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Daring to be Different
The Crystal Esprit promises its passengers the luxuries of a super yacht with the convenience of a cruise ship.
At 85m in length, with minimal draft, the yacht-like vessel can visit secluded harbours, coves and islands which are not necessarily accessible to larger cruise ships.
GBA Ships is the management company overseeing the running of the vessel Logos Hope with the agreed aim of "bringing knowledge, help and hope to the people of the world"
Claudia, as Customer Service & Sales Manager, how would you explain to a first-time shipper how the Groupage service works?
Groupage is also known as consolidated cargo, part cargo or LCL shipment(Less than a Container-Load). This is when a ‘group’ of individual importers share the space within one container and the shipping costs are split proportionately.
Essentially, stevedoring would have begun as early on as when ships started bringing goods into the country.
The "Seychellois" story of stevedoring as we know it today however can be said to have begun with a certain Capt. Jouanis. This gentleman built a lighter vessel (or barge) of 20 tons in the early 1900s, which was initially towed to and from the outer harbour by a pirogue of 12 oars. This lighter vessel and the fleet of new additions which followed would collect break bulk cargo to bring back to shore to be offloaded by stevedores at the port.
Stevedoring is an occupation which involves loading and unloading of cargo on ships, as well as all the logistics and administrative work associated with this.
The word stevedore is thought to originate in Portugal or Spain, and entered the English language through its use by sailors. It started as a phonetic spelling of “estivador” in Portuguese or “estibador” in Spanish, meaning a man who stuffs. (And in the shipping world, the word 'stuffing' is indeed used for 'loading' a container.)
Much food for thought was given during a two-hour awareness workshop on Tuesday 15th September. In attendance was a healthy mixture of government representatives, the local business community and a number of environmental NGOs. Lemmy Payet from Land Waste Management Agency and Michele Martin from S4S gave a comprehensive overview of the current ‘waste situation’ in Seychelles.
On the 8th of August, Seychelles celebrated the National Sea turtle Conservation at Beau Vallon. The event was an opportunity for the Island Conservation Society (ICS) to raise public awareness on the threats sea turtles face worldwide and on conservation action within the Seychelles.
The festival overall encourages the general public to take pride in the protection of this unique species by allowing people to ask questions, play games and be creative.
Felicity is a young Seychellois swimmer who Hunt, Deltel has committed to support as she continues her career in international competitive swimming. Following consistently high performance locally and overseas, Felicity has been offered a partial scholarship from Plymouth College in the UK where she will be under the wing of the English swimming team’s Head Coach.
Tell us a bit about your training routine
Remote Container Movement software enables us to continuously monitor the status of our reefer cargo. It receives vital information such as temperature, pressure, plug-in status and alarms. The information is received irrespective of whether a reefer is at sea, en route or in a terminal.
Alexandre Barbier is currently a shipping assistant in the Shipping Operations department. He has recently returned to Seychelles following a stay of 8 weeks’ abroad. He tells us of his experience:
On the 3rd of May early this year, I arrived in Spain for the first time. Not only was it my first time travelling on my own, but it was also my first time travelling to a country where the people did not speak a language that I could. Walking out of the airport, I made my way out to the arrivals area where a man from the school I would learn Spanish from was waiting for me.