Tag Archives: ocean

Ship Comes In


Posted by Patrick Okens

November 11 – Docked in Busan New Port, South Korea

“Two, Eight, Five” says the Captain.
“Steering Two, Eight, Five.” answers the helmsman.

We reached the Korean coast early this morning, the bright floodlights of the fishing vessels like a string of pearls on the dark horizon. Short, jagged peaks appear, then a clump of skyscrapers.

“Two, Nine, Zero.” The Captain takes another drag of his cigarette.
“Two, Nine, Zero.”

Busan’s sea lanes are busy. Radar shows blips all round. I count more than three dozen cargo vessels. We also pass a new orange-painted oil drilling platform, then a small submarine.

“Two, Three, Zero. uh, I mean Three, Zero, Zero. Three, Zero, Zero.”
“Three, Zero, Zero.”

“Dead Slow Speed”
“Dead Slow”

The bridge VHF radio crackles and squawks in Korean and multinationally-accented English. A pilot boat speeds out towards us, performs a smart turn, and comes alongside. The pilot grabs the rope ladder, climbs up to the deck, then makes his way to the bridge. He’s wearing a blue uniform, shirt and tie, hardhat, yellow sunglasses, and an inflatable PFD. A handshake with the Captain and he takes command.

Hanjin Copenhagen glides past dark, moss-covered rock outcrops into a vast two-mile-long rectangle fringed with gantry cranes. A hard turn to port, then nudged dockside by a tug and our own bow-thrust engine. We’re at the Hanjin dock, with sister ships “Hanjin Miami” and “Hanjin Madrid” fore and aft, respectively. The crew replacements are waiting with their luggage. It’s not long before three massive pink-coloured cranes start slinging containers on and off. Behind them lies another vast Lego-block landscape, much bigger than Vancouver’s.

We’ll only be here for eleven hours and leave tonight at 2200, so there’s no time to go shoreside. No great loss, as the actual city is far from the port anyway. Technically, I don’t get to set foot on Korean soil, but I’ll still be able to say I’ve “been” to Korea. It’s warm and I’m sweating (Busan is roughly on the same latitude as Los Angeles); I briefly had Wifi reception on my Blackberry (thanks for the blog comments); and I’m walking funny since the ship’s dockside stability is throwing me off-balance.


Shipshape


Posted by Patrick Okens

November 9 Noontime Position: Lat 42deg 23,9 N; Long 144deg 29,5 E
South of Hokkaido

Morning brought clear blue skies, Hokkaido visible to the north as a pale pastel green, and a cluster of small Japanese fishing vessels, brilliant white sequins on the sea. As we steered between Hokkaido and Honshu, a large pod of dolphins breached and splashed a hundred metres away alongside.

We have entered the “Evaporator Zone? ” a large area surrounding Fukushima. Since the tsunami and nuclear reactor incident last spring, Hanjin ships turn off their seawater desalination machines in Japan’s vicinity. As long as we’re in the zone, we’ll be relying on our existing supply of freshwater and will not be risking contamination by drinking potentially radioactive H20. It also turns out the Hanjin Copenhagen was near Fukushima two days after the whole business began. The vessel was subsequently checked and cleared by the Japanese authorities, but the Captain and Chief Engineer believe this was all window dressing; that the Japanese purposefully didn’t look too hard for things to go “beep” on the Geiger-counter.

My shipboard life is sedentary. Sleep is deep, but setting the clock back one hour for seven consecutive days means I’m not quite settled yet. At least it will sort itself out once I’m in China. Merchant crews doing the Asia-North America run for months on end slosh their time zones back and forth constantly and are never anyplace long enough to adjust fully.

I’ve now got my “sea legs”, but I spend most of my day asleep or sitting down. There’s not much walking around other than the occasional turn on deck, but at least I take the stairs up and down the eight stories of the superstructure. I had been hopeful of doing some running during the journey, but it turns out this wasn’t realistic. With the constant pitch and sway, and the fact that my centre of gravity is above the railing, slamming into steel or going overboard while running are a real possibility.

So I’ve made do with the ship’s gymnasium, which has an elliptical trainer. It’s one of those exercise contraptions I’m too good for on land (har har), but out on the ocean it’s a fun challenge as you go up-..and down-..and up again. I have also been doing some very basic yoga-ish stretches, and at times it’s been like standing on the world’s biggest Swiss ball. There is even a 4m x 5m x 2m deep indoor “pool”, presently empty. I’m told it is filled with seawater but only during the summer. Too bad – I would have been able to practice flip turns and synchronized swimming routines.

Although my workouts have been sporadic, the meal routine is regular. Breakfast at 7:30, lunch at 12:00, dinner at 17:30. I dine in the Officer’s Mess and have my own table, one of three in the room. Everyone else has his own seat at one of the other two tables. There isn’t much conversation. The Captain and Chief Engineer sometimes confer in German over some technical matter, or grumble about the food. On occasion, the Chief has extra time to tell tales. But in general, it’s sit down and eat. Some of the fare is disheartening – limp iceberg lettuce, rubbery cheese, dubious Chinese juice. But generally the meals are a hearty German mix. “Eintopf mit Weisswurst”, “Roladen”, potato pancakes, roast pork, various vegetable soups, and lentil and beef stew have all been on the menu.