The beginning of the end
After a couple of months spent at home, the traveller’s bug bit me again. The bite was no more a pinprick; it had lost its sting long ago, and I had long since stopped nursing the wound. But as the sailors say – you anchor at any one place for long and you will have barnacles growing on your bottom.
Somewhere in my heart I knew that my sails could no longer hold the wind anymore, my travels were coming to a slow halt, I could read the signs in every trip that I now made, every voyage that I now sailed.
But right now I had to leave.
And so it was that I found myself at the airport once again waiting to board another plane and eventually to board another ship.
Chennai ~ Mumbai:
I should have flown direct to Amsterdam from Chennai but my company had some important papers to hand over to me so I had to make a pit stop at Mumbai.
I was not pleased with the stopover arrangement as I dreaded the drudgery of dragging my luggage through the domestic terminal at Mumbai to the International terminal.
So after clearing the usual formalities of check-ins and customs at Chennai, I was loitering around the terminal when I thought of calling up a friend in Mumbai. After all I would be left with about three hours between flights at Mumbai. Rather than wait at the passenger lounge in the airport I thought it better to spend the time with a dear friend.
The flight itself was pretty boring. It was delayed in taking off and more so while landing. And I was keen not to keep my friend waiting at the airport. As it turned out he was delayed himself getting out of office.
Moments later we were nursing drinks while reminiscing the days gone by. Trying to act like mature adults, catching up on our activities and laughing over old jokes.
How quickly time flies when you want it to stretch!
He dropped me at the airport just in time for me to catch my next flight. As always, a thought quietly echoed within my head – when will I meet him again?
It is always the same isn’t it? No one leaves a place and its people without pondering at least once whether one shall be back. But then if Columbus had dwelt too much on that thought America might have been Atlantis, undiscovered, lost and probably would still belong to the Apaches, the Chinooks and other Native Indians of the first nation.
Mumbai ~ Amsterdam:
As usual this was a night flight.
Tossing and turning in my seat (in case you are wondering, this is a highly complex manoeuvre, one that is mastered by seasoned frequent fliers flying economy class), I tried my best to do the one thing which has evaded me on all my travels – sleep. So I did what sleepless souls on long flights do – I watched the in-flight movie. “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince”. And believe you me; the book is so much better!
We landed in the frigid cold of Amsterdam amid the usual pleasantries of the stewardesses.
Amsterdam airport:
Once off the ramp I walked up to the woman holding the placard with my name on it. She took me to the immigration section where I handed over my passport and other papers. I assumed that the process would take a few minutes.
Ha! I might as well have taken a return flight to India.
At many international airports, if you observe closely you will find a few people clustered separately near the immigration desks. They seem despondent, haggard and look like lost pups (in most cases they are, not pups though), casting longing glances at the bustling and hurried crowd passing them by and wishing they could be one among them. Very obviously they look out of place.
These are “seamen” (or sailors, if you are the average Joe; or seafarers, for the politically correct, or mariners for the hoity-toity). These men are waiting for their temporary or transit permits to be issued. Till such time, they are rooted to their spot without being able to go anywhere. Indeed some countries forbid them from doing so.
Remember the scene in the movie “The Terminal” in which actor Tom Hanks is cordoned off inside the airport by the immigration officials because his country no longer officially exists. This is somewhat similar except that one can loiter around the airport but within sight of the immigration desk, which as you would imagine, is usually situated at the most uninteresting part of the airport. Whatever else you do while waiting, the one thing you don’t want is a worried immigration official when he calls out your name and finds you missing.
In the aftermath of 9/11, seafarers have got a very raw deal. Gone are the days of adventure. Nowadays it is a luxury if a sailor can step ashore in any port without him having to carry all sorts of identification papers, provided he is allowed to step ashore. Simply put, many sailors would prefer to stay on board a ship when she calls at any port rather than step ashore. Just as nowadays you would find many clean-shaven sailors when once naval superstitions considered cutting off facial hair as bad luck. Very few sailors now sport a beard, solely to be politically correct. Talk about changing traditions!
These sailors near the desk invariably have to join a ship in a nearby port for which they need special entry clearances and permits in spite of holding the country’s visa. “Blistering barnacles” old Captain Haddock would say. Why would you need another permit when you already have the visa? Ah! Now that is a question which only the babus of officialdom would be able to answer.
And if you have been a sailor as long as I have been, you might even bump into an old colleague at these waiting areas. Or maybe someone who might have sailed with you on some bucket of bolts, probably whose face you would have sworn never to see again, and you would have further sworn that you would push his head up his “you-know-where” if he ever came across your way.
These desks are poignant reminders that though the world is indeed getting smaller, ironically it is growing apart.
I happened to meet a ship’s Captain at the desk after waiting for a couple of hours. Strange as it may sound he was to join the same vessel as I was! Though we both flew on the same flight from Mumbai bound for the same destination and the same ship, it is not surprising that we had to meet at this desk.
Now that I had a companion, I found it easier to pass the rest of the few hours that we were made to wait.
Finally we got our papers. The reason for the delay, we found out was some clerical fault at their office for which we suffered the maddening wait.
Amsterdam ~ Rotterdam:
This would have been a pleasant and enjoyable drive had it not been for the chilling cold and the light but irritating drizzle of rain. Enroute we tried to catch up on our lost sleep. Yeah, Right!
We finally reached the port where once again we had to report to the Maritime immigration and customs office. After a short wait we finally made it to the ship and boarded the long gangway wearily.
This ship was a monster. She used to carry oil in her heydays, but was later converted as an ore carrier and was pushing well over 300,000 metric tonnes. This was a first for me. I could not help but be awed. She was one massive Mama.
Rotterdam ~ Pointe de Madeira:
The charms of sailing the seas wear down very quickly after you get to the brass-tacks. Nowadays life on board a merchant vessel is quite monotonous barring the occasional machinery breakdown. One follows the routine procedures, watches, stations and drills.
We stopped halfway to do a major overhaul to the main engine, and then proceeded as if nothing had ever happened, finally anchoring off the coast of Brazil for a number of days waiting for our turn at the port.
Pointe de Madeira is a port on the east coast of Brazil (the west coast is landlocked) where big ships call. And if you thought that a ship of this size would spend a long time filling her take of cargo, well you thought wrong. In just about a day and a half we were on our way to the next port. We barely stepped ashore.
Pointe de Madeira ~ Magishan:
This was a long passage. And I mean it.
Forty-five days long. It was the longest I have ever sailed on any ship. We would be crossing the Atlantic, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, taking in the entire breadth of the Indian Ocean, cutting through the Celebes sea, entering the Pacific, crossing the East China sea and finally into the Yellow sea. Try as you might, you would never find the borders separating these seas and oceans just as you would never see a line demarcating the equator.
Any sailor would have to be an inherent liar if he were to say that such a long voyage was uneventful. Sailors usually are. Well of course there were many events. But what stood out most was the debilitating injury to the Chief Officer days into the voyage. He had gone into a Ballast tank for doing routine inspection, had slipped, ended up with a deep gash in his leg.
All sailors are trained in basic First-Aid courses. We can very proficiently give you pills for the headache that you have in your stomach. We can administer effective laxatives such as the cook’s armpit. We can even stop nose-bleeds by tying a bowline knot around your ears. Why, we even hand out condoms to all the crew when they step ashore. Rashes and lesions are simply cured by dabbing generous amounts of spit (preferably your own). Most importantly we can prescribe salt tablets to tackle sea-sickness.
Barring the ship’s Captain who is permitted to give you scheduled drugs such as pain-killers (morphine, etc), the rest of the crew can collectively crowd around the injured man with so much compassion that would despair even the most optimistic patient and make him want to rethink his life. A sailor’s best suggestion for a lacerating wound, or for any injury for that matter, would be a bottle of his favourite drink and a senorita by his side. However, international laws forbid both these time-tested remedies on board ships nowadays. So the next best solution was the Radio Medical services whom you could call any time of the day or night and ask for correct medications for alleviating the pain and procedures to prevent the injury from getting worse.
The ship had to be diverted to the nearest port of refuge to off-land the Chief Mate who would have to be hospitalized. The nearest such port was Capetown.
Capetown:
Near the southern tip of the Republic of South Africa, Capetown when viewed from the sea is imposing, as the Table Mountains stand guard over the city.
A ship of our size could not possibly go near the port. The only and usual method was to use a helicopter to fetch a casualty who needed evacuation.
But getting a helicopter to land on a ship is easier said than done. Though we have seen it happen in so many movies, the dynamics behind the operation are never revealed.
The ship’s crew has to prepare well in advance for the helicopter. The landing spot is distinctly marked, the area is cleared of all loose objects, the ship is headed in the right direction to ease the approach of the whirly-bird, a wind-sock is hoisted to indicate the direction and intensity of the wind, a fire-fighting team is stationed near the marked helipad in their fireman’s suits and other paraphernalia, and most importantly, before the copter touches the ship’s metal surface a lead line is lowered to discharge the static on the ship’s hull, else one could witness a nasty fireball that would engulf the mechanical bird in the blink of an eye.
Anyway, we had a copter landing safely on the deck. The injured Chief Mate was strapped in a harness, into the copter. Sometimes, the copters have to winch the injured person if landing is not possible.
The helicopter pilot then circled the vessel, as is customary, and left for the city leaving us to rev our engines to Full Speed Ahead and continue with our interrupted voyage.
Sailing from one place to another is a big deal indeed.
On a map you could draw a straight line from one point to the other. But sailing is not as simple. One hears the phrase “as the crow flies” to indicate that your destination is right there under your nose if your nose weren’t twitching. But sailing, ah!
One of the many splendors of our planet earth is the fact that it is round. A straight line on a flat two-dimensional map would be the shortest distance between any two places but on a round earth the same straight line would curve! It is like wiping your arse after attending nature’s business. You know it is right down there but you still have to manoeuvre around the curvature of your bums. Sailing is somewhat similar. And that is why we have qualified, certified, trained and highly professional officers on board who plot the courses that the ship has to sail from one place to another. Imagine if you needed such a skill set for wiping your rear end. Further imagine if it were as big as Jupiter as some of us so have. Wouldn’t you rather not do it? – I mean, plot the course. The mind does boggle, does it not, as P.G.Wodehouse would have remarked.
We were sailing east from Brazil all the way to China. This way we would meet the sunrise earlier every day. Every longitude that is crossed adds or lessens the time of travel depending on the direction of travel. Time is lost when travelling west and gained when travelling east. So after travelling east the clock had to be reset back by the gained time. Over a period of 45 days we travelled through many time zones and ended up gaining about eleven hours.
Our plotted course from Pointe de Madeira in Brazil to Magishan, off the north eastern coast of China, was finally made in about 45 days. Another traveler could have covered the same passage in less than two days flying. But you cannot transport tonnes of cargo by an aeroplane. That is what a cargo ship is all about.
Magishan ~ Rizhao:
We spent a few days at the anchorage at Magishan before being called to berth. Magishan is a port on the small island of Sijiaoshan, one of the many islands south of the mouth of the river Chang Jiang in east China.
As expected, shore leave was denied to ship’s crew, so we stayed on board and did not step ashore. After 45 days out at sea, the least one could hope for was a night out in the port. However, that was not to be. So let’s not hear any more crap about having a wife in every port! Reduced manning, overload of work and stringent regulations have eliminated R&R which is just a notion nowadays on ships.
One could say that shipboard working arrangements are not designed for the weak-hearted. In any other job, one would expect to put in around 44 hours of work every week on an average. But on ships it is quite normal for people to work anywhere between 70 to 84 hours per week. If you thought that modern technology, automation, improved management techniques and ERP solutions would change sailor’s lives since the time Roman Galleys tramped the earth’s oceans, nothing could be further away from the truth.
Ships are nothing more than multi-million dollar trucks with monstrous machines running the show. Man can fly an unmanned spacecraft to the Moon or Mars, he can pilot supersonic fighter jets across the world’s skies sitting in his air-conditioned operations command center thousands of miles away, he can fly the world’s largest passenger airline by fly-by-wire technology, he can even remote control submersible vehicles for deep water operations and has computer guided automobiles to help him make it through the traffic grid-locks on his daily commute. But he still hasn’t found a reasonable way to ease a sailor’s life on board a Merchant ship.
In all forms of transport, man has been able to reduce human intervention to a minimum. Except on ships.
Anyway, after completing the cargo operations we sailed away for the next port with a hope that we could set foot on land.
Rizhao:
Another port further north in China. The city of Rizhao is not far away from the major city of Qingdao. We had to anchor here as well.
Ships are the same as cars. One drives to a place, a shopping mall, or someplace and looks for a parking spot. The best ones are usually taken. So we hang around waiting for a spot to open up to park our car. Ships do the same. We anchor till a berth in the port is vacated by another ship. And we anchor so that the tide does not drag us around. We stick around.
A huge ship stuck to one place with a puny little anchor tied by a wimp of a chain.
We ended up stuck in anchorage for a number of days because of the weather playing truant. Incessant howling winds gusting at more than 40 knots per hour, spraying fine droplets of water all over the ship; the ever-present cold adding to our miseries. Very soon a thin layer of sleet formed on all our decks. Temperatures inside our ship dropped, our accommodation heating systems were stretched to the limit. Hot water for bathing was being rationed now as the water distilling plant went on a blink. We were caught in one of the worst winters of this region.
Finally, after about a week, the wind gods were appeased and they spared us further discomfort.
Then the fog set in. A white flimsy shroud had gobbled up the atmosphere. Visibility was imaginary. Thankfully our RADAR was working well and we had a pair of electronic eyes compensating for our lack of natural vision.
Out in the open sea, nature displays all of its nuances, colours, and moods. They are varied, complex and awesome. It is no wonder then that the science of Meteorology is still probing the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
At last we were called into the port.
And the biggest disappointment for us all was the denial of shore-leave once again. This is getting to be the norm all over the world.
Young sailors now can no longer dream of telling their grand children about the places they saw and the adventures they had as a sailor because they hardly get to step ashore at any port. I remember, one of the motivating reasons for me being a sailor was the charm, the romance, the thrill of the unknown, and a devil-may-care life. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Believe you me; those reasons have long since gone the way of Davy Jones locker.
Now the cutlass has been replaced by the computer, the crow’s nest houses electronic gadgetry, the holds are devoid of Spanish gold and carry millions of dollars worth oil, the bilges are sparklingly clean and the man with an eye-patch and an iron hook for a hand is out of a job.
In Rizhao I was to get off the vessel and head for home. However, fate had planned otherwise. The Chief Engineer who was to relieve me boarded the ship. I was hoping to hand over the charge to him and step down. But it was the Chinese New Year (at least that was what we were told, it seems they were celebrating the harvest), and all of China went for a week long holiday. As a result I could not get my exit visa. The immigration department had closed down for seven days as if it were the end of the world.
I ended up staying on board, still in charge, with a promise of getting me off next port.
We departed from this port with a yearning desire to step ashore at the next one. But that wouldn’t be, cause we were heading for Singapore.
Rizhao ~ Singapore:
Having discharged all of our cargo at Rizhao and having taken on ballast for the voyage, the ship was considerably lighter. We were also being assisted by the wind and the current. So we did a reasonably good speed and reached Singapore with no incident.
Singapore – the mecca of ships. It is a beehive for ships. One has to see it to believe it.
Anyway, I had by now finished my tenure on this vessel and was eager to go home. Upon reaching anchorage I handed over charge to the new Chief Engineer and got off the ship. A small boat took me across the bay to the marine terminal where the seaport customs cleared me off and I boarded the waiting taxi that would take me to the Changi airport.
It is probably impossible not to let money slip through your fingers when you are inside the Changi airport. Everyone ends up buying something or the other at the duty-free shops. I lost my share of money too buying stuff for my family.
I eventually boarded the flight which would take me home.
As I looked back upon the entire travel-athon, I couldn’t help but sing the same song –
MUSAFIR HOON YAARON……….
