Month: January 2026

Like most people, I think, when I ordered something on the internet from China through web sites such as Amazon, Aliexpress and Temu I had no idea of the intricacies of the logistics involved in getting the goods from wherever they were manufactured and into my post box. Watching the progress of my new mini excavator while it wends its way from China to Marseille has been a complete eye-opener for me and made me appreciate the complexities of what’s actually involved.

My excavator has been packed in a wooden crate which has been loaded into a 40 foot container which has itself then been loaded onto a container ship, the CMA CGM Cedrus. The complexities start from that moment on. The CMA CGM Cedrus will be calling at several ports between China and France at which containers will be offloaded and new ones taken on. My excavator’s container will remain on board to the ship’s final destination so it won’t matter if it’s on the bottom of a stack but there will be many others that will need to be accessible for offloading as required at intermediate destinations. And given that a ship like the CMA CGM Cedrus carries several thousand containers at any one time, merely loading them in the necessary order must represent quite a logistical challenge.

There’s also the problem of scheduling. Huge container ships like the CMA CGM Cedrus can’t just turn up at a port and expect to moor up to unload and take on containers. From what I’ve seen all the ports it has visited so far have been full and another vessel has not long departed vacating a berth before the CMA CGM Cedrus has arrived. This is probably not surprising given the need to maximise the usage of the huge investments in port infrastructure and ship arrivals have to be scheduled well ahead not only because of the need to ensure a berth is available but also to minimise port charges by avoiding delays. And has also been pointed out to me, arrangements also have to be made well in advance for a pilot and tugs to be on hand.

So what came as some surprise to me is that as I mentioned in an earlier post, although the route schedule of the CMA CGM Cedrus has not been formally amended, a change has actually been made. After departing Shekou in China it was then scheduled to route directly to Singapore with an ETA of 30 January. That ETA remains unchanged but instead of routing directly, its schedule was amended to include a stopover in the port of Vung Tau, one of the areas of Saigon Port, the rapidly expanding port area of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam with an ETA of 08.00 am local today, 28 January.

The CMA CGM Cedrus departed Shekou at 02.26pm local on 24 January so it had plenty of time to get to Vung Tau and indeed at one time it appeared that it could arrive a day early. However, from what I’ve said above, this wouldn’t be feasible so when I checked yesterday I found that it had come to a halt with engine stopped and probably anchored for the best part of a day off Vung Tau in the South China Sea.

When I checked again later today I expected to find the ship moored up in Vung Tau as indicated by its revised schedule.

However, to my great surprise, this was not so. Instead it was moored in Cai Mep, one of the other areas of Saigon Port slightly further inland.

It arrived today 28 January at 09.03 pm local time. I have no idea, of course, what is going on, whether containers are being loaded, offloaded or both, but what I do know is that for now, anyway, its scheduled ETA at Singapore is still 30 January. I would imagine that to meet this timing it will need to leave Cai Mep either in the early hours tonight or some time tomorrow, so I’ll be interested to see if that is so when I check tomorrow. But I’m finding it interesting looking a bit behind the scenes and am a bit gobsmacked by the probability that what is happening with the CMA CGM Cedrus is happening with thousands and thousands of similar vessels shipping goods all over the world.

I finished all the internal door frame trims, ‘baguettes’, in my house last week and got them and all of the doors varnished by Sunday afternoon, including a trip back to Leroy Merlin on Sunday to buy another can of varnish. I ran out just before completing the job, which was rather annoying, but I not only managed to do all of the room doors but also the louvre doors of the cloaks cupboard. And I’m very pleased with the results.

However, the doors got their own back on me – you could say I’ve been baguetted. The reason is that I’ve managed to injure my shoulder along the way which makes staying in one position, typing on my PC and sleeping become increasingly painful. That’s why I’m typing this at 5.00 am having got up at around 3.30. I think I know how it happened.

I varnished the doors two at a time by removing them from their hinges, carrying them into my living room and laying them flat on trestles. After I’d varnished one side I then had to flip them over to do the other and when that had dried flip them back upright, carry them back to the rooms they’d come from and remount them on their hinges. With all the flipping and carrying I think I may have slightly torn a muscle in my left shoulder.

It’s slowly getting better but I can’t sleep for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time especially when I lie flat in bed, so I’ve been grabbing the odd hour or two when I can during the day while sitting in a comfortable upright chair. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting a bit too old for this stuff after all… 🙁

At the time of writing this post, the CMA CGM CEDRUS, the container ship bringing my mini excavator from China to France, has already left Shekou on its way to its next port of call. But this isn’t Singapore as I’d anticipated but somewhere completely different which I’ll explain in my next post. Instead I want to mention some things to do with its previous stop at Shekou.

Shekou is the main port of Shenzhen which is on the Chinese mainland facing Hong Kong. I have some attachments to Hong Kong, not direct ones because I’ve never been there. However, back in the late 80s or early 90s, I can’t remember now, I had the privilege of flying a full motion flight simulator operated by the then British airline, British Caledonian. The simulator was a McDonnell Douglas DC10 and it was used to train and maintain proficiency of pilots employed by the airline.

Because I already had a Private Pilot’s Licence I was allowed to do more than just ‘play’ on the simulator and in fact the instructor set me up for a night approach into the old Hong Kong Kai Tak airport which has now gone having been replaced by a huge new, modern one at Chek Lap Kok. The landing procedure for runway 13 which all pilots had to follow involved an indirect approach with an initial descent towards an illuminated red and white checkerboard mounted on a hillside.

This involved the use of what was called the IGS (Instrument Guidance System). The IGS operated in a similar way to a normal ILS (Instrument Landing System) except it did not point towards the runway. Instead if you continued to fly the IGS beam you’d crash the aircraft into Checkerboard Hill so at the correct moment the pilot flying had to disconnect the aircraft’s autopilot and manually fly a descending 47 degree right hand turn to land on runway 13.

I was successful in completing the landing which pleased me greatly. The procedure was both exciting and demanding and it must have been a great privilege to have been qualified to actually perform it with the lives of hundreds of passengers seated in the cabin behind you. But pilots did so on thousands of occasions with very few mishaps ever occurring. But it all came to an end in 1978 after the United Kingdom handed Hong Kong back to China and Kai Tak was closed.

As I’ve mentioned many times on My Trike, I have a great interest in PC based flight simulation and although I have recently started to again do a bit of scenery design (ie digital models of airports and their surroundings which are placed in the sims) I was much more heavily involved a few years back. As a result I created highly detailed sceneries of Kai Tak for Microsoft Flight Simulators 2002 and 2004 which I uploaded onto the internet in 2003. Yup, where did 22 years go!

The scenery included all of the avionics systems together with full instructions to allow simulator pilots to fly the Checkerboard Approach to runway 13 on their PCs and also included many of the iconic buildings around the airport perimeter together with their famous advertisements that were known worldwide at the time and all with full night lighting.

It also included systems for what are described as AI (artificial intelligence) controlled aircraft to land at and take off from Kai Tak including ‘heavies’ such as Qantas and Air France Boeing 747s, light general aviation aircraft and also Concorde, although the latter only did one visit in 1976. The scenery took me quite a few months to create and in fact I never managed to fully complete it as it used the ‘default’ terminal buildings that were already in the sims and I never got around to creating replacements.

So I was very interested when I saw that CMA CGM CEDRUS’s arrival at Sheckou would take it quite close to what had been the old Kai Tak airport site.

When I looked more closely I saw that although the airport is gone, Checkerboard Hill is still there and apparently it was recently restored back to its former glory as a memorial to the historic airport. However, closer viewing still revealed that in the intervening years since I uploaded my scenery the whole area of Kowloon that was Kai Tak and its surroundings has been totally redeveloped.

Nothing is left of the old airport. Only the spit of land on which the runway was built now remains and what was the runway has now been built on with high rise flats and commercial premises. All of those iconic buildings with their advertising boards and hoardings that once surrounded the airport are no more and their like will probably never be seen again given the style and pace of the modern world.

So it was with an air of nostalgia that I managed to locate an old copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator on my PC drive which I was able to fire up for a trip down memory lane back onto the apron at Kai Tak where I took the following shots of parts of my old scenery.

While I waited an AI Government Flying Service helicopter took off from the GFS apron over on the other side of the airport and two Boeing 747s of Qantas and Air France taxied down from the main apron over the bridge to runway 31. Then a moment of pure nostalgia as the Air France 747 began its take off roll, then lifted and soared into the sky.

Flight simulation has come on a long way since 2003, a very long way. I’ve not flown into or out of Hong Kong in the latest versions but spending a few minutes in the heady days of pre 1978 Kai Tak certainly brought back a lot of old memories.

The container ship CMA CGM CEDRUS that’s bringing my mini-excavator from China arrived at Xiamen from Shanghai on 21 January as scheduled. Its ETA was 09.00 am local time and it was actually checked in at 10.16am

Its planned ETD was 22 January local time and it actually departed at 03.31 am (21 January 07.15 pm UTC) on its way to Shekou. Shekou is on the Chinese mainland adjacent to Hong Kong. This is a relatively short hop and its ETA is 23 January at 08.01am local time.

Interestingly, the ship’s original schedule showed it departing Xiamen for Nansha, which is not far from Skekou to the west, and then to Shekou with an ETA at the latter of 24 January. This now seems to have been modified with the ship heading straight for Shekou and apparently saving a day.

Its next stop after Shekou will be Singapore if the rest of the sailing plan is followed.

The main thing that has struck me while following this voyage is just how many enormous container ports China has on its eastern seaboard emphasising the huge volumes of manufactured goods that are being shipped out. The territories inland of them are massively developed and the huge wealth that is being created is reflected in the number of impressive highways, bridges, interchanges and other infrastructure that have been put in place to service them, representing a very substantial investment. China appears to me to be outpacing the rest of the world and one wonders if the rest of the world will ever be able to catch up with it. The implications of this are significant to say the least.

Early start this morning as I have to get two internal doors varnished and refitted today. I’ve just checked and the ship carrying my mini excavator from China, the CMA CGM CEDRUS, is making very good progress from Shanghai to Xiamen City.

Xiamen City is located inside the Taiwan Strait which the ship is now approaching at a speed of just over 15 knots on a heading of 213 degrees. It’s ETA is 9.00 am tomorrow (UTC +8).

Its ETD from Xiamen City is 22 January on its way to Singapore via Nansha and Shekou, so it appears that my fear of time slippage was totally unfounded.

As the ETD from Shanghai of the CMA CGM CEDRUS, the container ship bringing my excavator from China, was yesterday 18 January and it remained moored up in the Yangshan Deep Water Port all day right up until I went to bed, I’ve been curious about when it might actually depart. I had another look while I was having my lunch today and lo and behold I just caught its departure.

Prior to the first of the images shown above, at one time I spotted the three tugs shown alongside at its bow, stern and midships so surmised that it was about to depart and the next time I looked it was already under way. So it actually departed today at about 20.10 hrs local Shanghai time

The original ETD was 18 January and although its actual time of departure (ATD) is 19 January, its ETA at Xiamen, its next port of call remains unchanged as 21 January. Mind you, it appears from what I’ve found about sailing times on the internet, two days from Shanghai to Xiamen is normal.

My concern, of course, is that if ETAs start slipping my excavator will arrive in Marseille even later than the scheduled 03 March which will already be just over three months after the date on which I placed my order, and a further delay would be very annoying to say the least 🙁

I’ve just checked and this morning the container ship carrying my new excavator, the CMA CGM Cedrus, is currently moored in the Yangshan Deep Water Port in Shanghai, China, where it arrived at 18.08 hrs yesterday 17 January.

It’s scheduled to depart tomorrow with its next port of call being Xiamen on its way to Singapore via Nansha and Shekou and then on to Valencia by way of the Cape of Good Hope.

I found out yesterday that the reason why nearly all the ships routing from China to Europe go the long way round rather than via the Suez Canal is because of the activities of the Yemen Houthis in the Red Sea. The shipping company Maersk has announced that it intends to start using the Suez Canal again from later this month but we will have to wait and see if other shippers follow suit.

This morning I received more information from China concerning the shipment of my mini excavator which I find very interesting. The main information on the link that I was provided is shown below. I’ve blanked out what may or may not be sensitive information (this is new to me) such as the bill of lading number, container reference etc and it shows that my excavator (packed in a wooden crate) in a 40 foot long container was loaded onto a ship named CMA CGM Cedrus in Qingdao in 13 January and is scheduled to arrive in Marseille/Fos-sur-Mer on 03 March.

The manifest shows that there are 406 packages in the container, which I think goes some way to explaining why my delivery is taking so long as the Chinese manufacturer has presumably had to wait until he could fill a 40 foot container with goods destined just for Europe. Further delving has revealed that there is a host of web sites out there showing global details of ships, shipping, routes, shipments and tons of other stuff which boggles the mind in terms of the details and volume of information that’s available. I’ve just selected a tiny bit about my shipment, starting with the route that CMA CGM Cedrus is going to be taking.

The ship is being constantly tracked by satellite as is every other type of maritime traffic from what I can see. The map that I downloaded interestingly shows that CMA CGM Cedrus is on its way to Shanghai, not from Qingdao but from Buson in South Korea to where it must have sailed after taking on goods in Qingdao. The satellite map shows what a huge volume of seaborne traffic there is in the area and when you click on each little arrow it tells you if it’s a cargo ship, a fishing vessel, an auxiliary etc, even a private vessel.

I was astounded when I first saw the satellite view and could hardly believe the global picture when I zoomed out, more so I think than when I first viewed Flightradar24 that shows global aviation traffic. There’s also lots of information available on the CMA CGM Cedrus itself. It was built in 2024 in China and is registered in Valetta, Malta. Apparently it runs on LPG rather than heavy fuel oil which is new to me.

There are lots of photographs of the ship one of which I show below when it was in Singapore.

This is all very new to me and I’ve found it very interesting. I’ll now be following the progress of my mini excavator in real time as it wends its way to Marseille and in the meantime I’ll be figuring out how to get it cleared through customs. It looks to me as although it’ll be unloaded in Fos-sur-Mer (the main international port in Marseille) it’ll enter the EU at Valencia, but I have no idea if this is relevant or not. I’ll have to find out 😉

Earlier today I checked with the Chinese supplier to see if there’s any news on the shipping of my mini excavator and he told me that it has now been shipped. I asked how long it would take for it to get to Marseille as I need to start making arrangements to clear it through French customs and pick it up from the port and he said it would be about 50 days.

I was quite surprised by this as I thought it would only take something over 20 days, 30 at most, so I thought I’d do some checks. The port closest to the supplier’s factory is Qingdao and when I did a detailed search I found that all of the shipments from there go first to Singapore and then the long way round to Marseille via the Cape of Good Hope and not via the Suez Canal. That means they take quite a bit longer.

On delving in a bit more deeply I found that it takes 7 days 20 hours to get to Singapore, 5 days 6 hours to make a ship to ship transfer, then 33 days and 23 hours with 2 stops in Spain to get to Marseille. This means that the shortest shipment time is 47 days 2 hours and the longest 52 days 23 hours, thus confirming what the supplier told me. So that’s it then. It’ll be another 7 weeks, say end of February, before it even arrives on French soil and then there’ll be a delay of another few days for it to clear customs before I can collect it. I guess I’ll just have to be patient until at least the first week in March in that case 🙁

No, not the time for long French loaves. One of the other meanings of the word in French is for what we Brits refer to as the decorative trim that goes around door and window frames where they meet the wall. When my house was built the interior doors were installed but it was left for me to finish them off with whatever form of trim that I wanted – the baguettes. It’s some time since I painted the walls – some of the joints between the wallboard sheets are already beginning to crack up a bit as a result of expansion and contraction – but up to now I’ve never got around to fitting the baguettes.

This year I want to concentrate on the house’s exterior and garden and spend the minimum of time on its interior. In fact, the only interior jobs that are outstanding are to fit the baguettes, varnish them and the interior doors and do the tiling above the worktops in the kitchen and utility room. So I’ve decided that I need to get a move on while it’s too cold to work outside (I will need to cut tiles outside because my machine has a diamond blade that is lubricated by water that sprays a bit) and get the baguette and door work done. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of days – and not before time!

Here’s a shot of what a door frame looks like without a baguette.

And here’s another, taken from the other side of the door, with a baguette fitted.

I hadn’t realised how much of a difference fitting baguettes would make and in fact I’d go so far as to say it has transformed the corridor leading to my bathroom and bedrooms. I knew that something was missing but hadn’t realised just how much character fitting the baguettes would add.

I’ve only completed half the work so far and will continue over the next few days. It’s not cheap – each 2.4 metre length of baguette profile costs 5,95€ and each door needs 5 lengths, except for the bathroom and separate toilet which were beautifully finished inside by the tiler with tiles right up to the door frames, so only needing 2 1/2 lengths each. So the 7 doors will cost nearly 180€ in total for the wood alone, excluding the varnish which itself is not cheap, but I think the final result will be well worth the cost and effort.

I found this poor boy outside my house after I’d finished taking my outdoor Christmas lights down. He’d been gone for some time, I don’t know why. I didn’t move him for now but I couldn’t see any wounds on him and I doubt whether the few cold nights we’ve had lately would have been bad enough to have seen him off.

Maybe someone poisoned him, but I now know who’s been taking the scraps left in the bowl overnight after I’ve fed the raggedy dog who often visits me for food and company, as she did today.

But anyway, I won’t just throw the poor little soul’s body over the fence and into the trees. I’ll give him a decent burial more fitting for an animal who’s lived his whole life, short though it was, in Nature in the wild.