To Home And Back Again

After picking up the pilot from the Port Angeles pilot station, I drove us south through Puget Sound to Yukon Anchorage - a little triangle of water behind Blake Island (a marine park), north of Vashon Island, and south of Bainbridge Island.

We shifted the next day to the Tacoma dock and began cargo watches (8-hour watches), so I was able to, for the first time in my maritime career, go home and sleep in my own bed while working on a ship.

Cargo was a slow and tedious process, so our departure was delayed several times, which was fine by me.

While I wasn't able to truly relax, it was relaxing. What I found was that even a short time at home felt like a full reset to my energy level by the time I drove the ship out to sea, 6 days after the gangway hit the dock.

Another car carrier was moored at the Port of Tacoma when we left. And a third RoRo had replaced us at anchor in Yukon Anchorage.

As we passed yet another inbound car carrier, I commented to the pilot that it seemed like there were more RoRo's than I'm used to seeing. I didn't know if it was because my awareness was suddenly greater, since I was on one of them, or if my observations were correct; he confirmed it was the latter.

Laura grabbed some spectacular photos when I passed by Shilshole. If you zoom in all the way, you can see me waving from the wheel. 

I turned over the helm at a quarter ‘til four PM north of Point No Point. When I went back on the wheel at 1945 hours, we were almost to Neah Bay. We exited the vessel traffic system on that same watch and travelled south 1000 miles before taking a right turn and beginning the transit across the Pacific.

The next day, I was sad to learn that this new captain and mate had tasked us watchstanders with maintenance work – chipping, painting, etc., during ocean crossings, instead of standing our customary watch. I signed on as a watchstander, not as a day worker, so now I feel like I'm getting the worst of both gigs -- dirty-ass, physically demanding deck work, lack of sleep, and a destroyed circadian rhythm -- all for less money.

It has become both a mental and physical slog, and keeping my morale positive is now the focus of all my attention.

I have witnessed without exception that shipping companies hire permanent captains for their vessels in pairs -- one is crew-friendly and focused on improving the crew's quality of life aboard, while the other is a die-hard company man, only concerned with checking boxes and adhering to budgetary constraints to the point of foolishness. 

The captain who left - the Hungarian guy - is very much missed.

This captain takes the standard approach to clock changes - we retard the clocks 20 minutes at 1800, 2200, and 0200 each. The net result sets the clocks back an hour as we cross each time zone. 

I gain 20 minutes of sleep on my first short sleep of the day, I stand an extra twenty minutes on my watch, and then I gain 20 more minutes of sleep on my second long sleep of the day.

A "good" captain (one who isn't sucking up to the company, anyway) will then advance clocks during the day on the way back over so that nobody is deprived of sleep, but apparently, this guy advances clocks at the same times that we retard them. So, I expect my return trip across the Pacific after the insanity awaiting us in Korea will be a grueling one, indeed - sleep being the most valuable commodity.

When we cross the International Date Line (IDL), we advance into the future and skip a day, so all my correspondence will be from Future-Me... Future-Me, who knows things from the future.

When we make the return trip from the "Far East," we’ll repeat a day, which reminds me of a previous IDL crossing I made on a holiday. I wrote in holiday pay for both the holiday and the repeated day as a joke (I had a correct timesheet ready to turn in), and the chief mate lost his mind.

Imagine having no sense of humor at all. 

Korea will be cold, cold, cold... Well below freezing, even at the high temperature of the day. At this port, there’s a 25-foot tide, which means the mooring lines are adjusted hourly, and with the ramp only able to handle cargo 2 hours at a time, twice a day... it could take up to two weeks to unload the ship.

But right now, we’re at the 30th parallel near Hawaii, the arctic air far, far away. It's warm and sunny, and the water has that magical shade of sky blue I named "Aloha Blue" years ago. I don't know why or what about it is so distinct, but you could drop me anywhere in the world and I'd know I was in the Hawaiian waters by the color alone.

A milk-chocolate brown booby took up his symbiotic residence aboard. He's spent days hunting the flying fish kicked off by the bow wake, but there’s no cross arm on the fore mast where booby's love to sit, so I've wondered where he's sleeping. I found his perch by happenstance today while painting on the forward mooring station: On the anchor. 

The brown booby was then replaced by a red-footed booby, who spent her time flying in an infinity-shaped pattern across the bow, much as her predecessor had done. I have not yet found her perch.

And, that's the news from this RoRo upon which I ride. Somewhere between here and there is the portal into the timeline I came from - the one where current affairs do not look like a mashup of the 1880s, the 1930s, and the 1960s with added robots, AI, and evil billionaire villains for that extra spicy flavor.