Brendan 的个人资料Desperately Seeking...So...照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
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6月19日 PhotosIf you look to the right of the screen, you'll see the photo album for the blog. I've added a number of albums of photos from Korea (the latest visit), the ship, and my travels since arriving in the US. Enjoy! Book listBecause all I did besides eat when I was at sea was read, I managed to go through eleven books during my trip. Here they are:
Shadowmancer - G.P. Taylor (Not great!)
Voyage of the Dawn Treader - C.S. Lewis (Wonderful!)
Sourcery / Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett (Funny!)
The Hound of the Baskervilles / The Valley of Fear - A. Conan Doyle (Marvellous!)
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes / His Last Bow
Adventures in a T.V. Nation - Michael Moore (Preachy!)
Timequake - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Bizarre and enjoyable!)
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett (Sad!)
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien (Funny, moving!)
Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie (Dated!)
My Discovery Of America - Vladimir Mayakovsky (Relevant!)
Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, and seafarersSeafarers, the Captain informed me, are treated like criminals everywhere they go. Like the many useless flags he is supposed to fly throughout a voyage, he believes this attitude toward sailors "dates back to Nelson's time" (a favourite phrase of his), when the only people on the water were the Royal Navy, and pirates (not much difference if you ask me). Anyone who has entered the United States in the last six years will know what it's like to be suspected of doing something, anything, so it'll come as no surprise that the US is the hardest place for crewmen to get into. And if you think having to take your shoes off in an airport is silly, just thank your lucky stars that you're not a ship's captain.
There's a frightening statistic (of course I can't remember it now!) that my cousin is always mentioning, which describes how only a portion of the cargo containers that enter the US are properly searched. It's hardly surprising: on my ship alone, which wasn't travelling with a full load, there were 4900 containers. So, the Department of Homeland Security simply buries the Captain in paperwork, in the hope that rather than try to smuggle in contraband or Communists (I know they're not the enemy de jour, but I couldn't think of a word for "contraband" that would provide alliteration with "jihadists"), he'll just give-up and die in the face of all the red-tape (too bad this isn't 1988, I could've made a joke about using red-tape to fight the red menace!).
At least 96 hours before the expected time of arrival, the Captain must send all sorts of papers to the authorities in the US: crew lists, with names, DOB, passport numbers, addresses, heights and weights etc.; passenger lists with same; cargo lists; personal property lists; lists of lists etc. etc. etc. He has to do this same thing again 24 hours prior to his ETA. Now, if he sends the first batch 95 hours before the ETA, for instance, they'll make him wait outside the port for another hour until the 96 hours have expired. Isn't that ridiculous? It gets worse. After Long Beach, the ship moves on to Oakland. Oakland is not 24 hours away, so as soon as the Captain sends the report, he has to wait 24 hours before docking at Oakland. Nevermind that Long Beach and Oakland are both in the US, both in the same state in fact, thems the rules boy!
As for me, I wasn't looking forward to my interview with the Dept. of Homeland Security, not because I'd done anything wrong, but because they always make you think that you have. They start off with the basic premise that you are, at best, a potential illegal immigrant, intent on swelling up the welfare roles, or at worst, a terrorist, intent on blowing up the welfare office. It's up to you to prove otherwise. I had a lot going for and against me. I was Irish: this was usually good, unless they had a bee in their bonnet about the illegal Irish everywhere. I had a visa: OK, but why do you have a visa, you're Irish? I had a visa because I was travelling by ship - these are your rules! OK, but why are you travelling by ship? Why not just fly? Why? Why? Why? Whilst living in Asia I'd travelled to a lot of places that the US used to worry about: China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos; that the US is starting to worry about: Indonesia; and that the US is always worried about: North Korea. About the only places missing were Syria and Cuba to set the bells ringing. The immigration guys always like to point this sort of thing out to you, as if it's a crime to travel to these places, and you can't simply tell them you went for the craic, because then they think you're a drug smuggler. My first point of contact in the US was a priest (this is usually good, unless the guy interviewing me is a fervent Baptist) who also happens to be a Commander in the US Navy Chaplain Corps (this usually tips it in my favour).
So, having entered the US countless times by air, and listened to the Captain describe how it is to enter by sea, I wasn't looking forward to getting into America half as much as I was looking forward to being there. Sunday, June 3rd, 2007Sunday, June 3rd, 2007, was a very special day that I'm sure to remember for the rest of my life, partly because I lived it twice.
On Sunday, June 3rd, 2007, my father turned 84, and as far as I knew, he and my mother would join my brothers in Dublin for a feast of probably cornucopian proportions. I was deeply disappointed that I would miss it - my father's birthday, not simply the feast. And because that was the day we crossed what sailors call the 180, and what the rest of us refer to as the International Date Line, I got to live the day twice. That evening, as I sat watching Monty Python's Search For The Holy Grail, I had to remember not only to set my watch an hour forward (we did this everyday on the ship), but also to wind it twenty-four hours back. It was a little confusing, and very strange. Furthermore, I can't simply wind the day display on my watch backwards, so I had to go forward to go back, which is true Willy Wonka logic, and time consuming, but of course I had a whole extra day to spend taking care of such matters.
Sometime during that double day, I crossed the geographical halfway point between leaving Belfast back in January 2006, and returning there sometime later this year. Up until now, every step I had taken had brought me further from home. I had begun to wonder how far I could actually go before I started coming back, and this was it. As if to illustrate the point, that day (I can't remember if it was the first Sunday June 3rd, or the second) our little model ship that the crew used to track our progress on the map, moved from one side to the other. You know what I mean: the righthand side of the map covers half of the Pacific from the Asian side, and the lefthand side of the map follows the Pacific toward the Americas. Well, at some point on the 3rd, the little model jumped across from the righthand edge to the lefthand, so I was more than halfway along in my journey, and therefore more than halfway home.
It was exciting to think at some 7500 miles from home, this was as far as I could go before I started going back. It was also rather wonderful to think that, for the first time in over 17 months, I was on my way home, to my family, to my friends, and hopefully to at least one feast of cornucopian proportions! Seaman's Sunday, or, Food, Glorious Food!The thing that worried me most about travelling by freighter wasn't that I might get landed with a bunch of bores, or that we could sink. What I worried about most was that the food would be terrible, and, in the middle of the Pacific, there wouldn't be much I could do about it. As it turned out, I needn't have worried about any of that. For one thing, I was the only passenger. As to the other, the Captain assured me that it took so long for freighters our size to sink that we'd have plenty of time to make our escape in one of the huge life-boats on board. And from the first meal I had on the Athens - lunch on day one with the Captain - I knew I didn't have to worry about food. That day we had a chicken casserole that was just delicious. There was also a sidetable laden with breads and cheeses, salads and dressings, and fruit. I heaped my plate high with cheese - something of a luxury item in Korea, so a bit of a treat for me! - and sat down to enjoy the lunch.
The Captain had told me to order as much as I liked, and be sure to join him and the other officers every morning at 10 for coffee and Danish cookies. Everyday consisted of three square meals, with the sidetable always full of extra-eats. The food was what I would describe as simple, hearty, German grub - but after so long in Asia, it was exactly what I wanted. Only on one morning did I turn down what was on offer: beef tartar. In case you don't know what it is, and I didn't, it's raw ground beef (mince meat as we say in Ireland) sprinkled with onions. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? On that morning though, I had muesli, toast, and fruit from the sidetable, so it wasn't like I was going hungry.
On the Saturday, the Captain threw a deck party with German sausage, shrimp, salads, and roast suckling pig. Now roast suckling pig is something I'd associate with the QE2, not a cargo line, but it's what you get when you're sailing with a Captain with style. There was also as much free Heineken, San Miguel, and Bacardi that I could drink, so I was a happy traveller that weekend!
I also discovered that the Merchant Marines don't measure their journeys in time, or even distance, but rather in relation to the days on which they are served ice-cream with lunch - on Sundays, and Thursdays, or, as they call it in Germany, "Seaman's Sunday". Because we crossed the international date line on a Sunday we got to have ice-cream twice, which put everyone in a good mood, and goes some way to explaining why I put on so much weight! 6月16日 Things I learned on board the AthensThere are some things you need to know if you're going to travel by ship.
1) Watch where you put your feet, especially walking through doorways. or else you'll find out, with the sort of understanding that is brought about through pain, why they call the raised hatches under doors on ships "knee-knockers"! 2) Brace yourself when opening doors, or else you're liable to get smacked in the nose if it flies toward you; or have your armed pulled off as it falls back onto itself. 3) Never go out on deck without sunglasses. Even if the day looks cloudy and hazy, there'll be incredible glare from the ocean and the sections of deck that are painted white. 4) If you want things like books, glasses, and iPods to stay where you left them, tie them down (or, "lash them to" something, as they say in nautical terms), or rest them on non-slip surfaces. Even it there isn't much roll, and the seas are fairly calm, things will slide off tables in a matter of minutes. 5) Turn off your flash when you're taking photos at night on the Bridge, otherwise you hinder the nightvision of the Officer On Watch, and look like a complete land-lubber in the eyes of all concerned. It's good to learn something new everyday, but when you board a ship you tend to learn all these new things on Day 1! 6月15日 Day 1 on board the M/V Hanjin AthensI woke up early on the morning of my departure, and it was a good thing that I did, as Mr Shin called to tell me he'd be collecting me 30 minutes earlier than planned. When he arrived at my Love Motel, he had with him the ship's new 3rd Mate (I didn't like to ask what happened to the old one), and I discovered that I'd be the only passenger on board. I had mixed feelings about this. For one thing, it meant that I no longer ran the risk of being stuck with some frightful bore. On the other hand, I would only have the crew to talk to, and I didn't know how much free time they'd have for that sort of thing (also, they might have found me frightfully boring!). At the port, the Immigration Officer looked at the cover of my passport, but it's so worn that you can no longer tell where it's from. He opened it at the first page, which is where lots of countries keep the information page. He seemed a big confused that it wasn't there, and he began randomly opening it, as if the info section could be found on page 9, or 21. (But I suppose, from his point of view, a country that doesn't put the information where every other country puts it, is capable of putting it just about anywhere.) When he did get to it, he looked up and me, smiled, and while nodding his head vigorously said, "Island-uh!", which is a Korean's way of saying "Oh, so you're from Ireland then? The Emerald Isle. Land of Saints and Scholars. And Roy Keane. We had some of your boys over here for World Cup 2002, and a great bunch they were too. Haven't you had some trouble with the English? Yes, we're the same with the Japanese. Say, we should form an alliance, put the English out of Ireland, reunite the two Koreas, and give the Japanese a kick in the pants while we're at it!" And then he stamped my passport.. Next we had to clear port security, but they didn't even look up at us, or at our proferred passports. Nor did anyone search my bags, or my person. I wonder what the Department of Homeland Security would have to say about that... The ship, of course, was massive. The letters spelling out the name - Hanjin Athens - were as tall as my house. The gangway wasn't much more than a glorified ladder, up which I had to climb with my rucksack and bag of books. I was given special gloves to wear, because the handrails are covered in soot from the chimneys, and I was welcomed on board by every crewman I passed. I was introduced to the Steward, "Call me Ibrahim" (close enough to be funny!), who then showed me to my cabin. Located one deck below the Captain's deck, and two below the bridge, my cabin was large, and airy, and it had three portholes that faced forward, affording me a view of the containers and the Pacific stretching out in front of us. My living room was well-appointed, with two sofas, a coffee table and chairs, a writing table and reading lamps, a fridge, a TV / VCR / DVD and Hi-Fi system, drinks in the fridge and fruit on the table. My bedroom was a double (although I'd only paid for a single) with lovely feather pillows. As the Steward was showing me around, the Captain came in to meet me. I hadn't expected this - departure and arrival is the busiest time on board so I didn't think I'd see the Captain until dinner time. He informed me that, as there was only one passenger, he'd have plenty of time to show me around. He invited me to unpack, then meet him on the Bridge. The steward also informed me that he'd be able to clean my room everyday, instead of once a week which is what I'd been led to expect. He left, and I sat down to settle in, feeling like a millionaire. Not long after I had put my clothes in the closest, lined my books up on the writing desk, and had a drink from the fridge, the Captain called to ask me to join him for lunch. On our way to the Galley, he showed me the Assembly Point in case of fire, evacuation, or pirate attack (all unlikely, he assured me!). I was introduced to the Cook, then shown to my place at the Captain's table in the Officers' Mess. Lunch consisted of soup, pork schnitzel, plenty of vegetables, and there was also a side table laden with breads, chesses, salads, and fruit. I was encouraged to eat as much as I wanted, and to ask for anything that I thought was lacking. The Captain also suggested I eat in the Crew Mess at least once in order to sample the Filipino fare. After lunch, he gave me the ten-cent tour. I visited the gym, with its cycles, punching bag, cardio and rowing machines, table tennis table, small pool, and sauna; then the Ship's Office, wherein I met the Chief Officer and the Chief Engineer. I went with the Captain to the Bridge for a look around, while everyone else scurried about, taking care of the last minute tasks before departure. On the way to the US, the most important thing they have to do is carry out a bomb and stowaway search, which involves all the officers and crew. Again, I should remind you that no one searched me, or my bags, but there were guys climbing into every nook and cranny on the ship looking for desperate immigrants! I also learned that the Captain has no idea what sort of cargo he is carrying. He is aware that some of what he carries is dangerous, but exactly what is in the 4000+ containers, he doesn't know. Nor does he care. Every time a ship this size enters or leaves a port, a local Pilot has to come on board to guide it in or out. It doesn't matter if the Captain has been here 20 times before, the local has to board and take over. The Captain likes Busan because it's fast, efficient, and honest. Some ports, in the Middle East for instance, require massive amounts of cigarettes and alcohol to change hands in order for the ship to be processed quickly. (The irony that he has to hand over dozens of cases of liquor to officials from Muslim (dry) states is not lost on the Captain.) The Chief Officer wants to be the first female captain of the fleet, and our Captain is doing everything he can to help her along, chiefly by delegating much of the responsibility for running the ship to her, so she can gain the necessary experience. So, while the Pilot piloted and the CO watched and learned, the Captain walked around with his camcorder, recording everything, giving an excited commentary on the ship's progress, and turning to me, his only passenger, every now and then for a smile and wave. It was all very enjoyable. Shortly after we passed the breakwaters of Busan port, the Pilot's motorboat roared up alongside us, bouncing on the waves and being buffeted by our wake. The Pilot descended the gangway, then the rope ladder, before jumping onto his own vessel. With a wave to us on the Bridge, he turned away, and we were officially out to sea. Stepping into the Wheel Room, the first thing I saw was a huge bank of controls: radar screens, tracking devices, phones, compasses, binoculars, and maps. To one side there was a Map Room and small kitchen, and to the other a Communications Room with radios, computers, and a weather tracker. Over the speaker I could hear Stairway To Heaven, and the Captain explained that he bought an iPod for the ship so that the Officer On Watch wouldn't get too bored and fall asleep! Good to know. In the Map Room he began filling out the various logs, and I noticed that the time of departure that he had entered was one hour later than the actual current time. Checking my own watch, I asked him about this. Slapping himself on the forward, and clapping me on the back with a congratulatory "Good boy!", he realised that he hadn't adjusted his watch that day, and so the time he had entered was incorrect. I felt like I'd somehow earned my place on board! We sat for a while at the Radar Station, and he pointed out the various ships in the area. He informed me that sailing to and from China is the most complicated, because there are literally thousands of Chinese fishing vessels out there. Most are so small that they don't show up on radar, and at night they often turn their lights off to save power. So, it's important that the Officer On Watch not only relies on radar, but on their own two eyes also. Before the Captain was relieved by the new 3rd Mate, he showed me our route plotted on a large map - a journey of 5243 miles had just begun... 6月14日 This ain't the QE2During the long period between deciding I wanted to travel by freighter and actually boarding the ship (and even then), I was reminded time and again that I wasn't taking a cruise. My shipping agent told me; all my internet research reiterated this fact; the company literature that I was given emphasised the point; and even when I boarded the Athens, the letter from the Captain said "this ain't the QE2". I suppose from time to time they take a passenger who declares they are bored from the get-go; such people must be a nuisance for the crew.
I didn't need to be told that I wasn't taking a cruise. If I had wanted to take a cruise I would've gone online and bought a ticket. Instead, I had to engage the services of a shipping agent, go over shipping schedules, apply for a US visa, and secure passage of a ship that was travelling a route that I needed to take. I had done the work, so I had an idea of what to expect.
Why did I travel by freighter instead of taking a cruise? Well, because the idea of crossing the Pacific on a cargo ship seemed so incredibly romantic. Not romantic like the Love Boat - that was a cruise! - but romantic like something Indiana Jones would've done, except he would have simply turned up at the port in Shanghai and bribed the harbour master to get on board.
Climbing the almost-vertical gangway onto the Athens I started to get excited. The minute I stepped into my cabin I knew I had made the right decision. It was nicer than anywhere I'd slept over the past 3 months. It was as nice as my own Korean apartment. It may not have been the QE2, but it would certainly do.
Unlike a cruise ship, which has all kinds of entertainment options, there are really only three things you can do on a freigter: exercise the mind, exercise the body, and exercise the mouth. I would wake-up in time for breakfast, then read and nap until lunch, then read or do the crossword and go for a walk around the deck until dinner, then go for a "cycle" in the gym, and maybe use the sauna. If I wanted to talk to someone, I'd go up on the Bridge and sit with the Officer on Watch, or down to the Officers' Mess, or the Crew's Recreation Room, and have a chat with whoever was off-duty. This may sound boring to you, but for me it was glorious.
The thing about travel is, and I mean country-to-country, city-to-city travel, is that you have to get up every morning and actually do something. Even choosing where to go for breakfast can require a lot of energy, especially if you go by the dictum "Thou shalt not eat in the same place twice", but you're worried that a) the food will suck (See Malaysia, Romania) or b) the food will kill you (See Mexico, Indonesia). It's exhausting, and I'd been doing it for three months, after having already been away from home for 14 months. Even my week back in Korea, during which time I stayed with a friend, kept my clothes in a drawer, and slept under the same roof for more than just two nights at a time, was busy and tiring. The opportunity to spend ten days on a ship, during which time I'd only be expected to eat, sleep, and read, appealed to me greatly.
The whole point of this long preamble is this: Don't expect a day-to-day commentary on my life at sea - it would bore you to tears! (I can't guarantee that what I will write won't bore you, but at least it'll be different!) What I think I'll do is describe in detail my first day on board, because it was all new to me, and a lot of different things happened; then I'll add a few posts about some of the things that did go on, and some of the things I thought about in the middle of the ocean.
Interested? Watch this space! |
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