MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Baltimar Orion” is heading south.

Fully loaded and anxious to arrive in the Falklands in four days time, “Baltimar Orion” will leave Montevideo Harbour today, at 9.30 am, in spite of a thunder and force 5 wind storm.

"We have a 250, 20 square meters containers capacity, and you can say there's not much room left", said Captain Karsten Nielsen a few hours before departing Montevideo. After loading thirteen containers and a hundred tons of fuel, "Baltimor Orion" was ready for the last leg of the journey that began in Britain in Shoreham last October 2nd., with just a few hours stop in Las Palmas, Canary Islands. "I've traveled all over the world but never been to the Falklands so I'm looking forward to spending some time in Stanley, since the cargo is to heterogeneous, from chocolates to a Caterpillar", said Captain Nielsen, who works for a Danish company officially located in Hong Kong and with the vessel registered in Nassau, Bahamas.

"Baltimar Orion" built in 1990 has a basic displacement of 2,300 tons and when fully loaded can reach almost 4,900 tons, plus Samantha. Samantha is Captain Nielsen's Labrador faithful companion in a ship where only the mate and chief engineer are Danes and the ten men crew Filipino. "We had quiet a good trip most of the journey with the exception of the last two days in the south of Brazil. If the weather is OK, and no storms, we should be reaching the Falklands in 96 hours sailing", said Captain Nielsen.

"Baltimar Orion" was contracted for the Falklands charter when sailing off the Dutch coast and arrived in Montevideo at 15:00 hours Thursday October 25th.- "We have no idea about freight for the return trip but I guess we'll be able to load cargo for Europe somewhere in the South Atlantic", indicated Captain Nielsen.

Actually "Baltimar Orion" just made it to Montevideo. As of today, Friday October 26th. the container area of Montevideo will be closed down until next Tuesday when the new privatized administration officially takes over.

Last August container operations in Montevideo harbor were auctioned for the next thirty years and a Belgian consortium that controls the port of Antwerp together with local partners won the concession.