Boredom, Regulations, and Beating Dead Horses. Again.

From my removed and remote location on the ship, China appeared to me like a combination of Vancouver, British Columbia (jokingly referred to as “Hongcouver” for its sizable Chinese population) and the incomprehensibly huge container berths of Jebel Ali.  Only bigger.  Much, much bigger.  Those people under the illusion that “Everything is bigger in America” and “China is the third world” might have a hard time jibing what they see with what they “know.”  

Everything I saw on land was brand new: New buildings, new bridges, new infrastructure, new port facilities… with the exception of the container berths- everything on the docks IS new, but well-used to the point of abused.  As far as the eye could see, on either shore, for mile after mile, in all three ports we visited and waterways we transited, China is brand new and bigger than Texas.

Unlike the Egyptians and some of the slaves of the United Arab Emirates, however, I quite like the Chinese.  With few exceptions they’ve all been pleasant to work with- many of them smile a lot, one group of line handlers was laughing and playing mock tug-of-war with one of the AB’s on the stern of the ship, and the tugs (so far) haven’t been out to kill us (like they do in Egypt).  Their quality of life, at an uninformed glance, seems to be pretty good.

The Mate keeps laying us in to comply with STCW sleep regulations… I have a good amount of time on my hands to try and sleep, but the schedule is such that I lay there and fail to actually sleep.  As a result I’ve been bored AND tired… thanks International Maritime Organization… thanks a lot.

And this is not hypothetical:  What happens when a contract says I am guaranteed a “minimum” of work and pay in a particular situation, say-for example- port prep, but the STCW sleep regulations demand that I have 6 hours off in one chunk of time in any random 24 hour period and the contract and the law can’t agree?  I’ll tell you: I don’t actually work, but I get paid for it.  Both “Yay!  Free Money!” and “Oh My God I Am Even More Bored Out of My Mind.”

Boredom is something I rarely feel… at home I work too much, and out here, I have never said “no” to overtime.  But now I am feeling it, and I was unprepared for this contingency.

My phone company has updated my phone plan since my first ship- I no longer have to buy a cheap phone, a SIM card, and a top-up card in every country I travel to from some shady groups of conspiring and shifty-eyed “vendors.”  I can use my phone with unlimited, albeit throttled, data and reduced calling rates.  I have only used it sparingly, so far- one too many surprises over the years with my phone company billing department prevents me from going hog-wild as of yet, but once I know what that bill is going to look like… I’ve had success in Guam (which is the US, I suppose) and China while at port, and the occasion signal from Korea and Japan while we transit up the Sea of China.

We’ve managed to thread the needle between two typhoons and avoid any weather… yay!

We advanced clocks on our voyage from China to Long Beach, CA.  Where we retarded them one hour at night on the way over, we advance them 2 hours during the day (40 minutes at 10, 15, and 18 hundred hours) every other day on the way back.  And when we cross the Prime Meridian, as I’ve said, that day repeats itself or disappears depending on which way you cross it… I avoided July 11th altogether- which is good, because there was this prophecy that foretold catastrophic doom on that day…. um… nevermind.  No there wasn’t.  But Monday the 28th was 46 hours long.  True story.

The Yangtze's has dirty, mud-colored water, much like the Mississippi.  The sea at the mouth of the river was the color of olives as we transited to the pilotage, but when we left, the entirety of the same area glowed at night with a vivid, green bioluminescence.  The moon was new (black), yet we could see all the way to the horizon and the whitecaps were clearly visible.  The water churned by the screw behind us glowed brightly for five miles before dissipating.  Interestingly, the smell of algae was strong on the wind, a smell I associate with stagnant fresh water ponds, not the open, wind-swept sea.

Beyond Japan we began to see sea mammals.  I saw several pods of humpback, their long square heads and forward spraying spouts a welcome sight.  According to the identification guide, their blowholes are asymmetrically located on the left-hand side of their snouts.  Dolphin leapt in the wake or ran from us on numerous occasions, but not playfully- they were very businesslike and had places to be, dolphins to see.  And I saw thousands of ghost whales- which are the whales you think you see after seeing real whales.

Not to beat a dead horse (again), I should self flagellate in penance for forgetting my seabird identification book.  An enormous albatross visited us south of Kamchatka and south west of the Bering Strait.  Its body was white and its vast wings were plumed all black, and it flew back and forth across our bow hunting in the same way that boobys and gannets do.  It is much larger than even frigate birds, which have a 7 foot wingspan, but until I get a proper guide in front of me (or internets) I will not know exactly what kind of albatross it was, nor what its wingspan actually might have been.

The sea colors have all been various shades of green- from olive and jade off the coasts of Japan and Korea, to the dark, colorless flint color that churned a brilliant emerald green in the fog that limited our visibility to 1/10th of a mile as we turned for 22 knots in the cold waters of the North Pacific.  It seems I see more life in the colder waters north of the horse latitudes than I do in places where the water is blue and warm- clearly I am a specially adapted sea-mammal.  

With 7 days left in the transit there was no overtime.  People were getting squirrelly.  Odd complaints, odd behavior.  I hide… if I drank I’d probably stay drunk like the daymen, but personally, I think hiding is the better strategy.  Every room has an x-box 360, and 8 of us played Halo 3 against one another most nights during the crossing.  I made a lanyard out of ¼” line as a cat toy for Catain Scratchy.  The old man’s son, 13, can seriously talk… but I’ve discovered a strategy for running him off when he gets too tedious- I begin teaching him the finer points of marlinspike seamanship.  His eyes glaze in minutes, and within 5 he disapparates (yes, that is a Harry Potter reference- I have watched them all, back to back, in lieu of overtime- as well as the Lord of the Rings, Life on Mars, and other stuff).

My Chinese visa application is ready to hand in to the “woman in Long Beach who gets visas.”  

And the fog.  Lots and lots of fog.  Foremast invisible fog, for day after day once we left the coast.  Pacific Ocean engulfing fog, from one side to the other.  When it cleared for a brief moment on the Tuesday following the 46 hour Monday (Meridian day) I saw a seal, 500 miles south of the Aleutian Islands, looking completely out of place.  A pod of Dall’s Porpoises showed up and leapt from the glass-like and waveless mirk off our port bow, but the fog moved back in soon thereafter and the claustrophobia that held sway again ascended its throne.

 

And now here I sit, one day out from the coast.  The fog cleared late yesterday and this morning, for the first time since leaving Hono on the 7th, I saw a sky worthy of star-gazing.  Shooting stars and a moonless sky so bright with the backscatter of the milky way that even the most familiar constellations were lost amidst the confusion.

Today saw the first cobalt blue water I’ve seen since crossing the Atlantic.  It also saw the first day where I’ve been ready to take off a head with the sharp side of my tongue- and not a minute too soon, either… I was just elected delegate.  Third ship in a row… the contract is slightly different, but mostly it is “same same.”  I have managed to remain civil, however, up to this point- despite the fact there are several people who just rub me the wrong way.  Lucky for me they are out of here the day after tomorrow.  A whole new crop of unknown assholes will take their place, and I’ll try to remain civil with them for another 82 days…

And that’s what I got.