat with the next shipment of cattle and horses across the ocean. I flew into Garden City on Dec. 3rd and then the ship sailed from Galveston, TX on the 8th of December. We went around the tip of Florida, went North for awhile, then East straight across the Atlantic to the Azores Islands, then North up across the Bay of Biscay (which was really rough water), into the English Channel, along the German coast and into the Kiel Canal, to the Baltic Sea, below Sweden into the Gulf of Finland, to the port of Ust-Luga, near St. Petersburg where the cattle were unloaded from the boat, directly onto trucks and transported another 30 hours or so to the Bryansk region.
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| Garden City, KS feedlot. We put neck bands on all the horses and marked the collars. Each group had a color code, so I knew what group they were in. This way I could keep them in the right group on the boat, so I could reduce the horse fighting. There were 12 horses in a group. They stayed in these groups throughout the whole trip, and into quarantine. By traveling in familiar groups, they didn't have to keep reestablishing the pecking order. |
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| Horses lined up, getting banded, numbered, and coded. |
I know there were a lot of crazy numbers floating around, so now I'm here to set the record straight. On my boat there were 115 horses, 670 bulls, 2639 bred heifers, 620 open heifers. So, in all, about 4,044 head on the boat.
The boat will haul 6,000 head (800 lbs/each), but the horses and the bulls took up more space. They took up 2/3 of one deck of the boat. There were 7 decks. Horses were on Deck 5, along with bulls, which took up the rest of Deck 5 and most of Deck 6. This was actually a small livestock carrier vessel. They are building another one that will carry 16,000 head of cattle!!! (Star: "I just can't imagine that many cows on one boat").
An interesting note about water: the boat de-salinated 200-300 tons of sea water a day to water the animals and for other boat needs.
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| It took 79 trucks just to haul the heifers to the port from the feedlot. This was almost a mile of truck after truck lined up as I drove past. |
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| Heifers in the feedlot. This year, this feedlot has sent 29,000+ head of livestock between January and May to Russia. They have shipped more cows to Russia than any other one feedlot. Right now they are strictly processing cattle for our company. |
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| Bulls in the feedlot that went on my boat. |
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THE BOAT (minus the crane)
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| Here is a better picture of the boat I was on. It was named Ocean Outback. You can check out this source for details about the boat and credit for the picture. You can also check here for a Live Map of ocean traffic. If you put in the vessel name, OCEAN OUTBACK, you can find out where my boat is right now! It's actually on it's way back to get another load. I know you are all dying to know this stuff, right? |
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| Home Sweet Home...NOT! I had the cabin to myself.. all 6 six beds! And sometimes I slept on the floor because it was more comfortable. The sleeping quarters were in the front of the boat, so you felt more of the up and down as the boat moved forward. More up and down=seasick! But on the flipside, if the sleeping quarters were in the back, we would have been "downwind" of all the animals. |
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| Just loaded these horses out of the rain and onto the boat. |
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| Heifers on board. |
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| Horse crew and company. |
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| Bulls loading onto the boat. |
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| Setting sail. Bon voyage! |
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| front |
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| Both sides of the boat |
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| back |
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| Front again: Mainly Shane wanted to show you that as far as the eye could see, on all sides, was nothing but WATER!!! Not very encouraging for a landlubber. |
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| You can see an oil rig off to the left in the distance in this picture. |
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| Heifers settling in. |
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| Ramps in between decks |
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| More heifers. |
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| The bags toward the inside are sawdust for bedding, and the bags on the outside are chopped hay. Everything could be no longer than one inch lengths because it would plug the pumps. |
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| One of many sunset pictures. |
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| After a couple days on the water, we hit our first storm. |
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| Breakers. We had four lovely days of it. The biggest swells were at night, so sleeping was even more of a challenge. The motor broke the first day of the storm. The boat typically brings the parts and supplies they think they might need to do repairs while on the water, but for some reason, they could not find the critical piece for this particular job. There are 2 motors running at once, which puts us at about 12-13 miles an hour. With one motor out, we were going 4-6 miles an hour. They had to keep the other motor running to keep on course and to keep ventilation systems going so the cows didn't overheat, and to keep making water. On the fourth day of the storm they miraculously found the part, the storm calmed, and we continued on our journey. |
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| Bulls: "Are we there yet?" |
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| Sunset |
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| This was known as The Bridge, which was the steering compartment of the boat, charting, etc. |
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| Horses: "How much LOOOONNNGGER?" |
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| First boat I saw on the water. This was about 2 weeks into the trip. |
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| Christmas Eve Dinner |
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| And in case, you needed a closer introduction. MEET DINNER: His name was Wilbur. |
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This is холодец (pronounced kholodets). Basically it is pieces of meat, veggies, and some greens congealed in a fatty jello. It is solidified fat, and it eaten cold. So far, it is not our favorite dish.
They make this into quite elaborate pictoral dishes, such as the two examples below. But I must say it looks prettier than it tastes. |
And onto the next entrée in line...
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| Lamb, and raw shrimp to the right side. |
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| The crew was mainly Filipino. The captain is from India. He is on the far left, gesturing with his hands. |
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| Land Ahoy!!! First time I saw land since I left Galveston, TX port. Oh, happy day! |
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| This is a pilot boat. |
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| They drove a pilot out to our cargo ship and then he came on board to steer the boat along the German shore (which you couldn't see). We had one guide us through the English Channel, and then he got off, another one guide us from the English Channel to the Kiel Canal, another one guide us up to 300 feet from the Kiel Canal, another one to guide us into the locks, and then another pilot guide us through the Canal. |
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| Germany |
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| Germany |
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| Going into the locks. We would drive into a lock, which closed behind us, and then they would fill the lock to the level of the canal, and then open the gate in front of us and we would move forward. So, we went through the locks once going into the Kiel Canal, and once going back out on the other side. |
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| Cruise ship in the Baltic Sea. At this point, I was quite envious of their cuisine available to them. On my boat, I ate mostly spicy dishes, beans, rice, meat, etc, which suited the Filipino crew just fine. But not me. I despise peanut butter, but even some days, I was driven to ask for a peanut butter sandwich to get me through. |
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| Kiel Canal |
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| Breaking ice with the boat, about 1-1/2 to 2 days away from Ust-Luga, a port about 60 km from St. Petersburg. |
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| Docked, looking out from the bridge. |
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| Unloading well underway. It took a little over 24 hours to unload the boat. |
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| More trucks waiting to be loaded. |
One of these cattle trucks holds 12 horses, or 16-20 bulls, depending on size, or 24-28 heifers, depending on size. They were trucked 30 hours, straight off the boat to the farms for quarantine.
While unloading, we had 2 heifers jump over the loading chutes, straight onto the dock. We got one tranquilized right away, but before we could get the other one, she jumped 6-7 feet off the dock into the freezing cold ice water, with chunks of ice floating around. She swam and swam and swam. We figured she was done for and went back to loading the trucks. Meanwhile, one of the tug boats went out and put a rope on her and had her hooked to the crane on the boat and then they tranquilized her. They brought her to shore, put her on a pallet, and then a fork lift came and lifted her up and put her in the truck. They loaded a few more, and sent them on their way. I never heard if she made it. It would be a miracle if she did. She swam for at least 30 minutes in hypothermic waters, and then was loaded into a truck for 30 hours, while being tranquilized. Part of the risk, I guess.
Overall, we had 4 heifers die on the boat, and 4 more that we had to put down. They ended up as shark bait. (Ooh Ha Ha! -for any Disney fans out there.)
Final words of advice: Don't fall in, because despite all the signs about what to do if someone falls in, if you do, no one will see you, and you will become the next ocean meal. I despise water.
It was hard to be away from my family, especially during that time of the year. I missed Star's Birthday, Christmas, and New Years. But I was sure glad to get home when I did.
