Young love can blossom anywhere – even in shipping it seems – but to be parted on the high seas must make any separation even more acute, except if you work for Flex LNG that is.
So when cadet Magda Pieniazek and her own true love Bartosz Cenarski went to sea, —both with on different vessels for the John Fredrisken-controlled LNG shipowner — they expected to be far apart for several months.
But the two youngsters, who had met and fallen in love while studying at the Faculty of Maritime Studies in Poland, had not banked on the romantic side of Captain Nenad Martinovic – the Croatian master of 173,400-cbm Flex Artemis (built 2020) on which Cenarski is serving.
In late June as Flex Artemis paused for a Reunion crew change, while in ballast and heading for West Africa, sistership Flex Constellation (built 2019), with Pieniazek onboard was passing with a cargo bound for China.
Captain Martinovic, made a small and authorised diversion to facilitate an on-the-water, albeit at-a-distance, romantic rendezvous for the two young loves.
There was waving, flag-flying, the sound of the ships’ sirens and those all-important binoculars as the two vessels passed with the crew assembled on the bridge to witness and celebrate the encounter.
"The crew is proud and additionally motivated, and our young cadets are happy," Captain Martinovic told his local Croatian publication. "The respect expressed in this way by their older colleagues meant a lot to them.
“Family, friends and colleagues, both on board and in the office, make us better. This is our way, the Flex LNG way," he said. "We train and educate our crew and future colleagues by our own example.”
