Having met Steve Morgan the Regional Director for Europe for Mission to Seafarers and chatting to him about various Mission’s around the world, he mentioned a new Port Chaplain had started in Southampton.

As I (Leeann) was heading to Southampton I asked about the chance to visit with her and compare jobs and maybe do some ship visiting with her. This was all sorted out and while on holiday in England I met up with Kate Powell in Southampton and visited 4 vessels in two days which is a quite time for Kate in such a large port like Southampton.

So although the main part of her job is to visit the Vessels which range from Container Ships (they call 2000 containers a small one); RoRo’s (car carriers) which are like a moving multi storey car park and cruise ships, she does like to help them get off and visit Southampton, so along with some volunteers they provide transport into the Town Centre and take them back again. Which is very different to what we do at the Lighthouse Seafarers Mission, we mainly see Fishermen and therefore not very practical to go on board to visit them but if they are alongside they come and visit us, hence our centre is a lot bigger with more facilities than the one in Southampton which is shared with Stella Maris and mainly used as a meeting place for Transport.

At the end of the day our aim’s are the same the welfare of all seafarers. Visiting on the vessels in Southampton I saw similar nationalities as at home, While on the Cruise Vessel we based ourselves in the mess room where they were quite rushed trying to eat, relax and talk to family at home in their short break time, the food choice was vast to cater for all nationalities. Kate mainly checked on their length of contract it was usually 3-4 months and then home, some had been with the same vessel for many years, finding it was a good way to earn a living and support their families. It was noted that a lot of the house keeping staff, perhaps didn’t have time to go ashore as while they were in Port they would be changing beds or cleaning cabins, others like the bar staff and stewards had more time to go ashore if there were no passengers on board.