Tag Archives: ocean

Into the lifeboat!


Posted by Patrick Okens

Nov 13 Noontime Position: Lat 31deg 5,2N; Long 125deg 25,9 E
In the East China Sea

The thing about attention-grabbing-headlines-with-exclamation-marks is that you have to follow up with something good. The misfortunes of others always make for compelling reading, but today’s post doesn’t involve piracy or shipwrecks. If that’s what you were hoping for, stop here to avoid disappointment.

We had a major crew change in Korea, so today Hanjin Copenhagen held a general safety orientation. At 1020 hours, the alarm sounded and we went to our muster station along with our emergency gear. There was a roll call, and the 1st Officer led a brief tour of key areas. Fire is a major danger on ships, and so we checked out the fire fighting and hazardous materials gear; buckets and shovels of sand, extinguishers, hoses, rubber boots, gloves, masks and overalls.Sixteen of us also crammed into one of the bright orange covered lifeboats, held aloft by cables and winches. Hanjin Copenhagen carries two such boats, each with the capacity to take the entire crew. Inside is a simple molded bench with harnesses around the edge, and an elevated cockpit with windows for the pilot. This craft might save lives, but in close, stale confines (no toilet that I could see), you might wish for death in short order.

After the drill, I tried on the red neoprene full-body immersion suit in my cabin. It took me just under two minutes to drag on the thick overalls (complete with foot and hand coverings, and tight-fitting hood). Turns out “my” suit is one size too small, so I moved around stiffly like some seagoing, rubberized gingerbread man. It felt like being inside a form-fitting oven. But if you’re bobbing around on an ocean “sans bateau”, that’s the least of your worries.

Gone are the clear, cold, windy days of the Pacific. The water is dead calm, greyish green and a warm 23C degrees. We’ve been moving through a silvery haze all day. The sun made a brief appearance as a dull pink globe over the starboard bow, before vanishing again into the thick mist. We reach Ningbo, China tonight.


Beef Tartare in Kwangyang


Posted by Patrick Okens

November 12 – Dockside in Kwangyang, South Korea

We slipped out of Busan last night. When I woke at 0600 and peered through my window, I was excited by the profusion of ship and navigation lights and black clumps of land strewn to port and starboard. A real change after dawn’s early blankness on the open ocean the last two weeks. We were approaching the port of Kwangyang through a small coastal archipelago.

I put on my running gear and head down to the gym on C deck. On the “Kettler Satura E” elliptical machine, sweat dripping onto the console, I stride with my legs and push the “ski poles” back and forth. Out the window I see the very first edges of daylight on the Korean coast.  The effort turns into a 6k time trial, of course. I’ve made note of the result and can beat it. But only by upping the cadence and making myself look even more ridiculous.

Breakfast is another rare thing – literally. Beef tartare is a uniquely German concoction consisting of a plate of raw ground beef (think of it as cow sushi), with an egg yolk plopped on top, chopped onions, and capers. If you’re revolted, then you’re not German, for it is truly awesome with toast and tea. In between mouthfuls the officers start rhapsodizing about the jams and preserves they make at home and how they only buy locally-grown produce. Considering that the Hanjin Copenhagen, right now, is probably unloading potatoes from Portland, the irony is not lost on me.

It’s warm and sunny, so I go outside to read “For Whom the Bell Tolls” to its inevitably tragic conclusion. I pull out a molded plastic chair, set it so I can rest my feet on the railing, and look out at the harbour. It’s an odd setting in which to delve into a world of Spanish Civil War partisans, bullfights, and torrid passion. There’s the ship’s oily-metally whiff, the loud, hollow whoosh from the engine room, and the whirr and bang of the Gantry cranes as they pick up the containers. Our load has been lightened and Hanjin Copenhagen looks like a poorly-eaten corncob. Great gaps open up as I peer all the way down to the bottom of the hold, eight stories deep. Writing today, after finishing a Hemingway, is humbling.

We head into the East China Sea tonight.