Water! Water Everywhere! But Not A Drop To Drink...

Two weeks of cargo were uneventful. No parted lines, no more frozen plumbing. The 27-foot tide came in, the 27-foot tide went out. The ramp went down, the ramp came back up. In rolled the cargo. On went the lashings. Tallies were taken. Drafts were recorded. 

My ambivalence toward going ashore was, in part, due to scheduling: I worked overtime from noon to 1600, then stood a gangway watch from 1600 to 2000, and then tended lines and supervised cargo from 2000 until midnight. 

It didn't leave much opportunity for going ashore. 

I did get one day off. The chief mate had watchstanders take a day off one day and day workers the next, so on my day off, I went with the captain, the chief engineer, the second mate, and the third mate to the local military base.

The entire process to get there required 5 taxis, two forms of ID, photos, fingerprints, and time.

Why? Why did I go to a military base PX and commissary? 

For coconut oil. And baking soda.

The coconut oil is to soothe the irritation caused by my wool base layers when the temperature was below zero (before the anchorage), which, as of this writing, is still irritated.

And the baking soda is for the plants on the bridge, which have a mild fungal infection that my plant app diagnosed as brown spot, to be treated with a mild solution of baking soda once a week.

I also splurged and bought a rechargeable flashlight for use on the deck - my tiny bridge light is simply too weak for use in spotting the anchor at night or seeing in a dark hold.

The apprentice came aboard after a day ashore with a gift for me: a noisy, foot-long, rubber chicken.

I promptly stuck it in my jacket and began playing it everywhere I went, quoting "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" to any and all.  To disabuse you of thinking I'm more cultured than I am, I was quoting the song by Iron Maiden, not the poem by Samuel Coleridge.

When cargo was finally finished and we had the green light to depart, we departed, exhausted and with relieved urgency. 

It felt overdue to be off.

I took the tug line on the stern, brought in our mooring lines, and stowed the big soft-line we'd added to our standard mooring lines as insurance in case the tides had bested us, then I relieved the helmsman and drove us the rest of the way out of Peyongtek.

I arrived on watch that first night to find us adrift. The engineers were rebuilding 3 fuel injectors. We were dead in the water.

The problem? They didn't actually know, but there was an unacceptable temperature differential between cylinders. 

In the most basic sense: The mass of engine metal will warp and crack if the temperature within it varies too greatly from one spot to the next.

Mid-watch, we were back underway. The temperatures still didn't look good, but seemingly good enough.

Mid-watch that first night out, the fire alarm went off, too. Thankfully, it was a false alarm set off by an engineer opening a steam valve that shouldn't be opened... But all the sleeping watchstanders were rudely awakened and mustered at fire stations before being dismissed.

Our watch was relieved by groggy and unhappy people, people whose only solace was knowing someone's head was rolling down in the engine room.

The next morning, we started washing off the grime of Chinese pollution that blankets all of SE Asia and coated the ship from stem to stern. I spent 8 hours of my day with a hose, a squeegee, a brush, or a broom in my hand trying to remove the filth.

I played my rubber chicken as I walked fore and aft, once into my handheld radio, but mostly in the echoing vastness of the cargo spaces or ladder wells.

I arrived on watch tonight to find the ship adrift, again. 

The engineers are rebuilding the exhaust valves... 10 hours of downtime.

The calculus is to do it now, while we're off the coast of Japan where this ship was birthed, in case we need hard-to-get engine parts; it won't do us any good to suffer catastrophic engine failure 2000 miles from anywhere.

There was much speculation about our next cargo run - the winner was looking like a route through the Panama Canal, one of the last items on a personal list of checked-off sea-going experiences and accomplishments still left unchecked (it's right alongside Antarctica).

When asked, I opted to stay aboard one more port... Just in case.

Sadly, that no longer looks likely, so today I had the captain make arrangements to find my relief at the next port when we arrive stateside. It prompted an immediate case of Channel Fever - the restlessness that afflicts "short-timers" who know their time aboard is coming to an end.

The engine issues are but one thing that could delay us (hell... ARE delaying us)... Weather is another very real concern. The route planners have us taking a southern route again, south of Hawaii, thankfully. 

I'm curious if we'll be treated to the strange lights in the sky on our eastward transit, or not. On the way over, they were always in the vicinity of Saturn... But with Saturn on our stern, if we're to see them, will they be astern of us?

And will I have to wear my rubber chicken around my neck like an albatross to stave off curses and bad luck? For penance to some esoteric violation of sea lore committed unknowingly, the details of a crime against Neptunus Rex and the kingdom of The Raging Main, lost to time?

"How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the [...] Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country."*

I guess we're going to find out. 

*The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Cold Weather Floater In Paradise

Korea is cold.

How cold is it?

Well, all the potable water pipes on the ship froze. The burst pipes spilled water all over the deck, which then froze into sheets of ice, many of which are in hard-to-see places or invisible in the dark. We salted them, but walking still required care, and more than one of us has gone down.

The sewer pipes also froze - with little or no notice. For the last five days, we have just two working toilets on the ship, one in the engine room and one in the cargo office, both of which are more than 7 floors below and all the way aft.

I was awakened from deep sleep by engineers below the house with hammers pounding on frozen pipes on day one, a rude awakening that repeated randomly throughout our port stay as they tried, and failed, to alleviate our toilet-induced misery.

I called the trek to the only working toilets "the walk of shame" if the sailor was too preoccupied to make eye contact when enroute, or "walking penguin" due to the stiff-legged way the concerned ambled aftward if they answered nature's call without respectful haste.

I was also awakened by fire alarms on several occasions when diesel exhaust from cargo overloaded the smoke detection system and set off the general alarm. Yes, one of them was during my deepest sleep.

Standing an 8-hour watch when it's 11 below 0 is a special kind of tedium. Every motion requires effort due to the many layers. Gloves must be removed for anything requiring dexterity, then put back on to keep from freezing. Breathing too hard can give you an icecream headache.

The battery-powered vest Stu recommended to me has proven its worth. The chemical hand warmers have made life much more bearable, as well... There is no part of me that likes the cold, but at least I came fully prepared.

Sadly, I think I've developed some type of allergy to my expensive wool baselayers. Have I continued to wear them despite breaking out in a rash?  Of course. It was 9 degrees Fahrenheit out there... I'm no fool.

I know there are some cold weather dwellers out there saying that this is not that cold - but add force 10 winds into the mix (that's 55 mile an hour, you filthy, bloodless landlubber), and the inability to leave your post or do anything besides observe, demand ID, and perform the occasional search will make even the frostiest of snowmen bitch in abject discomfort.

At one point, the wind snatched a cargo strap out of the ordinary seaman's hands. The strap and the dumpster lid he was trying to secure with it simultaneously struck him in the face, landing him in the dubious care of the chief medical officer, aka the second mate. He's a great navigator, but he is the medical officer by necessity and default, not because he's any good at it.

Thankfully, the ordinary's teeth survived unharmed despite being busted in the kisser, and he took it without complaint.

The tide at this port is almost 30 feet, so cargo ops can only take place when the tide is high enough for our stern ramp to reach the dock- if it's too low the ramp gets damaged, if it's too high then the ramp is too steep. The window of opportunity is two four-hour blocks of time per day.

Because the mooring lines need constant adjustment due to the tides, the chief mate made all sailors watch standers. My 8-hour gangway watch (as in Tacoma) was split up between me and one of the day workers - and the task of tending lines and moving lashing gear all over the ship for the longshoremen was divided up between us. 

I stood the first 4 hours as security watch and the second 4 hours doing cargo and lines. I also made new heaving lines because the Korean line-handlers stole our heaving line when we tied up.

I also was on standby from noon to 1600, but never got called out to do anything. I listened to the handheld radio as the sailors on watch worked while I drafted house designs in AutoCAD - designs I'll hand over to a professional (Paul) at some point.

After 5 long, hard, miserable days in port, we departed at 0500 for the anchorage where I am writing this.

We expect to be here for only 2 days, then return to the dock to take on cargo to replace that which we just offloaded.

How long should that take? I'm told 2 weeks. 

Sometimes it's easy to disparage the people out here doing this job. For the most part, they're misfits. In large part, they're unemployable in standard shoreside workplaces. 

But if just anybody could do this job, then I want to see them try, because the one thing all these people have in common is a psychological toughness and resiliency that can handle pipes clogged with turdcicles. When working long, uncomfortable, and dangerous hours. While locked inside a cage with other maladjusts. For extended and protracted periods of time.

And laugh about it.

I guess we'll see how much we're laughing after two more weeks of this kind of cargo op... Just 5 days of it definitely kicked the shit out of us. 

Between A Flat Rock And A Weird Place

I arrived on the bridge the other night for my watch.

The helmsman I relieve was in an animated discussion with the third mate, so I didn't interrupt to assume the watch, but instead settled down with my coffee over on the bridge wing.

The ordinary seaman was on the bridge for some reason, and he migrated over to where I was nursing my life-giving nectar and began talking at the side of my head.

Through the haze of freshly cast-off sleep and the bouquet of steam from that bean-juice cradled under my nose, I became aware of three distinct things at once:

First, the strange lights in the sky were back, and they were - once again - operating relative to Saturn; they were visible 5-degrees above the horizon, 2 points to port. 

Next, the ordinary seaman was on the bridge to see these UFO's for himself (everyone aboard has heard about them), and he began explaining his understanding of them in relationship to the Simulation Theory.

An finally, to my other side, the helmsman was arguing with the third mate - attempting to convince him that the world was, in fact, flat.

I must ardently defend myself from the people who know me best - I had not prodded, poked, nor precipitated in any way the discussion about the Simulation Theory with the ordinary. It was entirely unprovoked.

I share Taco Tuesday dinners with many of these people, dinners which typically conclude at about the time I bring up the Simulation Theory.

But the flat-earther?

Not height-of-eye calculations, great circles in navigation, nor the observable phenomenon of a ship visibly coming up over the horizon were sufficiently persuasive arguments from the third mate to sway the mind of the guy who is paid to watch ships actually come over the horizon, while transiting the globe on a great circle, from a perch granting him a vantage point 138 meters up in the air.

It was a moment of sheer madness in all directions all at once, the least mad of which were the UFO’s tracing strange patterns in the dark sky.