Sea-mail from the Pacific
January 15, 2001
Long Beach, California
Terminal Island, Berth 302
Kiwi
The mini-rig drivers that transport the containers to
the ships were all very excited about my trip. It had
never occurred to them to travel on one of the giant
container ships they load every day.
A lovely blonde woman in her late 20's/early 30's,
all made up and with polished nails, stopped me on the
dock. She called to me from the rig she was driving,
as she was waiting in line to have her container
loaded onto my ship, the "Direct Kiwi."
"Are you on this ship?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm going to Australia." Her eyes lit up. "You
can do that? How did you book that? How many days? How
old are you?"
I answered her questions and told her I was 34.
"Wow, why not?" she said.
I'm not sure what my age had to do with it. I guess
she was trying to determine if I was young before
saying, "do it while you're young." She was in the
middle of asking me more questions when the guys
loading the containers yelled. She'd missed her cue
and they were sitting there idle, waiting for her.
"Oops, gotta run!" She put her rig into gear and
zoomed away.
She probably had overheard me in the break room,
earlier, when I was talking to the guy who'd given me
a lift back to the shipyard from the bus stop by
Customs. I had taken a sixteen dollar taxi into Long
Beach in the morning, but the return trip by bus had
cost only ninety cents.
My lift introduced me to his other driver friends, a
young man and a 30-something woman, and explained that
I was going to Australia via ship. They had gotten
excited and asked questions too.
"Earlier I saw her walking down the road, so I
stopped and said get in, are you going to work? She
said, no, I'm going to Australia!"
They all thought this was a hoot. I had gone into the
break room to use up my phone card, spend my change,
and load up on any last minute vending machine goodies
I could find.
"Hey, didn't you just get here?" I asked my ride, who
I think was named Al. "Why are you on break already?"
"They're aren't enough vehicles to go around. They're
trying to find us some. There's too many ships here
and all the rigs are in use."
Suddenly, they all stopped chatting as their
supervisor came in. He assigned them rigs, and they
all scampered off to work.
View from top deck
The rig-driver job is a good gig. They get paid for
nine hours but only work four, because it's a
"dangerous" job. The drivers were nonplused about the
danger, and also said they'd heard that it was harder
to drive the rigs than the giant cranes, but they
weren't sure. Everyone agreed that crane-driving was
not for those who are afraid of heights, as the
control booth is on top of the crane.
I took my goodies back to my cabin, where I enjoyed
chips with my tarragon chicken sandwich that Long
Beach's "East Village Cafe" proprietor had labored
over. The other passengers were waiting for dinner,
and they stopped me to find out about my excursion to
Long Beach.
My six new best friends were retired couples, and two
of them were named Fred. They were all experienced at
freighter cruising. The Captain and one or two
officers would spend their meals with the passengers,
and the couples asked all the right questions, while I
listened with my mouth open.
Our ship (I get chastised whenever I call it a boat)
could carry over a thousand containers, that looked
exactly like the trailers that tractor-trailers carry
on US interstates. Some of the containers were
refrigerated, the controls visible on the outside. The
living quarters and generators are all at the back, or
"aft" end, on seven different flights. My single cabin
is on the fourth floor. The top is the bridge,
attended usually by one person and one very smart
computer. Only 21 men run the Direct Kiwi, and no
women. Our crew consists of a German Captain, a Polish
Chief Engineer, an Estonian electrician, and 18
others, all either Russian or Sri Lankan.
Captain and First Officer
Captain at work
January 16
somewhere in the Pacific
The Kiwi rumbled enough to wake me up at 1:30 a.m.,
not an easy feat. I peeked out the window to see that
we were underway and the lights of Long Beach were
receding in the distance. Contentedly, I went back to
sleep. Next stop: New Zealand! Finally, my trip had
begun.
I awoke in the morning to feel the gentle but erratic
motion of the ship rolling in rough surf. No matter,
it was a big ship, surely I wouldn't get seasick.
I'm not sure what led me to conclude this, since I
ALWAYS get seasick when at sea.
Within ten minutes of getting out of bed, I started
to feel lightheaded. When the flushed and breathless
symptoms kicked in, I was only too familiar with the
cause. I leaped back into bed until my breathing
returned to normal. I got up again and made a beeline
for the Transderm patches in my medical kit.
"Thank you, Dr. Burns," I thought. She was my primary
care physician back in New York and had insisted I get
all kinds of anti-seasickness prescriptions. But it
was too late. The patch must be put on four hours
prior to moving, not four seconds. I showered and made
my way to breakfast, where after two bites of toast
and a sip of water, I knew that I was doomed. One
passenger said, "just keep your eyes on the horizon."
I responded with a smart-ass "I'll keep my eyes on my
pillow." I went upstairs to be alone in my misery.
By lunch time, the patch had kicked in. I developed a
healthy appetite and gobbled rosemary soup and chicken
curry.
Post-lunch activities involved sleeping and more
sleeping. I had read that the side effects of the
patch were tiredness and dry mouth. I kept my water
bottle at my side.
Somehow, I mustered enough interest to go back down
to the galley for dinner. Ground beef and cabbage in a
sauce with potatoes was tasty enough to keep me from
raiding my snack stash. Then, back to the important
task of sleeping off the effects of the patch.
As the skies outside darkened, I realized that I had
spent the entire day either eating, sleeping, or being
seasick.
January 17
Emergency drill
At 10:20, we had an emergency drill. The public
address system emitted some beeps, and we all grabbed
our life jackets and headed for the lifeboat (this
being a mere drill, I didn't stop to rescue my
passport, funds, or the brownies Cat had made me in
LA).
Lifeboat
The entire crew assembled by the orange,
double-decker lifeboat. They looked a lot less
intimidating than they had before. They were now
staring at the ground, sky, and each other instead of
staring at me. We then went to the bridge, where the
Captain showed us navigation charts, nautical
equipment, and a view of hundreds of containers,
surrounded by miles and miles of unforgiving ocean.
The Pacific covers a third of the earth. I had no
problem believing this as there was no bird, land, or
ship in any direction.
January 18
After breakfast, I went out on the deck and watched
the Sri Lankan crew members literally swabbing the
deck below. This gave me a bit of a giggle and I
almost shouted out "ahoy, matie!" But I managed to
keep my mouth shut.
The Pacific looked exactly the same as it did the
previous day, and the day before that. Nothing but
vast mountains of black water. The propeller of the
ship churned the water up and made our wake blue. I
took my book out and sat on deck, until the Chief
Engineer (dare I call him Scotty?) wandered by and
offered to show me the best place to read. We went to
the very front of the boat, where there was nothing
but anchors, containers, and me. He dusted off a metal
pedestal and said, "it is very quiet here. Best place
on the whole boat."
He was right about that. I relaxed and read, far away
from the noise of the generators and engine room. No
one else visited after the Chief left.
The anchor
I was a bit concerned that I was in for even more
boredom than I had anticipated. I had already plowed
my way through three novels. At a book a day, I had
exactly enough for seven days and then I'd have no
choice but to start "War and Peace."
January 19
I awoke with slightly more optimism than I had the
day before. After another in a series of dull dinners,
there was a card game, in which the entertainment came
from stealing someone else's cards, and also from
watching the Captain mug his way through his hand, in
Jackie Chan fashion. The Captain and Scotty are quite
the comic duo. And the first officer, interestingly
enough, is totally silent and has yet to smile at
anyone. There is no ship's doctor, so my Star Trek
metaphor didn't hold up.
After cards, Roland (who I imagine is an excellent
grandpa) played ping-pong with me. Hitting the ball
while the entire room swayed gently back and forth
proved to be an unusual challenge. Roland beat me
every game, but I got consistently better. I knew the
crew played ping-pong and was hoping to break the ice
with a game or two.
Ping-pong
There was a definite division between passengers and
crew, perhaps due to language or perhaps due to the
tremendous age difference. Only the older crew members
-- the Captain and Chief Engineer -- bothered to chat
with the passengers.
I had two big events planned for the day. The first
was to go patch-less. In theory, I had acclimated to
the slow tilting of the ship. It was time to test my
mettle.
The second project for the day was to alter my "Fish
Finder," a Long Beach Aquarium brochure featuring
full-color fish, their English names, Latin names, and
their habitats. I spent the morning carefully water
coloring an addition to the "Tropical Pacific
Gallery." I wanted to ask the crew about the
possibility of running into "Monsterus Eatus," the
73-foot-long giant squid I'd read about in "20,000
Leagues Under the Sea," and I needed proof of its
existence. A brown-green squid with cartoon eyeballs
was now between the Zebra Shark and the Blue-spotted
Stingray. I left out the Aquatic Ape, but did install
an "Apes of the Sea" category that indicated these
fearsome Chewbacca-like creatures could be found in
the North Atlantic. The Fish Finder would be
introduced at dinner.
The Chief Engineer took us on a tour of the engine
room after lunch. It was below the waterline, and was,
as one might imagine, loud, hot, and beautiful in its
industrial glory. One giant machine was dedicated
solely to desalinating and distilling sea water for
our use. Relieved, I resolved to take longer showers.
The engine room
A calendar of naked women adorned the engine control
room. Initially ignoring it, I looked closer after
noticing that it was a free giveaway calendar
emblazoned with the logo of a Tauranga shipyard
supplier. I laughed. The intent was clear -- the
sailors would keep this calendar, and the logo would
be displayed all year long. But from what I'd
gathered, this crew would be just as happy with a
photo of a chocolate cake.
January 20
The big event of the day was the baking of a cake by
two passengers. Finally, an activity! I ran downstairs
to lunch. The Captain and Chief were not taking me too
seriously anymore after last night's dinner, so things
were lightening up.
"You're sheeting me," the Captain had exclaimed in
his German-accented English. It took me a second to
realize he was saying "you're shitting me," and I had
cracked up. I very seriously had explained my fears of
a rare underwater monster, and he paid careful
attention until the Fish Finder came out.
Lunch went quickly. Jo and Gloria went to work on
their cake, while Clarise and I stole away to make a
birthday card. Jo's 60th birthday was coming up
tomorrow. We managed to secure a printout of "Happy
Birthday Jo" from the computer on the Bridge, with the
help of the Russian Second Officer who had gone from
surly to amused as we stumbled around the PC. Clarise
had relented and quit referring to him as "Boris."
The cake was a semi-disaster, as the oven thermometer
measured in Celsius and the ladies had set it for 350
degrees. They fed the burnt top to the fish, but the
rest made a tasty pineapple upside-down cake.
I lost sixty cents at cards, sat down with the
Russians to watch the end of a bad American action
movie, and then went outside to see the stars.
It was a clear night, and millions of stars were
visible. One of the Freds pointed out Betelgeuse,
Saturn, Jupiter, the Pleiades, and the only
constellation I can pick out on my own, Orion's Belt.
I sat alone on deck after the other passengers went to
sleep and even after the crew had gone in from their
nightly smokes.
NEXT: the crew defrosts. The ocean is still there.