Life is so strange. We roll along oblivious to the tremors constantly shaking around the world. We ponder retirement, plan vacations and look to job future and raises, while much of the rest of the world is on the brink of some bizarre an illation. I’m not about to point fingers or get political here. We’ve made plenty of mistakes in parts of the world, and there’s some crazy hatred in other parts. Okay, Okay, I’ll throw an example at you, then we’ll get back to my romantic notions.

We just pulled into Jakarta this afternoon, some four hours behind schedule. Schedules are ridiculous on cargo ships. Nothing follows a timetable. We had diesel injector problems coming into port this morning and slowed the ship to 11.4 knots. Then when we arrived we were told to pull to a particular position that the pilot would be there on arrival. He showed up an hour later. Our estimate for departure was 24 hours, now it’s 18 or less. Believe me we want to get the fuck out of this hell hole.

Yesterday morning at four a.m. we left Singapore, a Manhattan Island of high-rise buildings and upscale shopping malls. It was a handful of degrees above the equator and we headed east for a short while then south about 500 miles to the dread Jakarta. The Captain’s wife recommended that he not go ashore. Sin Wu suggested the same. Jakarta has an ugly violent Muslim reputation. The Captain suggested that the radicals trained on small islands off the coast of Java and travel in the town shouldn’t be a problem.

He also pointed out that this small island has a population of 200 million. The US isn’t much larger than that. There are only 250 million in all of Indonesia and 200 are packed on this island about the size of just the Florida peninsula. I was astonished as we began to pull into the harbor which it was as bleak as the reputation. A gray mist hung over the port and blanketed the region with a somber air. The bay around the coast was littered with ships of all sizes and types. Many were rust buckets anchored or seemingly adrift waiting a turn at the harbor. Even two miles off the coast the water was shit-brown and full of crap, trash, oil film and black scraps of tar. As we entered the small concrete block jetty at the mouth of the Tanjung Priok Harbor we watched small ratty boats crowded with people buzz around the harbor. Then there was a smell, and suddenly I wanted to escape to my cabin. I couldn’t trace my fatigue. The air seemed to engulf me like radiation from an atomic warhead. I’m being dramatic, but the stench felt like the grayness of an industrial fire. It was too late to consider going ashore and there was nothing about the port that called to us.

In other words I had the notion that we were entering a vast island of squalor and crime, covered with a small bitter people who despised the west. Okay, that’s over the top and perhaps had something to do with the climate. We could see high-rise buildings in the mist, and from experience I have always found the Asian people as a whole to be warm and friendly. The Captain pointed out that the water could be a mess due to recent flooding from the inland. He also pointed out that when he was on a ship entering the Los Angeles Harbor that the chemical smell was so strong that he couldn’t breathe and his eyes watered. On the other hand the port agent came on board and warned us to keep our doors locked that a recent raid on a ship netted $8,000 from a crew.

I may have over estimated the evil spirit of the people of Jakarta due to the dismal climate, and I’m sure part of my impression was tainted by my recent contrasting experience in Singapore. This city is wild, it’s beautiful, and the people speak English and make every effort to be accommodating. The city is a progressive 3.4 million, 75 percent Chinese (many escaping the communist regime sweeping Hong Kong), 14 percent are Malay and 7 percent are Indian. For some it would be disappointing and intimidating due to the uptown metropolis nature. Get this, on an island that’s 26 miles long and 14 miles wide there are 15,000 air conditioned taxis and 2,800 buses, plus subways and trains. It’s unbelievable, most of the old world is gone replaced by vast slick high-rise buildings, top-of-the-line hotels and restaurants. We arrived during the Chinese New Years celebration and enjoyed the crowded streets and unique booths in one of the few old town regions left.

Prices were more than reasonable, but unless you want to get the hell out of the city and land in another, try to find somewhere else to visit. This is the independent city that fines people for spitting on the ground. There are a number of other laws that dictate consideration for others and a quality of life, although I didn’t get the sense that thousands of cops were roaming the streets in starched uniforms kicking ass. At one point, standing in line at an ATM machine at the base of a modern high-rise, an old Chinese gentleman pushing a cart full of cleaning gear passed and for some reason was deliberately spitting into an area marked off by workman as being wet and slick. He was pissed for some reason, but I didn’t see paten leather adorned guards jump and beat the pour sap into the marble deck. On the other hand in general the people had a desire to follow the rules and respect the cleanliness of their city. So how’s that for dissimilarity with Jakarta?

Alright, so tomorrow we will cut a dusty trail out of here and basically begin our trek north to Vietnam and China before we hit Japan and head home. I’ve threatened to have a box ship back to San Pedro to force the ship into Los Angeles, before it heads through the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico to Houston.

So back to my heartfelt notion of life on an increasingly small planet. Maybe there is a code such as Singapore has that could spread throughout the world. Maybe people can enjoy any religion they wish and leave the past behind, to help children live better lives. Maybe, a world police is a good notion to follow and build the code. Along with the policing needed to destroy terrorism, there must be efforts by governments like ours to help people understand how the rest of the world works hand in hand for business and education.

Okay, so I’m full of shit, but the constant fighting over ancient battles and racial discrimination 100 years old won’t do their kids any good except to pass on the hatred. Let’s see if I don’t get my ass kicked in Hanoi. —Bandit

PS. Three o’clock in the morning the phone rings in my cabin. A voice attempts to tell me I must sign a document. I told them to go to hell. I’ve had enough prank calls on this ship. Another voice takes the phone and tries to explain that they don’t want money that I must sign something. I told them to see me in the morning. That wasn’t possible. They explained that the ship was finished unloading and would be leaving early.

I finally got up and opened the door. I glared at the little sonuvabitch who was holding my passport in one hand and a form in the other. Sleepy, I didn’t read the form, and signed it. He asked me if I would contact the other passengers and since he was with an officer of the ship, I indicated that he could use the services of the officer and I went back to bed. As it turned out they knew that due to a wild thunderstorm that started at midnight, all cargo works had halted and wouldn’t begin again until this morning. What bullshit. The crews’ passports have been returned but not ours.

I spoke to the captain this morning and he pointed to a list of bribes he was forced to endure to see that the ship keeps moving without undo hardship. There was the agent for a cartoon of Marlboro; the customs guys for more Marlboros and a bottle of Whiskey, the Immigration folks for more cigarettes and a bottle of Chevas, and the Security inspector took smokes and a final bottle of booze. When I met with the Captain this morning he laughed and pointed at the empty case of Marlboros. He pointed out that if you don’t play the game they will inspect the levels of paint in the paint locker and fine you, or make you jump through bureaucratic hoops and delay departure. In addition a group came on board and collected the same loot as the others, plus a fee to give the captain a Deratting Certificate to certify that the ship was clear of rats. I reviewed the certificate that indicated that there are no passenger accommodations on this ship and no cargo(?). Oops.

We are scheduled to leave at noon. Wanna bet?

I’m going to begin this with a complaint and a recommendation to anyone who plans to travel in the future. I’ll get it off my chest then tell you about the wild experiences we had in Vietnam. First tear up your American Express card and throw it away. Visa and Master cards are useful everywhere unless yours is stolen. We had one stolen. The people at the bank knew this was a 5 month trip around the world and we would be using this card on a regular basis. Generally that means profits for them. Did they bend over backwards to ship us another card? No way. Bottom line no business for them for five months. I’d call that down right stupid.

So we’re relying on American Express and American Express Travelers checks which are useless. You can spend all your precious travel time standing in a bank for an hour only to be turned down when you want to cash a traveler’s check. Again, that’s time that you could be spending money. In addition the American Express card is rarely accepted.

Now, get this. The card is not even accepted at an American Express bank. That’s right. We could not get cash using an American Express card at an American Express Bank. Okay, so the clerks kindly explained that if we wanted to take a cab across town to the only American Express ATM in all of Singapore we could get a small amount of cash. Again shopping/spending time lost. Their profit loss and your time loss.

Enough of that shit. It’s 2000 hours and we just started pulling out of the Hon Gai harbor in Vietnam. Its located almost dead center of the infamous Tonkin Gulf. We were anchored 35 miles from our true destination of Haiphong. I’m going to run down some stories about the area and the people, but first I’m a three time ship- bound Vietnam veteran. I never had a member of this race stick a gun in my face. With that as a background there was some hesitation to arriving to Vietnam. I know that many veterans have returned here to help sort out their own feelings. I wanted to come back for a simple reason. I wanted to see the people and the land I bombed for three years straight. I was curious about this land and the people I had never seen up close. I had a gut feeling that I would like it here and I did.

I’m sure for some WWII and Vietnam veterans there’s a wonderful sense of the untamed and natural beauty of these lands like the Philippines and Vietnam. There’s the notion of grass shacks and people who can live their lives barefoot near pristine beaches without the consumption of asphalt and concrete, bushels of laws and government. I loved the Philippines for those reasons. Tahiti is much the same.

Yesterday we crossed the Tonkin Gulf and met our pilot off the coast of Haiphong past several island separating us from the coast. The jade green seawater in this region is shallow to 6 and 7 meters and we could not enter the area since we draft 9 meters. Take into consideration rocks and tides and we were stuck waiting outside for the pilot.

I stood on the bridge when the pilot was delivered. As usual the time announced from the harbor and the actual time of pilot arrival was an hour different. The captain was frustrated setting dangerously close to the bottom (less than one meter of space between the sea floor and the hull) waiting. The pilot’s boat, a tug like craft motored in our direction at a slow six knots, but finally arrived.

This was our first greeting from the Vietnamese and unlike most ports in Europe three gentlemen boarded the Leon when usually it’s just the pilot. The pilot was a small native wearing a navy blue uniform suit, shirt and an odd paisley tie. He was wearing a ball cap with scrambled eggs on the brim and a pilot sticker on the front. With him was an associate who also wore the scrambled eggs on his white brim and some sort of black industrial company nylon parka. It had the name of a company silk-screened on the back. The other gentleman was a tall military man wearing an olive drab dress uniform and pink socks. He was crisply dress except for the socks and wore an officer’s hat that was tall in the front like you would imagine a Russian officer. It had a wide red band and a yellow star in the center. It was an impressive uniform.

It’s a strange sensation to be standing somewhere foreign to you and be confronted by a strong imposing uniform on a man nearly my size. I found myself somewhat apprehensive, flicking my knife in my pocket. I left the bridge and returned to my cabin. An hour later I discovered that we were entering a series of small rock-like islands. I grabbed my camera and dashed back to the bridge. As I started to take some shot of these beautiful rocks jetting from water as smoothed as polished jade the tall young office approached me and said in very broken English. “Free, take pictures, or video camera.” At the moment I didn’t really understand was he was trying to say and continued to be mesmerized by the beauty of the light green sea and the group of islands. Unfortunately a gray mist hung over us the entire time we were in port.

I immediately felt that if I was a kid and had a small boat or even a kayak I would be in seventh heaven.

Off to the starboard we could see a series of barges, tugs and small boats lined up against one of these islands. As we neared they seemed to be headed in our direction and as we discovered they were. The local Rickmers’ agent had cut a deal with the stevedores. It seems that we were arriving in the late afternoon on the 10th and the 11th was the last day before the Tet festival, which I believe is the lunar New Year. It seems that we celebrate the Sun’s New Year and much of Asia celebrates the Moon’s. I believe it was mentioned that China parties for both.

At the same time that the captain, who intended to become an astronomer, explained the difference in New Year’s celebrations he mention that when he sailed into Casablanca he discovered that the stevedores take Fridays off for the Muslim religion, Saturdays for Jewish and Sundays for Christian. Perhaps we need to add that element to the code of the west.

The Tet Festival begins the 12th of February and runs through the 15th. If we were not unloaded by the middle of the 11th we would be stuck a serious distance from land for three days, perhaps unable to get ashore. I was hoping to take a bus to Hanoi. The Cargo Superintendent told me that the city is large but safe. The agent had cut a deal with the stevedores to work all night and try to get us unloaded before the holiday. We were stuck in-between land and holidays, and we had just arrived were anchoring and testing the waters.

Within a half hour we were surrounded with ratty looking boats, large steel barges and in the distance a tug was coming flying its little communist red flag with the yellow star in the center pulling an out-of-commission ferry. As it turns out this ferry, that had seen better days, was the barracks for the stevedores, a bar and party pad complete with whores and music.

Suddenly our little calm hole in the world came alive. The ship was crawling with Vietnamese people while women cooked and set up shop on the tugs that pulled the barges. We could see high rise buildings in the distance on the shore we would never reach, but we were surrounded by grass shacks on the water. Each vessel had a pot of sorts somewhere on the ship that became alive with burning embers for cooking.

The population of guys who came aboard the ship was generally friendly and all were well dressed in a range from stevedores to businessmen to women in sampans selling trinkets. The girls weren’t bad looking and it dawned on me what the officer was saying on the bridge. He was inviting me to take pictures without the influence of government.

I’m not sure if I already told you this story: The captain told me that the US fought so hard against communism unsuccessfully, but in the end, it died its own sorrowful death. Most communist countries have not been able to succeed and now welcome the ways of the west or starve to death. The officer was opening his arms to me and the west, since Vietnam has discovered that without business with the world, it will starve, its people will never have decent educations, or access to a world that is flowering around them. No matter how hard a government wants to put its thumb on its people it cannot completely hide the rest of the world from them. Sure the notion is simplistic, but I thought also fascinating. We didn’t need to fight communism, which in most cases was not true communism but dictatorships. We could just sit back and build what we have while they fell so far behind by preventing freedom that sooner or later they had to throw up their hands and open their door to progress.

Okay, so the afternoon turned into evening and maze of activity. Discharging cargo began immediately and continued all night. The party fired up on the Haiphong ferry and the girls were brought aboard the Leon. According to the Romanian sandblaster the whores knew how to take care of a man unlike the stuck-up broads in Hamburg. He told me stories that I won’t repeat, but he had a helluva time. He’s the guy in the shot getting tattooed from the artist in Jakarta, who set up his shop on the main deck and gave him two shoulder tats for $30. The guy wasn’t half bad.

So the evening started calm enough with cute girls slithering around the decks under the guards noses. There were a number of military men on board in their olive drab uniforms. As the night engulfed the ship, the guards were invited to drink on the ferry. Either through the drinking or bribes the ship was left without security and a mafia gang slipped aboard the ship and began to raid it of lashing materials and tools left all around the deck for cargo off-loading and containment. Some of the crew spotted this activity and an alarm was sounded. Many of the crew fought with the gang for their tools, some chickened out, and headed the other direction because the mafia was armed. The bottom line was that we chased them off and told the guard to get back to their posts.

Later in the evening another ship our size pulled into the channel and dropped anchor. It was another Rickmers rust bucket and they were waiting for us to depart before they could commence off-loading. The next morning went as is common in the shipping trade. The morning departure turned into 3:00 p.m. for pilot arrival which generally indicates up-anchor. Three turned to five, and it was 8:00 before the last plates of steel were removed from the hull and loaded on barges.

That’s it. We came close to a boat trip around the bay, but couldn’t put it together because of the erratic departure times. We’re now headed out of the Gulf into the South China Sea for the 1.5 day voyage to Hong Kong. The first of three maybe four visits to China, then Korea. I’m still hoping for a box to be loaded for shipment to San Pedro post haste.

–Sailor Ball

Someone recently asked if I’m having a good time? I thought it was an odd question. Yeah, I’m having the time of my life, but it made me wonder what the hell I was saying might be throwing readers off course. On the other hand, I’m not a paid-to-tell-you-wonderful-shit, travel writer. I enjoy pointing out the madcap foibles at each port and send up flags to be recognized and avoided by travelers. I also find this shipping industry fraught with odd equations to profits, strange traditions and a wild deck of cards to be dealt in each dank harbor. I also have found that each seaside haven is a mess, yet the most precious land in the community. I believe in my heart that something could be done about this errant condition that would help and entertain all involved. Traveling, unless under specific conditions, has its share of dark alleys and risks. If you want to travel in specific tour groups your conditions can be monitored to a certain extent. If you’ve got money to burn you can duck some of the slums, much of the world has to trounce through, to get to the Jade Garden of Luxury.

Traveling on a Tramp freighter has neither of the above accouterments. There are risks and the unknown at each port. In general the shipping folks don’t want to have anything to do with their passengers. In some respects you can’t blame them. They’re not set up for passengers, they don’t have the time or the money to go ashore in most ports, and they have hundreds of strange unknown stevedores, agents, gangs and officials running around each ship, who they can’t communicate with, and constantly break cranes and equipment. I feel for these bastards. They work their asses off and the only fun they look forward to are cheap whores in some ports, maybe a tattoo from a kid with dirty needles and warm beer once in a while. It’s not bad, it’s just a tough existence.

Well Hong Kong was no different, in fact, for the crew it wasn’t much fun, for us another wild encounter. We pulled into the port again in the middle of the night. I discovered that Hong Kong is noted for the Hong Kong Island, but it reality Hong Kong is made up of four different and distinct departments. There’s this small island slightly larger than Singapore with much less build able land due to the steep hills. Next is the Koloon Peninsula which is a sizeable chunk of property across from the island. Then there is the large mainland area that has a border with mainland China. This portion of Hong Kong is called the new territories and is substantially agricultural. Finally there’s a smattering of 235 surrounding islands that make up the rest of the Hong Kong State. Altogether, it’s probably the size of New Jersey surrounding one of the largest ports in the world in Victoria Bay. We rolled in through the East Lamma Channel during the middle of the night as usual so we couldn’t see shit, course it didn’t matter because we were quarantined due to our Vietnam excursion. So we were told to anchor out of the harbor by about a mile. Now, get this. The captain asked the harbor pilot what the requirements we were subject to under the quarantined conditions, since he had never encountered the Vietnam rule. The pilot told him that ships from Vietnam, Russia or Cuba had to endure quarantine regulations. Immediately the captain asked, “Oh, so it’s political?” “No, no,” the pilot said with emphasis. “Well, then what is required?” the captained continued to question. “Is there a health inspection?” “No,” the pilot said, “I will call the officials when you lay anchor. He will come to the ship but not board. You take him your ship’s paper and he will review, then we can move into the harbor.” That was it and a half hour later we pulled anchor and moved a mile closer in the harbor and dropped the sonuvabitch again. We were still five miles off the coast of the Kowloon Peninsula and five from the Hong Kong Island. We were in the middle of no place, the coastline off in the distance. Next we had to find out how the hell to get to shore. The agent showed up and reported that it would cost us 120 bucks (US) to get a lift to shore. That didn’t cut it and our dubious report was that were only scheduled to be in port for 24 hours. That sucked as the barges began to pull along side in the choppy currents and the crew began to prepare for offloading. The next morning after very little sleep I drug my ass to breakfast to check the situation. I was beginning to think that we wouldn’t be able to afford the trip to the coast due to the high costs and the fact that boats weren’t available and we might be leaving in the evening. Doesn’t make too much sense to pay $250 to get into town to have lunch and leave. Ah, but there are always alternatives. The Cargo Superintendent came on board and shrugged his shoulders with a lack of solutions to the problems afoot, but the Chinese Agent, Henry Cheung from the Gulf Agency Company, showed up and volunteered to take us to Kowloon on his dime on the harbor skiff, a 40-ft, high-powered launch.

One problem, though. Henry was peeling out as we spoke. I had to hit the showers and head to the gangplank. I spent the night in town without so much as a tooth brush, so some shopping had to take place and as usual, few shops accepted American Express and if you wanted cash from American Express you had to walk miles to the one Amex ATM in downtown Kowloon, only to find out it was out of order. We were told that another Chinese bank would accept it. That alternative was tried and a passenger had her card sucked by the machine, leaving her cardless. She had to spend the afternoon waiting around the office for a temporary card. There was nothing wrong with her balance. She swore that when she returned to the states she would use up her miles and burn the card. Such fools. Instead of assisting cardholders they put as many obstacles in the way of using the card as possible.

The last time I was in Hong Kong was during my stint in the Vietnam War. I sailed into the Hong Kong harbor three times. During the late ’60s the harbor was packed with a myriad of Chinese Junks, but this time as I looked out over the vast harbor, I didn’t see a one. I wasn’t reminded much of the old Hong Kong and wasn’t sure I would be startled by remembering something. The city has grown to a population of 6.9 million. It’s a madhouse metropolis teaming with shopping and high rise buildings. There something odd about it though. From the harbor or any distance the city reflects a massive sizzling beautiful metropolitan area, but when you get close in the daylight and look up, most of the buildings are apartments where people live. They are not luxury apartments but grubby stained buildings with air conditioners hanging out of window and clothes hanging on anything outside to dry.

More importantly, I exposed the fact that it is actually a downright expensive place to live. Apartments range from 20-40 grand a year to rent. That’s for the low rent districts and low on the elevator check list. As you move from floor to floor the rent increases until you’re facing 65-100,000 a year to be less than street people. No wonder the population clamors to gamble and there are only two types of gaming allowed. There is one race track on the island which produces 74 horse races a year and the crowds Annie up 81 Billion a year on the races. The only other legal gambling fare was to roll the dice on the Hong Kong lottery.

Hell, a burial site on the island costs $200,000 since land is so precious. Someone told me that you are buried sitting on a chair to conserve landI can’t confirm that gossip. There are several hospitals in town but only one government joint right across the street from a hilly cemetery. Rumor has it that if you end up in the hospital, it’s likely that the only way out is the rocky road to a plot across the street. Yipes.

I took a ride through a tunnel from Kowloon to the island. The tunnel costs 320 million to build, but it’s only 2 kilometer long and 24 meters below the surface of Victoria Bay. Keep in mind as I babble that the rate of exchange was 7.2 to one US dollar. Okay, so I’m blasting around the island looking at the sites and I cruised over a very tight winding road to the south side of the island to the small Aberdeen Harbor and when we pulled up to the dock leading to the popular floating restaurant in the middle of the bay I was taken back. A lump formed in my throat as I looked out at the odd looking floating Chinese River Boat still swaying in the calm waters 36 years later. It’s now called the Jumbo and is covered in neon and glittering lights like a Las Vegas gambling boat. It’s now owned by a gentleman who owns casinos in Macao and all over Indonesia.

I suddenly remembered the night I drug one of my buddies off the St. Paul and we grabbed a cab for the floating restaurants. We were 19 and 21 years old and concerned that the cabbie was taking us for a treacherous ride until he pulled into this small parking lot on the coast in front of a short pier some 20 feet long surrounded by little 5- foot sampans. We had hit the whores in strange tall buildings that were full of long halls without lights and dank rooms with little or no appliances. I remember the guy who lured us inside, gave us beers and showed us grotesque dirty movies before selling us on young girls. The girls were cute and in some cases not in a brothel ambiance. It was as if someone invited you into their home and offered you a drink, a daughter to fuck and dinner later. It was odd and somewhat uncomfortable. It was like going to see your girlfriend, fucking her in the room next to the dining room packed with relatives. Then dusting yourself off and saying goodbye.

If I’m not mistaken, my buddy, Outlaw (no shit, that was his last name) copped out when he saw the sampans and got back in the cab and headed back to the ship. I remember stepping into a wobbling sampan by myself. An old woman pushed off from the dock. She didn’t say much, just rowed quietly to the glittering floating River Boat type craft in the harbor. Half way out she stopped the dinky vessel and I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into. It was dark on the water except for the reflection of the lights of the restaurant. She turned and picked up a bundle off the wooden deck that turned out to be a baby and held it up to me. I could see that the infant wrapped in the dirty blanket was sleeping soundly. She showed me the child then held out her hand. I don’t remember anything about the money then, but I handed her a couple of bucks and she grinned a toothless smile, bowed and kept rowing.

I still remember that night. There were two restaurants at the time and one of the two allowed you to pick your fish from an adjoining tank and they would cook it up for you. I wasn’t in the mood for that fare and went to the next boat for a real life Chinese dinner which was tremendous and the atmosphere eerie. The two restaurants are now one and they server 3,000 people a night.

It was out of a dream and we jumped aboard a large motorized sampan for a tour of the area which is packed with luxury yachts, the restaurants and rows of boats that people still live on. They were tied next to professional wooden fishing boats. This was the only area left where people can still live on boats and they must buy a license each year to remain there. Between the rotting boats, the cost of the licenses and a thinning ceiling on the number of live-aboards allowed the traditional live aboard situation is quickly diminishing. There were once six million live-aboard boats in the Victoria Channel and now there are only 11,000 and that number is fading fast. It was sad to look at the boats and wonder about their future. I asked the woman in the motorized sampan behind the long wooden rudder, who looked and was dressed like a bank teller, “What happened to Chinese Junks?” When I was a youngster my old man took the family down to Wilmington Harbor to look at some new imported Chinese Junks for sale. They were as cool as pirate ships. Unfortunately my folks were trying to decide whether to buy one of them or a cabin in the hills and decided on the cabin.

She looked at me as if I was a voice from the past bringing up a legend she would just as soon forget. I imagined the harbor in the ’60s with thousands of these sailboats that looked like butterflies on the water flittering from harbor to harbor. Then she looked at me and I detected sadness in her broken English. “All the masts are gone. We have only motors now. Only one left with a sail for charter. The rest are either fishing sampans or live-aboard.” I could tell as she finished explaining that the story would only end when all the old line of wooden hulls were gone, replaced with fiberglass high-dollar yachts. How times change.

I found it interesting that Hong Kong is noted for its jewelry deals and spent some time at the Dynasty Jewelry mart, yet almost none of the raw materials come from China. Diamonds and gold come from South Africa, Opals from Australia and Jade and Rubies come from Burma.

As a closing thought I would like to mention a bit of advice for those who are interested in living in the hills. According to Chinese legend, dragons live in the hills. Chinese lore has dragons built into their yearly schedules as if it was a true animal. For instance last year was the year of the snake and this the year of the horse. Since the dragon is the symbol of China it is to be respected and cared for so people who build homes in the hills make sure that each structure has a center courtyard to nurture dragons and let them breathe.

So if someone was to ask me if I had a good time in Hong Kong I would answer the same as all the ports I’ve entered: Each port has it challenges and adventures. Hell, yes I had a good time. I had a steak at the Morton’s Steak House at the Sheraton over-looking the Victoria Bay and the brightly decorated high-rise buildings for the New Year Holiday. I walked along the edge of the channel surrounded by the Las Vegas like night lights incredible. There was a Ferry Boat ride to the Hong Kong Island and back. Indians attacked me on every corner with brochures about hand tailoring clothing for my lanky self. The city is just as mysterious as during the Vietnam era.-Bandit

Everyday we receive the briefest of news reports that come via Telex and contain a series of four-line paragraphs about world topics. There are usually 13 segments, and 11 of them contain reports of violence somewhere in the world. I don’t want to walk on anyone’s politics, but doesn’t anyone in this world do something because it’s the right fuckin’ thing to do? The attacks are generally based on religion, politics or greed.

I’m rapidly discovering that if any country looks at the realities of their past they can be pissed off enough to go to war with almost anyone. Some of the shit the white race did to China over the years, for instance, would curl your toes. There wouldn’t be opium in China if the British hadn’t brought it to keep the little people in line and make a few bucks on the side. There were several opium wars; in most cases the Chinese people lost and were forced to let Europeans distribute drugs and other profitable substances in ports like Hong Kong and Shanghai.

I don’t want to jump into a bag of generalizations, but you can imagine why the people turned to communism for protection from the white vultures. They thought that communism was the answer when in most cases it became a highly controlled dictatorship that raped the people and the land. It backfired here too, like it did in Russia. The Chinese people endured revolutions and corrupt government. At one point, people with educations were forced into the fields and all books were burned. One of the last emperors ultimately became a gardener. The wife of Chiang Kai Shek sucked as much wealth as she could out of the country and ended up living in Washington, D.C. In the meantime, while the people were trying desperately to find a way, the rest of the free world was progressing. Sooner or later everyone wants an air conditioner. People aren’t blind. They can see when they have nothing and the rest of the world is driving cool cars and listening to rock ‘n’ roll.

So we steamed into Shanghai, (originally two words that mean “on the sea”) which is an example of a new China. Keep in mind that China is about the size of the continental United States yet has 900 million more people. Believe it or not, the birthrate is down. If you think that every family should have a bushel of kids, come to Shanghai and get a lesson in wild population growth and what it does for the quality of life. The reason that I’ve tossed in all this background is that it gives you a basis for what I will try to explain.

The population of Shanghai was 10 million in 1975. It’s the largest industrial city in China. There are 200 agricultural communities surrounding the city to supply food. There are 98 berths for large cargo ships and container vessels. There are 25 more for ships in the 10,000-ton range and 28 more for ships in the range of 4,500 metric tons. It took us 4 1/2 hours to motor up the Beicao Shuidao River from the Yellow Sea, before we grabbed another pilot for an hour and half ride down the Huangpu Jiang River to the port. The river continues past Shanghai, the sprawling city of high rise buildings. At night it’s impressive beyond belief.

I believe from the people I met that the residents of Shanghai are generally happy campers. They dress well, have good attitudes, are making livings like never before and are experiencing much of what the world has to offer. Perhaps they’re like kids in a city of candy stores. My perspective was entirely different. Not bad, but cautious.

Let’s have some fun first. The day we arrived I met with the captain to get some travel guidance. He had been up all night rumbling from one river to the next, one pilot to the next and, once we arrived, from one administration to the next. Our meat locker was immediately sealed. We were not allowed to eat meats from anywhere except the United States. Unfortunately, the Leon stocked up in Europe. It meant business for local merchants since we had to buy additional stores. In addition to the usual forms, we had to put in for a permit for naked light operation so that our fitter could continue to weld on the main deck during the day. Our sandblaster came down with a terrible tooth infection and was hauled off to a dentist who didn’t have modern tools. He finally received some antibiotics and pain killers. At first he told the dentist that the pain was so bad that he couldn’t sleep so the doctor gave him sleeping pills. I was told that the doctor’s drilling machine was powered by pedals. I was also told that some Chinese dentists are taught to do all their work by hand. They can pull a tooth with their muscular fingers. They train by pulling nails out of wood with only two digits. I started brushing my teeth several times a day.

We discovered quickly that it’s no problem to catch a cab. But unless you speak the language, you can’t go anywhere without a card with the address written on it in Chinese symbols. That includes the return cab drive back to the ship. It was critical here due to the hour-long ride to and from the ship. For the three-day stay, we all had to carry cards with our info so we could find our way back. We discovered that the best bet for getting to know an area is to take a cab to a fine hotel. The concierge will always assist (in most cases) with tour packages, or anything else you may need. Generally they speak English. I try to spend a couple of bucks in the hotel of my choice to show my appreciation. If we didn’t spend the night there, we ate dinner or bought souvenirs. In this case, we were recommended to check the brand new Grand Hyatt, located in an 88-story building, the largest building on the Pu Dong side of the river. I fortunately made contact with Butch, the founder of the Red Devils underground Motorcycle Club in Shanghai, who was a true brother and helped with travel pointers and some of the best chow we had. Another recommendation was the Peace Hotel. It’s an older, classic high-rise, built in 1906. It became our home base since the harbor was a good hour away over rough streets in cabs driven like they were in training for New York City status.

It was crowded everywhere, but the people were friendly and excited to try their English on us. People of all ages said hello when they saw us. There were a few Anglos about, but very few. I looked like a freak of nature, but the blonde was admired everywhere. Traffic was wall-to-wall mixed with trucks, constant construction equipment, buses, subways, trains and those buses that run on electrical lines. In addition to the four wheelers, the motorcycle traffic is immense, mostly scooters zipping between cars, and on the wrong side of the street, anywhere, to get where they were going. Then there were bicycles all over the goddamn place. Like the scooters, they were nothing fancy, just inexpensive, utilitarian motorcycles and three-speed bicycles by the millions. Most of them had faded paint and were spotted with rust. The streets are jungles of telephone poles, electrical wires, you name it. The face of this city has completely changed in the last 10 years. Wherever possible, someone is mowing down the older two-story homes and building grand high-rise apartments. But old traditions die hard. On a cab drive, we passed a sprawling old stucco housing track with gray plastered walls and pointed tile roofs.

The homes looked more like a ghetto of wire, filth and clothes hanging from windows. Next door was a new building but already air conditioners were hanging outside windows along with the laundry. On so many city street corners there were trees surrounded by concrete and asphalt. It’s wintertime so there were no leaves on the trees, which only added to the desolate look. Even in the midst of the city there was laundry hanging on the tree limbs next to a sprawling intersection. Behind the tree would be a vast ghetto of crumbling, two-story buildings built close together. Across the street could be a new high-rise office building as slick as New York. It was a strange juxtaposition. It sounds grim, I know, but the people dressed very well, smiled, got along and were pleasant. There was no vast difference in groups of people. They were all well dressed and on the move. I saw hardly any denims or T-shirts. Guy all wear slacks, pressed shirts and some sort of jacket. So it could have been that what looked like a ghetto to me was just another old apartment complex to them. Perhaps some were just older and more hammered than others.

Again, we were faced with every imaginable type of retail store. I was astonished by the number. On occasion we were told to go to Nanjing Road or Huahai Road for outstanding shopping, but I found shopping on every street in every direction. Butch also explained that the prices in Shanghai were the highest in the country, even higher than Hong Kong. Sharp-looking franchise shopping malls were perched next to rundown streets with stall-type shops faced with roll-up garage doors in front that housed hardware stores or scooter repair businesses. Everything was piled on everything else, and damnit if everything wasn’t packed with people.

To be perfectly honest, this type of lifestyle doesn’t do a damn thing for me. From what I’ve heard, this is happening all over China. Cities are expanding like crazy. In 1978, a law was passed that couples could only have one child. Since then it has been modified to allow couples made up of single children to bear two. I was recently told that if you have enough coin, you can buy a license to have another child.

It’s so odd that if you discuss the history with Europeans you get so many different slants and explanations. You would think that perhaps the citizens of Shanghai would like to put the European influence behind them and build anew. Where the Peace Hotel is, there are a series of high-rise buildings built from the late 1800s to 1927. The architecture of these buildings is common in Europe and the United States. They all were planted on Zhonghan Road, considered the Bund (water front), which borders the river. This is considered by the Chinese to be the street that represents Shanghai.

On the other side of the river is Pu Dong or the new neighborhood where the Grand Hyatt is and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. It is 468 meters high. It is the highest TV tower of its kind in Asia and the third highest in the world. You can blast up into it for a price and see the city from the top. Until recently there was only one way to get across the river to Pu Dong and that was by ferry. Now there are bridges, ferries, tunnels and the Bund Sightseeing underground tunnel. It is the first passenger tunnel in China and takes riders on a psychedelic light show to the TV tower on the other side. The Grand Hyatt turned out to be inserted into the tallest high rise in the country called the Jin Mao building, named after Mao’s wife. It’s the third tallest building in the world.

So on one hand, the Anglos treated the Chinese poorly at times but never as poorly as the Japanese or some of the dictators who ran the country. So for some, the English and Europeans protected them from attacks, freed them from the Japanese during World War II and now they honor that heritage. Who the fuck knows from one moment to the next.

We finally got the hell out of Shanghai and arrived in Qingdao at 4 a.m. the next day. This is the city where the Chinese beer is produced. It is a half million strong and built up from a village in 10 years. We were docked and ready to go ashore at 9 a.m., but were not allowed. We didn’t receive our passports back until 4 p.m. It may have been that we were docked in a military portion of the port since destroyers surrounded us and there were eight submarines moored across the harbor. Originally, in the morning, the captain had told me that we only were off loading 14 items, two with the 250-metric ton Stuelcken crane and 12 out of the forward hold with the 20-ton cranes. As it turned out, the stevedores delayed work until all the paperwork formalities were handled. The captain had 70 forms to produce in the morning. The two large pieces were finally unloaded in the morning, then union lunch break was taken until 1 p.m. Then, after chow, five crates were moved. There was some discussion about the seven final crates. Some shifting was needed to reach some of the crates. Again, the stevedores shut down until they were assured that payment would be received for extra work.

Ultimately the projected three hour off-loading exercise turned into eight hours. The job was completed at 4 p.m. and a pilot was scheduled. He did not arrive and the time was switched to 4:30, then at 4:45, we were told that he would be aboard in five minutes. At 5:30 p.m. we were still waiting. We finally pulled out of the harbor at about 6 p.m. A soldier stood at the bottom of the gang plank all day. At one point there was a watch relief, but they had to exchange coats. There was only one between them.

Bund Tunnel

We usually steam into port, pass many waiting vessels and go immediately to a dock ready with stevedores. That is handled by the agent who gets to know the authorities, then greases their palms. It also has to do with the captain giving gifts to the administrators who come aboard. He explained that for every $100 spent on gifts and dinner, the ship saves as much as $6,000 for the expenses of anchoring outside the dock for one day waiting for a space. Since we were not allowed ashore, a couple of passengers were hopping mad and complained that we have been denied access to Berlin when we had the time to make the trip. We weren’t allowed off the ship in Newport News, Vietnam or now QingDao. Oops, I forgot to mention lovely Jakarta. I’m beginning to see a tradition of high rise cities that don’t do a damn thing for me. I suppose it’s not the cities but the crowds.

I appreciate the growth and progress for the people who live here, but frankly I want to see the traditions and the landscape. I would like to have dinner with a Chinese family, or get my ass home and ride over a lonely road in the desert, look at the latest American Indian jewelry and have a cold beer. Can’t wait.

Shanghai Sidebar:
Religion still wreaks havoc the world over. I found myself surrounded by relics of Buddhism. Some 60 percent of the Chinese population is Buddhist. The rest of the population is split between Christianity and Muslim. Here are just a couple of items I picked up on my hunt to find nirvana in a world at each others’ throats:

There are four states to Buddha: First is Buddha herself. Second is the many disciples. Laughing Buddha is the esteemed predecessor. He represents all things happy and the bright future. He is already set to fill the main man’s shoes at some point, but there are several others including the Goddess of Mercy who is always there to assist. There is Madison Buddha who represents everything healthy, Ameda Buddha who is the Happy Buddha and represents the future and Canodi Buddha who represents all that is current. There’s a third level, and I confirmed it, but goddamnit I can’t find it in my notes. The last is the people who are monks and nuns. The religion is set up so that anyone can become a Buddha.

A few notions of the Buddhist religion are that fish are highly regarded as the wisest being on earth, because fish never sleep or close their eyes. We should all have jade in our homes because it is full of energy that rubs off on all inhabitants. The years are based on 11 animals and the dragon. The dragon is the symbol of China. For instance, last year was the year of the snake, not a good year. This is the year of the horse, a very good year. I toured the Jade Temple that was built in 1882 and houses several vast jade carvings of Buddha from when she was 35 and before her death. That’s all I know or was taught as hundreds of people surrounded me to bow to their Buddhas with smoking incense clutched in their hands as I looked on and compared their temples to the ornate Christian and Catholic cathedrals in Europe. Similar in some respects and vastly different in others, but always impressive and foreboding.

Yesterday we pulled out of China for the last time. Next stop Masan, Korea. It’s another country that’s terribly over-populated, but I’ll report from there. Rumor has it that they don’t like Americans and we may be forced to stay on board the ship, but we’ll get to that later.

Two rules of thumb when making a trip like this. Don’t do it in the dead of winter. Not only is it so fucking cold it would freeze the balls off a brass monkey, but the vegetation is bleak and the grass looks as brown as desert sand. I’m sure some of the areas I report on would look much better with a taste of greenery. Second rule, make sure that the cabins on the ship have heaters. I’m discovering that I’m a person who likes the warmth and prefers heat over cold. Goddamnit, I’ll bundle up for anything, but when I return to my cabin I want the comfort of warmth and a woman. Is that too fuckin’ much to ask?

By the 24th of March I will have been bobbing from port to port for four months. I’m still bugging the captain about picking up a crate bound for San Pedro. Here’s the schedule as it stands: We’re a day from Korea. We’ll off load there for three days then steam for 18 hours to Yokohama, Japan for 24 hours of loading cargo bound for the U.S. Then after six hours of sailing to Hitachi for another 24 hours of loading and we’re bound for 17 days in calm seas to the Panama Canal. We’ll burn a day due to dealing with agents and inspectors trying to roll through the locks and into Lake Gatume, and out the locks and into the Caribbean bound for Houston another six days away.

Enough dreaming about being home and in the arms of my babe, let’s get to the China report. At last report, I mentioned the town of Qingdao, then 17 hours after departure we arrive at the peninsula that contains the port of Dalian.

This is the Zhong Shan Square in Dalian. Check out the buildings in the background.

By now I’m a blur of big cities all trying to over-rate the next one with the highest high-rise building or TV tower. This was the first city that contained no tours and after walking for a bit we discovered there was no need for a tour. It was a mess, but don’t get me wrong. Again the people seem pleased with the progress.

I’m reading a book about the history of Hong Kong as part of my research for my book project. In this book, “Hong Kong Remembers” it is explained that until 1980 there were no labor unions in Hong Kong. The book says that the labor unions in mainland China are run by the government, so not really unions at all. It’s only been in the last twenty years that the working man has enjoyed any rights or benefits. Think about it. If five years ago you still worked in a sweat shop 14 hours a day, 7 days a week without any benefits, you’d be mighty happy now if progress was afoot. So you wouldn’t be too concerned if you still worked in a building without air conditioning and the air quality stunk. The same philosophy applies to living conditions. These people are moving fast and ten years from now, they will be light years ahead of the curve and I’m sure making corrections that we are now facing in some of our over-built cities.

Dalian was again a city of transformation, but not a handsome joint in the winter, although prices were very reasonable and taxis cheap. It is based near the Gulf of Liaudong which was once controlled by the Russians until the Japanese took over in the ’30s. We visited an old street of Russian buildings. The classic ornate structures were being refurbished and turned into shops.

While roaming from shop to shop we met a young man who spoke English very well. He took us to a small restaurant where we ordered two dishes and they delivered enough food for a half dozen people, plus we had hot tea. The bill was slightly over two bucks US. So we went to the ultra luxurious Furama Hotel and had cappuccino and desert for $15.

A light desert at the Furama Hotel in Dalian

Once more, Dalian was very European with all the retail outlets we’ve seen in a number of countries, but the side streets are really where it’s at. The ship’s catastrophe afforded us in Dalian was the discovery that a 38 tons of sheet metal was buried deep in the hull under another level of cargo bound for other ports. It was the mistake of our planning superintendent in Europe. It took the stevedores eight hours to shift the cargo to reach the slabs of steel, and another eight hours of delay to unload the cargo, held us up for a day. The word on the ship is that Rickmers is a shifting company, not shipping. In the superintendent’s defense, it was the holiday season and all his comrades took the time off saddling him with over eight ships to manage and all the cargo. No an easy task.

The rusting Leon at the dock between stevedore shifts.

Our next port was again only a handful of hours away. Tianjin is located on the coast of the Gulf of Chihli or Bo Hai. The fog was unbelievable. For two days we couldn’t see a dam thing. Concerned that we were facing yet an additional Chinese port I pointed to a crate 80 feet long and asked the captain about the destination printed on the side which said Xingang. The captain in his usual humorous demeanor laughed, “That’s the port, Tianjin is just nearby.” Actually Tianjin was over an hour away. It’s confusing as hell. The port is called the Port of Tianjin, but is actually in Xingang and the nearest town is Tanggu. Tianjin might as well be on the other side of the world.

The Fog created a mysterious haze without color. Only the bleak shapes of ships could be seen.

The first day we took a cab to Tianjin. The roads were rough and all the cabs needed new shocks. The highways were well planned and under each interchange there was a park and some kind of sculptured art. Unfortunately due to the season the grass was far less than brilliant green and the trees stark wooden skeletons. Along the roads were building projects next to hovels surrounded by trash and dirt, next to abandoned industrial buildings, next to flea markets, next to older industrial buildings being torn down, next to strips of retail shops and lastly next to partially constructed industrial projects that looked deserted. There were people everywhere crossing the highway, on foot (brave souls) on bicycles, and motorcycles.

Cabbies peeled along constantly on the horn, driving on the wrong side of the street to pass a slower moving vehicle. I discovered that drivers making lefts and u-turns felt they had as much right-away as the through traffic. Being a biker I have much the same devil-may-care mentality as these drivers. You learn to dodge bullets wherever they come, much like these guys did jetting around and through traffic, bicycles and pedestrians whenever they got a shot. I sat back and enjoyed the ride.

Tianjin was nothing to shout about. The food was great in the Hyatt hotel and the Astor had a Hua Fu dress I was trying to pick up for Sin Wu, but I decided to look further unsuccessfully. The streets again were jammed with bicycles and shops, but the people were comfortable and friendly, although we discovered that few knew English.

This is a common site throughout Chinese cities. A shop like this could be two doors from a new high-rise or a high fashion designer store.

The next day was a surprise. The coal dust whipped through the bumpy streets as it was being delivered to the port by trucks. We decided to hit the local town and we were picked up by a cute little female driver who was to deliver us to Tanggu. She didn’t leave the port through the gate but cut through a field of crushed buildings then across a series of old railroad tracks guarded by a small dilapidated building that was dark and crumbling. Even the post that blocked the road seemed to be on its last leg.

Perfect example of old and new mixed with a constant sprinkling of coal dust.

We were use to seeing destitute buildings parked next to new structures, but this was different. As we crossed the intersection to another gate or toll road we entered a twilight zone of sorts. The toll gate or whatever the hell it was, was state of the art. The pavement was new and wide with several lanes. Each building post and archway was high-tech and of wild design. It was as if the students at a local college were challenged to come up with eye-catching new forms for each structure. Who ever designed this stuff was no slouch. Each building we passed had a distinctly different design. Arches of stainless steel and white tile were cast over the road way as we rolled closer to town.

Each arch and building we came to was more modern, almost space aged. Someone was pouring a mint into the redevelopment and growth of the new Tanggu. It was unfortunate that it was winter and brisk. With some color, the area would have been downright impressive except for one demise. Coal dust was on everything. They needed to go back to the college with a new challenge, get this coal dust to market without killing people and making the city look like shit.

As we entered the downtown area and I was impressed beyond dreams. This portion of the city was a well-planned burgeoning area of high-rise and luxury hotels. Unfortunately, who the hell wants to travel around the globe to explore the new section of downtown Houston again? Tanggu is distant enough from tourism that few speak English and the hotel maps are only written in Chinese symbols. We were told of an area for shopping and grabbed another cab after obtaining little assistance from Hotel Tedu. The shopping area was just like a new mall in the states with marble pathways and department stores. Sure there were differences, but not the type we were looking for.

It wasn’t until the following day that we saw how the people of the city shopped. We went to a flea market of sorts in a down area of town. This time the cabbie escorted us through the crowed street and buffered us from the beggars who were plenty aggressive, pushing and shoving their empty tin cans in our direction. The swapmeet/fleamarket was a kick of wild booths containing anything from old electrical appliances and tools to ancient Chinese coins, brass dragons, knock-off watches, knives, toys, relics, carvings and bicycle parts. I scored a couple of small solid brass dragons for some kids in the states for less than four bucks apiece.

We departed there and went in search of Hua Fu dresses for Sin, after lunch in a revolving restaurant at the Tedu Hotel on the 33th floor over-looking the entire Tanggu fog soaked basin and the port. Wang our waitress was dressed in exactly the gown I was after. She was just as much of a knockout as Sin and I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. The silk dress slid down her body as if it was my touch moving over her shapely hips. Unfortunately she spoke very little English, although I started asking her about the dress. She called for assistance, and no, I wasn’t asked to leave. Another cute Asian woman came to my aid. I drew a sketch of the dress I was after and we started to discuss options. Unfortunately everyone I asked told me to go back to Tianjin, but time wasn’t working in my favor. I was burning daylight.

Our devoted cabbie who was most helpful took me to several locations without a whisper of luck, then we hit on one of the myriad of bridal shops in town and scored some success, but no particular assortment and I had to purchase just the right one for Sin. I was forced to resort to plan B, of which I’m not sure of yet.

As usual, we were informed that departure would take place by noon the next day, but that wasn’t the case. We motored out of the harbor being escorted by two tug boats about 1600. A misty haze hung over the harbor again as we left and pulled out of another bleak harbor covered with coal dust. Even our Leon was coated with the black powder as we pulled away and out past the breakwater and the lighthouse. We passed 29 ships at anchor waiting for dock space, cargo and stevedore agreements to enter the port. Fortunately our Rickmers agents were doing their job again.

Lighthouse just outside the Xingang Harbor near Tanggu called Tianjin Port.

As we motored out of the harbor, I stood on the bridge with the Captain, 2nd officer and pilot. The pilot was a very well dressed agent. I generally stand off to the side to that I’m out of the way as they deal with ship traffic, navigation, small boats and communications with the port. The Captain usually comes to me with reports of hazards, administration nightmares, customs or immigration tribulations. This time he mentioned to the agent that I was a passenger from America and the agent spoke good English and approached me. Most of the time the agents are very focused on their mission and simply bark orders and leave.

This agent wearing a navy blue double-breasted blazer with gold buttons and a golden patterned tie was impressive and friendly. The agents in each port dress differently. This guy looked like an executive not a seaman. He told me he had been an agent for 20 years and had never seen an American flag ship. He also mentioned that he had never experienced a crew of American seamen or officers. We don’t build ships in the states anymore. We can’t compete with China or Japan. Americans are not hired on the ships because they’re too expensive. In fact, we noticed that few Germans are seaman for the same reason. Pilipino crews mostly man the ships and many have Polish officers.

I wish I had met this agent on the trip into port. I would have known exactly where to go and where to avoid. A critical learning process in every port is becoming acclimated. About the time you know the town or area, it’s time to split.

A scene from a street we stumbled onto since we didn’t have a guide to show us the right way.

It’s too bad that guides are not available to assist. The ports and towns could make a lot more money off passengers if they could obtain the proper information quicker. A couple of passengers wanted to go to Peking, which is now Beijing and beyond to see the great wall, but due to misinformation were never able to get away from the ship or get the information in order to make the trip. As it turned out we would have had plenty of time if the data was available.

Next report from Masan, Korea.

As usual, I have so much to report I can’t keep track of it all. First, I want to tell you that I suspected Korea would be as ugly, dirty and evil as Jakarta. It was not just my sordid mind playing tricks on me. Our worldly reporter, Forrest P., confirmed the dangers of going ashore in Korea as, “You’re on your own in Korea.” I was prepared for danger or even confinement aboard the ship for the duration of our stay. As it turned out, the exact opposite was the case.

I must in all good conscience congratulate the people of Masan, Korea, for having the best-kept, most organized and colorful port in the world. This place is dead sharp, from the clean waters and small islands to the beaches, the buildings and roads. Hell, the docks are even landscaped.

The residents aren’t proficient in English, but the new highway signs are posted in Korean and English. However, there are no English street signs in Masan, so getting around the town of 500,000 is a guessing game. Everyone wanted to help though. Even the hotel maps printed in Masan were produced in English and Japanese, yet the cabbies couldn’t read either. It’s a bustling little berg on a gorgeous bay guarded by a series of islands and a substantial Naval installation. At one point a submarine that surfaced surprised us and tailed us for half an hour.

Here’s a shot of the city as we motored into the port.

The fresh fish industry is considerable and around the area were crops of shell fish pods neatly guarded with lines of white floats in bays and inlets. But before we toss the lines to the dock, I must tell you a couple of stories about Constantine, our one-man sandblasting crew. He’s about 5-foot-6, average build, with thick, black hair. He’s the guy who got the tattoos in Jakarta. When we’re in port he can’t sandblast so they have him standing duty at the gang plank ever since we had the robbery in Europe. He also had a hand in preventing the mafia raid in Vietnam.

Recently he was on duty in one of the Chinese ports when he noticed that someone had taken a set of bolt cutters and an axe and slipped them off the ship. One of the stevedore supervisors allowed the tools to be concealed in a cart. Constantine discovered this ploy. He called all the stevedores together and busted them, telling them, “If you fuck me in the ass, I will fuck you to your face.” He questioned the men, got a confession and had the man strip to his skivvies in the freezing cold. Then he asked him to leave the ship. His supervisor came aboard to complain and Constantine told him to take a leap. He would not turn over the man’s helmet or gear.

Constantine is an interesting guy, and a biker of sorts. He has a family in Romania and calls home on the ship’s satellite phone from time to time. His wife put him on the speaker phone recently at a family reunion and Constantine tells her, “I want to fuck you right now.”

“I’ll have to ask my family,” she replied, which the family got a big kick out of.

He once was a train engineer in Romania and made $250 a month. He discovered that he could make substantially more as a seaman and through his underground connections got papers cut and found himself aboard a ship as a sandblaster. The officer asked him if he was in charge and the told the mate, “Sure.”

He was told where to start the operation and he got the crew together and put them to work. It was a week before he had to pick up a nozzle himself. He had never operated a sandblaster and didn’t know the first thing. He just watched the other guys perform the operation. “I had to look like I knew what I was doing,” he said. Somehow he pulled it off.

Since we were just in China, we were placed under Korean quarantine. The captain jokes that since we were in Vietnam we were under quarantine in China, then China to Korea, next will be Japanese quarantine since we were last in port in Korea and in the United States under quarantine since we were just in Japan. One of the passengers caught a cold recently and we blamed all the quarantines on her sniffles.

Each port has its quagmire of administrations, contacts, customs and immigration. In this case, the agent had shore passes neatly printed for us. Since he had to print up shore passes for the entire crew, he had all the passengers printed on the same forms. Unfortunately, there were three women and myself. All of us had shore passes that indicated that we were in fact males and crewmen. We were busted at the gate because we were not on the crew list supplied to security. This was the first port that actually had security with a metal detectors. My Elishewitz locking blade knife was confiscated during a search, but it was returned when I rolled back in to the port. The uniformed guards were extremely helpful and courteous.

The first day in every port is usually spent trying to get a handle on the city. We’re discovering that by the third day you can get a grip on most towns and begin to see the really cool shit. Prior to that you’re hitting the tourist locations and walking in circles asking for directions. This city was clean, with well-maintained roads and more courteous drivers. The cars were generally new and full sized. By the end of the first day we had stumbled through a couple of hotels to quiz the staff on their English and travel information. Most of the locals didn’t think there was much to see in town and others pointed us directly to the shopping areas.

This was taken in the Changdong shopping area. It is still a traditional area of narrow streets and unique booths. I didn’t take shots of all the ordinary stores and high-rise buildings.

We’ve about had it with shopping, but we hit the area with traditional booths full of food, handmade crafts, pastries, you name it. We hit the major shopping high-rise, called the Dae Woo, which is full of the same shit we saw in Antwerp. We cruised the fish market, which was cool. I wish I knew the fish fare better because they had some strange shell fish, monster crabs, stingrays by the dozen, clams as big as your fist and some of the best oysters I’ve tasted in ages. We tried a small restaurant over looking the harbor where we had to take off our shoes and sit on the floor. Unfortunately, no one knew English. They had no menu and we were at a loss for communication, so we had appetizers and split.

We saw ladies and gentlemen in several places filleting fish in public.

I’ve been looking for a special silk Hau Fu dress for Sin Wu. Damn these dresses make Asian girls look like a million bucks. In our last Chinese port of Tianjin, shops were minimal. Of course as we wandered through narrow, booth-lined streets in downtown Masan, we discovered a section devoted to clothes and fabrics. If I was looking for a traditional Korean outfit or fine fabrics to make one with, I would have stumbled into the mother lode. Unfortunately, traditional Korean clothing looks like the garb of medieval warriors. There’s nothing sexy about it. I kicked myself in the ass again for not jumping on the first slinky silk dress I stumbled upon in Dalian, China.

With our feet securely wet in the new burg, we returned to the ship with big expectations for the following day. I contacted the agent first thing in the morning and began to quiz him about finding us a tour guide/taxi driver and working out an itinerary. A plan was hatched for him to arrive at 9:30, hook us up and we’d be on our way. This agent already had a reputation for strolling onto the ship late. He showed at 10:30, but was very helpful except never informed us of a price.

We were to meet the cab at the gate at 11, but the cab didn’t show. At 11:15 I called the agent on my handy satellite phone and he apologized for the delay. I called at 11:30 and at 11:45 a car screeched to a stop in front of me. A gentleman jumped out and began to apologize. Mr. Yang’s reputation spilled over to his coworkers, who ask for forgiveness for his behavior. The man stood with us until the taxi arrived at noon. Then we began plan negotiations. The driver spoke very little English, but with the assistance of the co-agent we hatched a plan for a road trip into the hills to several ancient locales. Then we worked out a price for half day of $100 U.S. for four people. Altogether the plan changed three times, but was a success. We had a helluva drive out of the city into the valleys and hills surrounding the area. He took us to a restaurant for lunch that was also a sit-on-the-floor affair, where the beef was sliced and cooked at the table by the driver as he showed us how to eat it. It was killer.

This purportedly is the grave of Buddha.

We drove comfortably through canyons, passed miles of strawberry crops and went through old villages. All the kids getting out of school were in neat uniforms. We strolled through a couple of temple areas, including the one that contains the skeletal remains of Buddha. We were on time to watch the bell ringing monks drum tapping ceremony at the area of 31 temples. It was all very civilized and we discovered another country attacked by the Japanese. At one point in history they couldn’t leave anyone alone.

This is a shot of a Korean bell used in religious ceremonies. There’s a monster Korean bell on the hillside of San Pedro overlooking the coast. This reminded me of home.

Since we are on our way to Yokohama, Japan, my eyes began to focus in that direction. The country has less space than California, yet the population is almost equal to that of the entire United States, and it’s made up of mountainous islands. That makes for a much limited living area, so we can expect crowds everywhere.

Good fortune befell our wintered selves. We witnessed the blossoming of cherry and plum trees to brighten the days with brilliant colors and new life. Bottom line, Masan, Korea, is a progressive area of hard working people who seem pleased with their surroundings and should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. The port was the finest we’ve seen yet. I continue to harp on harbors, but for an entire world industry harbors are a harbinger of what may come within the country, and in general they look like shit and represent the owner countries poorly, to say the least. It doesn’t need to be that way.

A shot of the Leon in the Masan port the night we departed for Japan.

Some ship perceptions: There seems to be two elements that impact a vessel’s longevity: rust and vibration. The chief engineer told me that most ships are mechanically sound when they are scraped due to surveyors finding of a lack of structural integrity. Ships are surveyed and reported on at regular intervals. If a ship fails a required inspection, it loses its classification, won’t be allowed in ports and will be restricted from insurance coverage. This ship is over 20 years old and is rough around the edges but mechanically it’s sound. So what would make a ship last longer? First I believe a system for fresh water cleaning could help the steel surface considerably. Generally the crew uses fire hoses fueled with salt water to spray the crap, grime, coal dust and wood chips off the deck. It’s not the chemical agent of salt that destroys metal in less than two years, if a ship is not properly maintained. I was told that the sun’s rays are reflected to 36 times their strength when shot through the crystalline surface of salt. Regular washings with fresh water would eliminate that threat, but what the fuck do I know? I’ll ask an officer and report back.

There is also tremendous vibration, even on the upper decks of the ship, five floors above the engine room. I never noticed this level of vibration on a sailboat under motor power. It must take a tremendous toll on the mechanical stability of the vessel. I asked the chief engineer, who is Polish, if the engine was rubber mounted like the engines on cars. But his answer was in Polish and I couldn’t understand him. I plan to go down to the engine room when we enter a port and observe the driveline under constantly changing demands to see for myself, but on the surface I would think that rubber mounting the engine and driveline would make a helluva difference to the durability of the overall vessel.

Here’s a shot of a trike in Korea. Motorcycles are used all over China and Korea for transportation and deliveries. How about a flame job?

One more thought: This trip has been an eye opener from various standpoints. You can imagine that when I hear news from the states and I’m surrounded by Polish officers, I take it with a different, more humble approach. Of course I’m proud to be an American and generally feel that we have the opportunity to set the stage for the entire world in the future. That means we must take pride in how we represent ourselves to the world and respect others. That’s a deep subject and difficult to even consider at the moment.

Give it some thought, but think about the following: I found out recently that the Japanese people have known for over a hundred years that they cannot live on this series of minute islands forever for many reasons. First, they don’t have the resources, and second, they don’t have the land. In the past they tried to expand by attacking China, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, all the fuckin’ islands, the Philippines and the United States. Big mistake. That policy turned out the be over ambitious and a miserable failure.

After the war they told their kids to learn English, because they would hope to find homes in the United States. The kids rebuffed their parents and now are kicking their own asses. Again a generation is trying the same philosophy and this time more successfully. There is just not the space in Japan for all the people, or there won’t be shortly.

Additionally, the people in China are studying the English language because the Olympics are headed to Beijing and because they recognize that the world embraces the English language. They too have discovered that communism is a miserable failure and in order to keep up with the world economy, the level of education on the planet and new weapons and products, they need to explore a more open democratic approach.

I have discovered that in every port the common language is English. When a pilot comes on board he always speaks broken English in addition to his traditional language. What’s it all mean? Who the hell knows, but it’s fascinating. I spoke to the Filipino 2nd officer today and he told me that many people in the Philippines believe that with their overcrowding the only way to escape is to build a family in America.

The world is rapidly becoming the same. There are old styles mixed with the new – McDonald’s, Mobil and Kinko’s everywhere. What used to be separate is mixed.

I would hope with English would come broader education, better business opportunities for the underprivileged countries and peace. But it will take understanding and intelligence from us. It’s no surprise that the kids who come to the United States treat our educational process with so much more respect than our own kids do. They have absolutely nothing like it in most countries or it’s only available to the very rich. We’ll need to work on and prepare for a much smaller world working together as if all countries were simply states in a union world doing business together for a common good.

Am I dreaming or what?

I’m beginning to lose my bearing. We left Masan, Korea, in a daze. Our impressions were mixed, but fortunately everything worked out for the better. Forever, my impression of Korea will be much endeared. Naturally I was looking forward to the last ports in Japan and heading home. The rumors on the ship are never ending. Antonio, the head steward, said that it would take less than 18 hours to get to Yokohama, and the captain informed me that we would be in Yokohama for only 24 hours, then another 24 hours in Hitachi before heading home. I’m beginning to itch for my woman, a double Jack on the rocks and a ride. The final trek across the Pacific is 23 days. OK, so let’s get to the facts.

We arrived in Yokohama at 6 a.m. after two days at sea. If we arrived a minute early at the pilot station we would have been charged night duties, an extra fee for night maneuvering in the port. We were only destined to take on seven large generator components, yet the stevedores labored through very strict union hours. At 5 a.m. they’re gone. It was a plodding nightmare watching the slowness of the operation. We were in port until 6 p.m. the next day. If we had stayed another minute we would have been charged extra for night maneuvering.

Yokobike: I know, bury me at sea. It’s not a Harley. Actually Japan was the first country where I spotted Harleys.

Yokohama is on the outskirts of Tokyo, a city of 26.5 million inhabitants. According to my feeble atlas, it is the most populated city in the world. I think I mentioned that there is a total of 200 million in Japan on this series of lovely, mountainous islands, so the land for housing is limited. The third mate informed me today that the city of Yokohama is populated with 21 million, but I have my doubts. Holy shit Popeye, no wonder the kids are learning English so they can escape to the mighty United States.

Tokyo Bay is deep and the pilot rode on the ship for several hours before being replaced with another pilot specifically trained for harbor maneuvering. The captain pointed out that they stack up the ships and bring in 45 ships at one time for loading and unloading. They run them out of town in the same formation instead of a constant influx of new ships passing the serviced ones.

Yoko tug shot: Tug support while maneuvering a 600-foot vessel. The stevedores were waiting on the dock.

It turned out to be a reasonable port to navigate and the cabs were allowed to come directly to the ship. As usual the first day was spent trying to find our asses from a hole in the ground, getting a taxi to take us to a bank so we could grab a handful of yen. After bowing to the pleasant woman who assisted us through the process, we ran outside and paid the cabbie.

The dollar went for 127 yen and although restaurants were a tad on the expensive side, the other shopping and services seemed reasonable. As it turned out, our home base became the Grand Hotel right on the water only a mile from the ship. As usual, the hotel was of immense help even though we weren’t paying guests. We supported their coffers by eating at their restaurants twice. I was in Yokohama during the Vietnam War from time to time, but don’t remember a thing. I might have, if I’d stumbled into the whorehouse district. This city is modern and upscale, reminiscent of San Francisco with narrow streets winding into the cluttered hills.

Garden statue shot: A Buddhist shrine in the Sankeien Garden. Note that we were here as the plum and cherry trees began to blossom.

We took a short tour with a cab driver who barely spoke any English, but he delivered us to the cemetery where Americans from World War I were buried, to a home overlooking the harbor that was once lived in by the ambassador to the United States. It was an elegant clapboard Midwestern home. I would have liked to tour a traditional Japanese abode. We also roamed through a park that had been carved out of the city over 200 years ago.

Queens tall ship: This tall ship was on display next to the Maritime Museum, next to the Yokohama train station, across from a series of state-of-the-art high-rise shopping malls.

While the blonde of blondes got her nails done in a high-rise shopping center that was state of the art, I grabbed a massage. The next day we went to a silk museum and studied how silk garments are made. I was forced to sit at an old fabric machine and taught how to make the material at gun point. Then we stumbled into a small Angelo building that serves as the Peace Museum. It was a restored two-story brick structure on the waterfront that was established by a man who fought to keep the development of atom bombs out of Japan after the war. The display inside was devoted to Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish man who was in a concentration camp during WWII. He managed to get his wife out and she escaped to Romania. He survived the concentration camps, although two-thirds of all the European Jewish population was wiped out. When the war was over he didn’t know if his wife was still alive and she suspected that he was dead. After they were reunited they had a child, who grew up to discover that she had no uncles, aunts, grandparents or other relatives. They were all killed in the Holocaust.

After the war most Jews understandably moved away from Europe, many to Palestine and many to the United States, but Simon stayed to prosecute war criminals. After a decade he finally located Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann and brought him to trial. I can’t quote him exactly, but he said that he was terrified of the man who killed millions, like he was some superman, tough guy. As it turned out, he looked like a frightened bookkeeper when put on the stand. During his endeavors to find criminals he discovered that his best snitches were Nazis who turned on one another readily.

There was one more display in the Peace Museum that moved me. As a kid I was told and read the story of Anne Frank, the girl who hid in the walls of a home for years before the Nazis discovered her and put her family in concentration camps. It was unbelievable to see actual pictures of the pretty little Jewish girl and her family. There were also photos of the Nazi officer who arrested them. He became an important figure since the Nazis like to spread the rumor that Anne Frank’s story was a hoax. By putting the officer on trial it was confirmed that what she wrote in her diaries was the truth. Eichmann’s trial accomplished the same for all of those who doubted that millions were killed in concentrations camps.

I wonder how the Japanese people explain why they attacked virtually every country around them at one time or another. Fortunately, as history often proves, greed fails. If Hitler had left Russia alone, they may have been able to own Europe, but no, they wanted to take on the world. If Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor, they might have ultimately ruled all of the Orient. Life can be a strange place.

Yokotemple: The best Chinese shopping in the world is in Yokohama, Japan, in Chinatown. This was the temple that overlooked the crowded narrow streets.

You won’t believe some of what I’m going to tell you. Here we are in this beautiful coastal city, so where did we go? We stumbled into the Chinatown district for dumplings and again in search of a Hua Fu dress for Sin. Ah, but more recently another term has surfaced to describe this garment style that makes a woman look so good. In a book on Hong Kong we discovered the term Cheongsam dress. The jury is still out on that term. Unlike the last city in China, Chinatown in Yokohama was full of dress shops and I was able to score one that will hopefully pack many fantasy- filled nights.

The ship departed Yokohama, a city streaming with Mercedes, Porches and slick shopping areas at 6 p.m. sharp. We headed north out of the bay, around the corner and back into the Hitachi port at 6 the next morning. The same requirements followed us to the Hitachi port except that this is not a city harbor, but owned by the Hitachi Corporation so the stevedores were in no hurry at all.

Long before the war Hitachi was an agricultural and fishing business, but someone discovered copper and they jumped into the mining industry. Each move the business made disturbed the community and had to be adjusted for in the future. Mining ruined the fishing and farming and destroyed the air quality. Ultimately they adjusted and came back around to the beautiful seaside area that it is today. Hitachi was bombed flat during the war. The company expanded into electrical appliances because during the mining days they needed parts to fix their own generators. Electrical motor parts were manufactured in their shop, which became a separate business.

This brings up a couple more economic considerations to mull over. This ship is basically taking generator parts and turbines to the U.S. from the Orient plus a few bars of zinc. When it is finished unloading the parts for various power plants in the U.S., it will return to Europe empty.

During my stay on the ship I picked up a Time magazine that basically painted Japan as a starving country falling apart economically. It sure didn’t look it, but we may be facing a similar plight if we don’t watch it. If you take these ships as an economic monitor you can see what countries are building and where they’re shipping it. If your country isn’t building anything and selling it abroad, it aren’t doin’ business. Nothing is shipped from the U.S. to Europe or Asia, although I’m certain that’s a broad generalization. There are no American Flag cargo ships because it’s too expensive to build ships in the U.S. There are no American crews on these ships because labor is too expensive. As far as I know there aren’t American officers running these ships. What does that tell you? Hell we can’t even build the parts for our own power plants, we have to go outside the U.S. to get parts ’cause they’re too expensive if built at home. Is that good or bad?

If you were to fly into Hitachi you wouldn’t get the impression anywhere in the area that Japan is overcrowded. It’s like Santa Barbara a few years ago. It’s a sprawling coastline with nice homes tucked into the hills.

Hitside street shot: I don’t know why I took this shot. It’s not representative of the plain small city streets of Hitachi. I suppose it remind me of 20 years ago in Japanese towns of narrow streets.

This was one of the cleanest areas we encountered. The town of Hitachi was easy to get around, but perhaps the trip was getting to one passenger in particular. There are only four on board, three women and my ugly self. I’ve tried to watch out for them in each port, but one in particular didn’t impress me. She seemed selfish and less than honest. From time to time I avoided any involvement with her at all, just keeping my distance. I tested her once in a while to see if I was off base but she always failed any test to demonstrate consideration for the other passengers. But I continued to keep up my roll as the gracious protective man, until we had a run-in during the Hitachi visit.

Hit Tiny Temple: I was moved by this temple taking up an entire precious lot on the walking/shopping street of Hitachi. Perhaps it was a prayer temple for someone who passed on or just a spot in the center of a busy part of town to take a minute out and ponder life from a more spiritual angle.

When we arrived that morning, I met with the captain and got copies of the agent’s card for all the passengers. As usual, I always gave them the option to go their own way. Since I’m the only one with a costly Iridium phone, I called the agent and set up a meeting, met with him and had him write out in Japanese directions for the taxi drivers, directions back to the ship, directions to major hotels and banks. I made copies of these documents and passed them out and made the arrangements for a taxi to pick us up. In the past they enjoyed the fact that I picked up the tab on taxis all day long, kept a record of the charges and then had to work out the fee and try to get repaid. I was tired of this woman telling me she didn’t have the change.

Upon arrival at the hotel, I asked her and her partner to pick up the cab fare this time and she went off like a high school brat not getting her way. She went psycho. Damn, what a piece of shit. I was right from the start. Fortunately there are only a couple of weeks left before I can get the hell off this ship and back to the real world. For you who didn’t know, one of the major reasons for this voyage was companionship and security for my 79-year-old mother (the blonde of blondes), who is damn spry, especially since I’ve forced her into an upper body strengthening routine. Obviously, I was watching out for her constantly. I suspected this fat broad was not a good person, but was unaware of her mental instability. Of course, with a name like Robina, what can you expect? We went our separate ways.

Hit drinking fountain: I couldn’t resist this amusement part drinking fountain.

On the other hand, another female passenger receives breathy calls whenever we’re in port as if that indicates that the source is not a crewman. It happens at every port. So I shouldn’t complain about the homosexual advances I had to deal with from one of the officers when we first left Europe. Talk about adventure. I got a couple of calls in the middle of the night and told the sonuvabitch to approach me in the daylight. He never had the balls. What the fuck was he thinking? There are only 25 crewmembers. It’s not too difficult to pinpoint a problem within the five officers. I never heard another word.

The day we were scheduled to leave, the cargo superintendent was a nervous wreck. Another Rickmers ship was due to arrive and they wanted us out of the way. The Hitachi stevedores had another plan since the weekend was upon us. We only had five 200-ton items to load on board and the port demanded that we utilize their permanent 400-ton crane. The ship’s cranes were forced to stand idle. In addition, special I-beams had to be welded to the twin-decks for cargo lashing. During the last trip the welding was not monitored correctly and cargo caught fire.

Hit Temple: Strolling through a hillside park in Hitachi, we came across one of many temples.

The captain was called to duty to arrange for fire watches below the twin-deck to be welded. Asbestos tarps and wet tarps were used to protect the crates and plastic sheeting that some of the large industrial sized generators were covered in. The process was slow and lumbering and the harried schedule bounced from noon on Friday to almost 4 p.m. before we pulled out. Shortly before we departed I looked out the brass porthole to the bow of the ship below to discovered a stevedore pissing on the deck. I didn’t think that was cool.

Hitcrew shot: Here’s a handful of the hard-working crew struggling with the mammoth mooring lines as we pulled out to sea. A great group of guys who rarely get ashore.

As we dropped off the pilot after motoring out of the easily maneuverable port and passed the jetty, a heightened level of swell stormed the hull and the ship was tossed severely although we were loaded down. The captain indicated that the swells were normal for the northern Pacific in this region, but no preparations were made to sustain the damage from the rolling and shit flew everywhere, including the barbecue, benches and tables on the stern bridge deck. The chief mate’s offices were in shambles by the next morning.

My own cabin was prepped for swells. I had moored the computer Richard Kranzler loaned me for just such an occasion and it didn’t budge, but my stack of documents and research material from the various ports was scattered. No big deal.

Bibi shot: Here’s the sister ship to the Leon, the Bibi, also originally a Mexican cargo ship. It’s the only one that retains its original name — the name of the Mexican owner’s girlfriend.

An hour out we passed the sister ship to the Leon, the Bibi. It is identical and has endured much the same history. The Hitachi port wouldn’t work over the weekend so that meant more coin for the dock space and additional costs for running a ship for two days dead in the water. That’s one of the reasons they try to keep these ships moving and running in and out of ports during working days.

That’s it. It’s been rolling for a couple of days and in a couple of hours we will pass over the date line. It’s Wednesday and tomorrow will also be Wednesday and finally I will be back on track with the coast. This has been quite an adventure, but I miss you guys. I miss my small abode and my babe in San Pedro. I miss wrenching in the garage and building another scooter. I even miss the assholes who owe us money and are making life at the front difficult. I just can’t wait to fire up a scooter on Sunday and roll down to Walker’s Caf? for a beer.

Oh, on a positive note, last night I finished the first draft of the book I wrote based on this trip. Currently I have written over 103 articles and chapters. The book alone is 156,000 words or more, about 500 pages. OK, goddamnit, I’m tooting my horn, but fuck, I’m proud and excited to have written my best book yet. Hell, I’ve read five books during the trip and learned something from each one.

I’m hoping to say that there are only 15 days left. Rumor has it that we picked up some gear for a port in Mexico. The port of Altamira is on the east coast near the cities of Ciudad Madero and Tampico. Yesterday we received the agent’s number in Altamira, but to date it’s not confirmed that we will stop. The cargo is small and it may not be worth the time and expense. Altamira is only 400 miles from Houston and another rumor has it that there is some cargo aboard that has a strict deadline in Houston. One more hectic consideration is being mulled around in the captain’s psyche with his desire to return to Poland. Apparently the Bibi is picking up cargo in Hitachi and following us to Houston and home to Europe. He wants to get there first, get off the ship and go home. If he is not first, he may be loaded again and sent directly back to the Orient and perhaps destined to go home the opposite way west. That doesn’t suit him and I’m all for the most hasty approach to Houston and the airport. Let’s rock and roll. Next stop, Panama Canal.

Today we rumbled through the Panama Canal. Four locks and 52,000 gallons of fresh water slipped us from the west coast back to the east side. We are actually in the same time zone as the East Coast of the U.S. As we follow the coastline up to Alta Mira, Mexico, we’ll stumble back a time zone. Ah, but Mexico is sliding an hour closer to us with Daylight Savings Time, so no more clock changes.

Here’s the second set of locks (Pedro Miguel) on the west coast of the Panama Canal, built in 1913 by the same gentleman who engineered the Suez Canal, but he didn’t survive this project.

I’m only one port and six days from home, as kids still say today, “cool.” Let’s roll back to the time that the Leon tossed in the harbor before leaving the Hitachi port and the Captain joked about the ship being loaded and rolling in calm seas. Shortly thereafter, the pilot stepped off the side of the ship onto his high-powered pilot vessel and we pulled passed the jetty into the broad Pacific for our return voyage. I had experienced the mighty Atlantic and now the Pacific lay before us as the unflinching red carpet to our gold coast.

So much of my life has depended on that coast, and still does. It represents all the pleasures a kid has at the beach and the evil powers of nature with winter storms. It characterizes the nature of real estate values and where I can or cannot live. It’s had romantic influences as I brought girls to seaside villages. Now it represents the home of two book projects. This crossing was also a test to compare the various oceans as we returned through the Panama Canal into the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

The vast wake of the Leon leaves a path of churned water in its wake for miles as it slipped deeper into the Pacific.

The Captain showed me the various routes ships take across the Pacific and pointed out that the shortest route across the Earth at this point was way north into the winter zone from Japan to the Panama Canal for 7,680 miles by grid circle. He showed me on a map that indicated the percentage of bad weather, wind direction, and strength. This route was requested by the home office, but it was his final decision and he chose a route that took us less into harms way of the notoriously rough road through the winter zone and closer to the Hawaiian course of 8,200 miles through the summer zone of less winds and a milder sea. As we pulled out of the harbor, we tasted the strength of the Pacific off the coast of Japan, one of the most susceptible areas to typhoons year round. It was a nasty indication of the 17-day crossing at 16.5 knots as the ship, weighing almost 30,000 tons, began to carve its way– straining, flexing, and vibrating into the Pacific. It was one of the roughest areas we had encountered, and it tossed furniture and equipment asunder.

At one point I asked the Captain if he found the Pacific rougher than the Atlantic and he looked at me like a father looks at a child who asks an exceedingly ignorant question, but he explained. He pulled a number of chart packs from a broad wooden drawer that covered different sections of the globe. Each chart covered a specific month. He pointed out the climate, wind, and current changes for each month of the year. The ever changing condition of all seas, quays, oceans, and Bahias has little to do with the sea itself but with the climate that stirs the oceans from an untouched bowl of Jell-O to a turbulent, all-powerful frothy mass of boiling gales and typhoons.

So we were faced with purportedly 17 days of strong seas that turned into 19 days predominately on the edge of the northern Pacific winter zone. Throughout this report, since there are no blessed ports to escape the swells from, I will touch on various aspects of the voyage and the ship that will warn and inform possible ship travelers of the pitfalls of cargo ship vacations. For example, you can’t be a light sleeper and attempt to snooze on a vibrating mix-master. The constant trembling backs out screws from the paneling and throws them to the deck. It causes wall panels to shake madly in the night and the television that never worked to rattle and strain against its bindings until it breaks free and nearly collides with the deck. You must be constantly aware of your surroundings. By 2000 on the 15th, the rising swells were strong enough to turn over everything in my cabin and roll me out of the sack.

About the time we pulled away from Hitachi, I got an e-mail from Bob Bitchin, the publisher of the sailing magazine Latitudes and Attitudes. He was pulling out of Redondo Beach on his 65-foot ketch headed toward Hawaii. I informed the Captain that we must pour the coals to the old gal and get ‘er up to ramming speed. For the next few days, we tried to make contact to see if we would cross paths.

The following are excerpts from my daily notes on the crossing:
3/20: We are into our second Wednesday on the dateline and back on the same day with the coast. Suddenly, the time on the coast was ahead of the ship’s clock. We’ve been at sea for five days and not even close to passing the Hawaiian Islands 500 miles south of us.

An exterior bridge deck compass and another Pacific sunset.

I’m reading a book by Sir Francis Chichester about his single-handed sail around the world in the ’60s. Unbelievable, yet I experience some of the feelings he had. Although he spent some 100 days by himself on a 54-foot yacht just to get from Plymouth, England, to Sydney, Australia. It’s been mildly rough since we left Japan and today it’s raining. I wish we could get past the Hawaiian Islands to 160 degrees latitude and turn this 600-foot monster south, hopefully into a warmer sun-filled climate. I must admit that my contact with home via the Iridium phone has helped a great deal. I can send chapters of my books, articles to magazines, and e-mails to anyone on earth. Since I got all the antenna problems worked out, I’m rarely cut off and e-mails are launched quickly. I spent a lot of money on disconnected calls learning the ropes though.

The only trouble I have now is with water creeping in the porthole where the antenna line runs. I can’t properly run the cable since it’s not a permanent fixture on the boat. I have to watch if sea spray or rain squalls build too much water up in the gully below the window, and I must get to it quick and clean it out with fresh towels.

Chichester speaks a lot of loneliness and depression. I’ve experienced some of the same, although much of the loneliness is only for home and my girl. I have felt deep depression for my fifth wife, Rebecca, and much reflection on my outlaw past. Although, I have never been a violent man, except on rare occasions, I have been a constant outlaw most of my life and most of my undoing has been with women. I love the romantic side yet hated to lose my freedom, and usually fought to restore it ultimately to the chagrin of my last romance. I tried to rationalize that women wanted to control me, so I moved on, trying to find one who would understand a man’s needs and not try to pen him in. In a sense, that concept may be correct, but breaking hearts is unforgivable.

I can only hope that since I just turned 54 that my wayward days are behind me and that I will never break a heart again. The woman who is at the helm of Bikernet has shown me understanding, has stood beside me, knows what sexual buttons to push to keep me dancing on air, and has more tattoos than I have. She can’t be all that bad.

I learned a little Filipino language today. I’ve been working with the main steward and the second and third officers who are Filipino. I started with simple lines like good morning, “Magandang Umaga” and how are you, “Kumusta.” I’m trying them out on the crew, to helpful, jovial response.

3/22: Trying to reach the Lost Soul, Bob’s sailboat. He pulled out of Los Angeles on the 16th, ran into a gale, and was forced south into Mexico where he hid behind a rock until the seas calmed. We tried to establish frequencies that we could talk on but couldn’t hook up. Still trying to get a bearing on him. We figured that on the 24th or 25th, we would be crossing wakes. This is a note I e-mailed to his girl at the office:

Charky: “If you have contact with Bob, tell him I should be home before the 10th. Ask him for his heading, position, and speed. We will cross paths somewhere out there. We are currently about 166 by 33 degrees, heading 090 bearing and doing around 17 Knots. When we reach 160 latitude, we will veer Southeast slightly as we near the coast. We will come within 480 miles of Los Angeles as we turn south, but we’ll pass within 60 miles of Cabo San Lucas. Ask him what radio channel to call on. Thanks.”

Layla, at the office, has brothers who work in the harbor. She’s inquiring as to tugs that could hook up with the ship off the coast of Los Angeles and kidnap me. Unfortunately, 480 miles is too far for a tug. Cabo is a possibility if we can make contact.

We’re in the midst of our longest run without a port. Seventeen days to Panama (before we were aware that the 17 would become 19), so there won’t be any reports from harbors.

I want to touch on a couple of items about the ship. My mother hasn’t had hot water on a regular basis since we arrived and for the last two days no hot water at all. Since I forbid her to even wash her hands in my cabin, she has nearly frozen trying to maintain her beauty while dancing in the freezing shower stall in rough seas. Actually, I worked with the Chief Engineer, the Captain, and ultimately a crewman to resolve her shower dilemma.

I still piss and moan because there is no overall thermostat except in the engine room, which is always warm. The only control I have over heat or cool is to take the vent cover off with my small tool set. I remove its 1″ inch stanchions and bolt it directly to the vent to cut off any air-conditioning circulating in my day room when it’s already in the low 60s. The bedroom suffers a similar malady but the air never blows hard out of that vent.

Both mom and I have had eye problems the last couple of days. I’m not sure if it’s the rust in the air or what. Oh, I should mention that these vents have adjusters on them, but neither of them work. That’s the case on a regular basis around the ship. One of the women went on a sister Rickmers ship, the Tainjin, in China and pointed out that their accommodations were much nicer, but a report on the Tainjin cook didn’t fare as well. And a week later the Captain received a telex demanding our weekly menu. Our chef is Filipino and his menu is generally Oriental in nature.

Here’s the information center for this trip, or my floating desk with surge protector, computer, in-house phone, radio, tape/CD player, and speaker in my face, which I disconnected.

One passenger felt that Rickmers should make financial adjustments to the price for various ships if the accommodations vary substantially. Seemed reasonable. We all have televisions that don’t work and VCRs, but no movies to watch. Radios don’t work, but I don’t care. We got some movies in Egypt that were held up by customs, but once they arrived I discovered that they had copped most of the pornos, and the rest were Blockbuster throwaways.

Between the book by Chichester and the Captain, I discovered while trying to understand the rudiments of sextant use, that our Captain and crew use the GPS system in conjunction with the sightings. That does not make a lick of sense to me. You would only use a sextant if your GPS and radar were down. What the hell?

Here’s the third officer Jesse taking a sightings. It’s imperative that the sun is in full view and that the watery horizon is also clear or daytime sightings are difficult.

Basically, you must know the position of the sun on that date and time. You get a measurement from the sun’s position against the horizon through the sextant mirrors, then through calculations get a line of position of the ship. If you take several sightings and with speed, time, and direction calculations, these lines will cross, leaving you with a round notion of your position–terrifying.

3/23: I’ve got pink eye that has come at me twice and is now in both eyes. I awoke in the morning blind with a sticky mud in my eyes. Eye drops helped. Can’t decide if it’s due to eyestrain or the air in my cabin.

Regarding the sextant, many just used it to find latitudes. Stars are also good for night sightings, especially planets, but you must be able to see the horizon. You must also have your speed and the position of the star. The Captain mentioned that some sextants have fake horizons, or under bad conditions some navigators use a bucket of oil on the deck as the horizon. If using the stars, you must plan and know their location in the sky from astrological charts. Then you can have the sextant set when you go on deck so you catch the correct star or planet. If you site five or six and make a mistake on one or two, you still have four showing you accurate positions.

Now, I need to see this happening, if he has the time. I’ve also got the go ahead to hang in the engine room during port maneuvering at some point. I would like to see the effort and manipulation that occurs deep in the rumbling power plant room.

This depicts just a portion of the 15,000 horsepower supercharged diesel.

It’s Saturday as we begin the Easter holiday and we have a party planned today to celebrate. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. I’m getting anxious to return to the States. We may have an alarm today. We usually do on Saturdays. The stop in Mexico has not been confirmed, although the first mate says it’s so. Rumor has it that we have a few crates bound for Alta Mira, Mexico, but there is pressure to get to Houston quick for a deadline. I’ve got a deadline for these mutherfuckers.

Here’s a member of the Filipino crew working with the Romanian sandblaster, who is taking the ship apart with a material that looks like small particles of coal. It’s light and cheap as sand blasting material. The crew is a good, solid, fun-loving team of men that works hard on a very rundown ship. If we had twice the men and equipment, the ship would be in good shape in a couple of months.

3/23: Tomorrow is the distinctive four-month anniversary or about 120 days, which means we have 12-15 days left. Suddenly everything is slowing down. I’m a nail-biting short-timer. For a while, days whizzed past; now they’re slowing, although I still have goals to reach before the end. The report from the Captain at this point is that he will head for Alta Mira, Mexico, the minute we reach the Caribbean from the Panama Canal, if he doesn’t hear differently from Rickmers or Technomar, the partnership owners.

Sir Francis, single-handed over 29,630 miles in 226 days, and he wrote 200,000 words with an average speed of 130 miles a day. It is 26,670 miles around the Earth at the equator or 21,598 sea miles. Word has it that we will cover about 30,000 total miles. Since this is a roller from day to day and still on the cool side as we scoot along the edge of the winter zone, I will describe my daily routine and my cabin. I work out every other day: 150 abs, 60 lower back, two muscle groups with sprung weights and lots of reps, Tae Kwon Do katas (4), bamboo stick moves from Sifu (my Master) (8) then cardio with stairs for 20 minutes. If it’s hot, I move the stair routine outside.

This is my temporary gym equipment for the cruise. I use the spring set for my weight training. Lots of reps and the springs are quickly wearing out after constant use. I have a mat behind the chair for doing sit-ups, stretching, and lower back. I slide the coffee table out of the way for Martial Arts training. The wood sticking out behind the chair is used to shore up the door from slamming into my face while pulling on the straps.

There are three meals a day. The menu is on the greasy, heavy, fat side of living or dying, depending on how important diet is to you. Eggs and sausage or fried steak daily would kill me quick, so I switched to cereals, fresh fruit, and yogurt. Lunch is the big meal daily and dinner is usually just as heavy but not as formal. Sometimes there will be fried chicken, French fries and pizza all at the table at the same time. That occurs about three days a week. We always have salad of lettuce or cabbage, tomatoes, and cucumber unless provisions run low.

It’s funny and disconcerting as we watch the supplies dwindle and tomatoes disappear, then cucumber, and finally lettuce is replaced with cabbage and carrots. Lastly, the carrots are gone.

I’ve tried to drop the carbs as much as possible. I noticed that when I’m fighting the cold, I eat more carbs instinctively. Often, to avoid mashed potatoes or French fries, I grab some meat, chop it up, and make a chicken or steak salad.

Between meals I head up to the bridge and check in, then return back to my cabin to delve into book chapters or writing assignments. When I can’t focus anymore, I read. The writing has kept me driven.

This was my living room for four and a half months. The desk is to the right, not shown. The plant, which I bought in Genoa, Italy, is Velcroed to the coffee table. I picked up the calendar of ’30s cruise liner posters in Hamburg for some color.

On this crossing I set a couple more goals. I wanted to spend sometime in the engine room and crawl into a hold where the cargo is lashed down to get a sense of how it feels down in the very depths of the ship while we’re moving along. I also wanted to learn the basics of how a sextant works. Believe it or not, between two articles a week for Bikernet, two articles an issue for Horse, an article for American Rider, a piece for Cruising Writer, and two books, I’m a busy mofo. Add to that 40 e-mails every other day, and trying to put some thought into Nuttboy’s project bike and raise the coin to get it off the dime–I’m busy.

This is the small entry into my living space. The indoor/outdoor carpeting is covered in plastic so I can enter and remove my shoes. The grime on the exterior decks is notorious. The restroom is directly across the way.

The restroom has been a freezing experience and a constantly noisy reminder of ship travel. It has a sucking vent inside that roars constantly. Even with the door shut, you can hear it. There is a small heater in the head mounted to the bulkhead next to the vent. It can only heat the interior of the vent housing, because the vent immediately sucks its warmth through the ceiling and away. With lukewarm water in the freezing bath, winter showers were uncomfortable to say the least.

As you have read, I’m not sitting on my ass twiddling my thumbs daily. The rough draft of one book is finished, with 156,000 words and I’m 27 chapters into my first Chance Hogan series book, although I’m stumbling a bit with it.

3/26: I’m trying to scoot through this month as quickly as possible. I have this sensation that once I hit the first of April, the trip will be downhill from that day forward. We’ll see.

Vibration is a constant issue on the ship. I spent some time in the engine room and it didn’t seem to be too bad. But on E-deck, it’s excessive. All open doors must have paper pads behind them to keep the stops from boring holes in the walls. I have old rags under the television to keep it quiet and from coming apart at the seams. The noise can be as distracting as a screaming child.

Here’s the chief engineer in the foreground and the electrician officer in the back. They are sitting in the counsel of the ship in the engine room. This is where the heart of the ship is monitored and the generators are watched through a myriad gauges.

3/27: The Captain and I crawled into two of the holds to the bottom of the ship. When we opened the small 2-by-2-foot hatch, the roar of the exhaust vent was deafening, like pressurized steam bursting from the bowels of the Earth. The wind jetting up through the narrow hatch made it difficult to look into the hold without catching crap in your eyes. We crawled down long, narrow ladders.

It was reasonably quiet in the holds aside from the squeaking cargo and the myriad lashing chains gripping the cargo to the decks, like spider webs on old furniture. There are lights along the surrounding bulkheads, which are primarily blocked by the crates on perimeters of the holds. We were in a hold full of power plant generator housings that formed long, steel caves. It was dark, but with a flashlight we could see the lashings to duck and step over.

At one point, we came to the hull of the ship and I held my hand against it. I could feel the rush of the sea passing. The temperature of the hold was generally a balance of the temperature of the sea and the sky above it. We crept down another ladder until we were standing on the bottom layer of the hold. Beneath us were ballast and fuel tanks.

The Captain told me a stowaway story of a Nigerian driver of a General who was escaping political upheaval. They were 10 days off the coast of Africa when a crew member told the chief officer of a noise in a hold that sounded like someone calling for help. It was disregarded as a rat. The crewman persisted and twice more it was ignored until the Captain found out and sent a group to investigate. The man had stowed some food and was all right, but they gave him a cabin.

When they arrived in Las Palmas, the authorities made arrangements to have the man flown back to Nigeria where he would have been immediately killed. The Captain refused and kept the man aboard until they reached the next port in Antwerp, Belgium, where he argued with the authorities until he was guaranteed that the man would receive asylum. “I will not sign a man’s death warrant,” the Captain said.

Another friendly crewman. Keep in mind that currently there are only 25 men running this ship. It is grossly understaffed, but they smile behind union contracts and work tirelessly.

That afternoon was particularly clear and we were beginning to turn south into a warmer climate. I went to the bridge with my camera. I suspected an amazing sunset. The Captain watched its glory enlighten all of mankind and the magnificent beauty of nature once more and I took some shots. As I turned away I looked at the Captain as his eyes brightened and he said, “Green, green, green.”

I’m slow, but finally understood what he said and spun to see a green flash. The green flash is a rare momentary flash of sunlight, a blue/green ray occasionally witnessed as the last bit of the solar disk sinks below the far horizon in a very clear atmosphere. Or it may appear as the first portion of the disk rises in the east. It is not a common phenomenon, since atmospheric conditions must be favorable, and the sun must not be too red. Besides, the observer must be watching carefully, as the duration is only one or two seconds.

The Rickmers flag on the stack on the day of the sunset where I saw the green flash. The sky must be completely clear to be able to encounter this phenomenon. I have run to the bridge with my camera several times since, trying to capture another one.

The colored ray is caused by atmospheric refraction. As the last of the sun sinks over the horizon, the red components of the white light disappear first, the other colors following in order, with the blue the last. Moreover, the effect is noticed only when but a minute part of the disk is in sight, since otherwise there is as blending of colors. For me, this was perhaps a once in a lifetime illusion.

The Captain and the third mate, Jesse, have been using the sextant for positions and they were coming very close to the GPS position. He explained that the GPS sees the world as elliptic and the sextant sees it as round. He says that you will never get the same position unless by mistake. He also explained that there are still remote islands that were charted using sextants before the GPS system was designed. That’s why navigational safeguards are still necessary, because you can’t rely solely on charts.

3/29: We discovered that according to the date projected to reach the Panama Canal, the crossing will take 19 days. At first I was concerned that it might be 21 days. I rushed to the bridge deck again at sunset to capture another green flash, but no such luck. Then the Captain started talking about the stars.

I don’t know shit, but he showed me where Venus and Jupiter is with Saturn in between. Then he pointed out the brightest star in the sky, which is 10 light years away compared to most that are as far away as 1,200 light years. As the sun disappeared over the horizon, the sky came alive with stars. He gave me a computer program for viewing galaxies, which I needed like a whole in the head. It’s odd to be on this venture and actually feel that every moment of each day is filled with projects. Add on more and I’m toast.

Two more days left in the month of March. That’s key to me, ’cause I should be in Houston before we reach 10 days into April. I think I can handle that.

Had a brief conversation with the Captain tonight under a crystal clear moon in the warm evening. It was so light as the moon slipped into the sky that the silky Pacific looked like dark chrome. He said that as a child, he found a small book in the library about the constellations so he went home and started to study them. He made his first telescope at 13 years of age with help form a local lens manufacturer. As he told me that, I thought about what I was doing about that time. I think I was customizing stolen bicycles and falling in love for the first time.

3/30: We had a barbeque to celebrate the Easter holiday. We’re out of cigarettes and whiskey except for the bottle he breaks out for barbeques. While having a drink with the crew, the Captain pointed out that Panama pilots beat Houston pilots all to hell. “Houston is run by cowboys. Panama has pilots who are all linked via laptops and know where each ship is. Very professional.”

As it turns out, we discovered disconcerting news that instead of passing through the canal on the 3rd, it will be the 4th, then four days to Alta Mira and less than a day there, then 24 hours to the Houston pilot station and six hours to port.

4/1: April Fool’s: Woke up to one of the panels in my cabin rattling like crazy. Antonio didn’t have the slightest idea how to fix it without removing the panes. Vibration is the nemesis of this ship, coupled with corrosion. I fixed it with a 4/4 shored against the bed and a pallet plank.

Vibration is a constant problem on the ship and must reek havoc time and again with equipment. Here’s my fix for a vibrating panel that was preventing sleep.

Two more days to Panama, then delayed a day before the crossing. At 2300, I watched the moon come up like a sunrise glowing crimson on the water. While it rose and blew out the star-studded night, like blowing out the candles of a cake, one of the crewmen told me about the strange legends from the Philippines.

He told me of a boy who walked in the woods and stepped on something strange in the night. His leg swelled terribly and he went to a doctor who told him that he stepped on a forest dwarf. With just the right potion and blessing, he was healed. It was an eerie night.

We are now off the coast of Costa Rica. By tomorrow we will be on the edge of the Panamanian border. We are now on EST and will come back one time zone once we pass through the canal. It’s warm and I finally got some sun today. Damn, I’ve discovered that I like the heat much better than the cold. When I’m uncomfortably cold, I don’t function well. I spend my time trying to keep warm.

The vast Panama Canal Bahia showing countless ships waiting their turns in the locks.

4/3: We arrived in the Panama Canal Bay six miles from the Mira Flores gates at 0500. There’s a mist on the water and reports from the bridge that Rickmers was unsuccessful at gaining the ship passage through the canal today. Later the Captain spoke to the agent, who was still trying. If not, we enter that canal at 0700 tomorrow. I sure would like to slip through today.

I’m now reading an incredible book about and by Beryl Markham, “West with the Night,” about a woman who grew up on a farm in Africa. Her father cut the farm out of jungle and ultimately had a grist mill and lumber yard. She was a young child until WWI, when she hunted with members of African tribes with a spear, facing death often, strolling past angry lions, and fighting warthogs. One of the natives Arab Maina said to her once, “Courage lives in a man’s stomach, but there are times when it is not at home and then the stomach is sour.” Her dog Buller fought leopards and warthogs almost to his death many times. Each chapter is an eye-opener. I have read almost 10 books during the voyage and each one was inspiring in one form or another to a struggling writer. For guys, if you want to read something that will pull you from macho page to macho page, based during WWII, get “Corps” by W.E.B. Griffin. What a blast to read.

We had a drill in the afternoon and lowered the motorized life boat to the water. I jumped in. It was designed to be a man overboard drill, but by the time we had the boat in the water and under power, the man in the water would have been shark bait. Besides, in the Bahia swells, I don’t believe we had the power to overcome the current. It was an adventure as we bobbed in the wave beneath the ship.

While anchored in Bahia de Panama, I went down to the stern where some of the guys were fishing with lines and little fishing tackle. It was a scene out of a Mark Twain novel. Sergio, who grew up in the Philippines but is part Chinese and is studying to become an officer, wrapped his line around a plastic container like a gallon jug. He could actually cast using the bottle and the line spun off it effortlessly as if he was handling a high-dollar reel and rod set. Didn’t see ’em catch anything.

Here’s a shot of the locks as we headed back out the east coast into the Caribbean.

That brings us back to the Panama Canal Passage. But before I go there, I want to mention that I finished the first draft of the book I wrote for the Chance Hogan series based on the trip. After performing page counts on some of the books I read during the voyage, this book will be between 475 and 520 pages. I’m mighty proud of it from several perspectives.

OK, so the Panamanian government now runs the canal and I was fortunate enough to have several conversations with one of the pilots. They guide 40 ships through every 24 hours. The locks are open round the clock, but the pilot explained that business has been down for the last 1.5 years due to what he perceives to be a slump in world economy. He mentioned that each ship displaces 52,000 gallons of fresh water that runs into either the Pacific or the Atlantic. Due to the rainfall in this region, that fresh water loss is not a significant. And if the canal didn’t exist, the water would run into the ocean anyway. They only have water shortages during the El Nino spells every nine years. During that time, they are occasionally forced to tap their spare reservoir designed specifically for this purpose. Lake Gatun was once a small river, but formed a lake with a dam to supply the canal. The canal is 28 miles from lock to lock. The lake is 21 miles long with 7 miles of narrows.

Of course I had to ask him about the prospects for another canal in a separate country and his response was irrevocably, “Impossible.” As he explained the notion that is a political hot potato in several countries like Mexico, Honduras, and Colombia at one election after another, finances and environmental concerns are most likely prohibitive. As an example, he mentioned that on occasion the Panamanian government researches new reservoir locations without much success because of the environmental uproar it causes. In addition he told me, “We expanded seven miles of the narrows just 150 feet a few years ago. It took us over 1 billion dollars and years to accomplish it. Can you imagine what it would cost to build a new canal with lock and such?”

This pilot was very protective of his canal and pointed out that there are discussions to add wider locks in the future. When I point out that business is down, he immediately corrected me by saying, “It will take at least 15 years to build more locks.” By then the demand would surely be increased. I plan to find out how much it would cost for the Leon to take the E-ticket ride through the magnificent gravity-operated locks into the beautiful island-filled lake for 28 miles from one ocean to the next, preventing over 11,000 miles and a month of additional passage to reach their destination.

From the way this young, sharp, athletically dressed gentleman described it, there are few places in the world where a canal could be built that could economically function in this capacity. The position in the seas, the narrow land mass, the amount of natural rainfall, and the natural lake make up all the natural ingredients for such a vast endeavor. This is the next to the last report. The last one will contain a brief report on Mexico, which we will reach in two days, and thoughts on what I have learned from this experience. We’ll see what happens next.

-KRB

Did we experience pristine beaches against mild turquoise waters splashing against buxom babes in slim bikinis? Hell no. We motored directly out of the rough swell in the Gulf of Mexico and into the Puerto Del Altamira, so straight we could have been a WWII landing craft storming a Jap-held beachhead.

We arrived early by three hours, only to find out that we would be pulling out in four hours and the town of Tampico was an hour away, “if” we could find a taxi. I was so disillusioned that I had to find a drink to soothe my anxious aching-to-be-home heart. In fact, I was a tad relieved and encouraged that we would be on the move soon. I craved a return to the coast and home like a young sailor in love, after his first stint at sea. Besides I couldn’t find a bar in the harbor.

I paced the bridge as we meandered on calm, nearly clear, turquoise waters into the recently built port. It wasn’t a large, sprawling industrial port, but it already had the feel of pure concrete-based industry, stacked with containers, mounds of coal, and rusting abandoned hulls surrounded by beds of lowland salt reservoirs. The dead reckoning into the port was nearly due West. I liked the sound of that word, West, which means so much to a So Cal biker. I couldn’t wait to find out when we were departing as the ship faced a due south turn into the sole channel, was spun by the blistering tugs, and shoved against the dock.

I itched as the officials came on board, but there was no sign of anxious stevedores storming the decks to unload the five chunks of power plant generators. Our crew moseyed around the corroded decks preparing the cranes at a leisurely pace. There was talk of the lottery pool for arrival in Houston and it was as if the crew had created an alliance to support a late arrival, first-line-on-the-dock time. The sun felt good and the nature of the land and the people was laid back–brown skin in a heated desert environment, but I was anxious to roll.

Slowly, as the cracked asphalt streets exuded the southern warmth, longshoremen arrived in no haste, wearing nothing in particular, no uniforms or overalls, just denims, Western shirts, and T-shirts. They all wore Levis of one sort or another. An ambulance pulled onto the dock and a one-man EMT crew set up a stretcher off the back of his white and pumpkin-orange vehicle and waited for someone to be maimed by a crane or whipped by strained lashings. As the afternoon sun faded, two forklifts rumbled onto the dock as generators the size of small apartments were lifted out of hold number five. They were lowered to the dock where waiting lifts moved each element deeper into the port.

The pilot finally strolled on board at 2000 hours (8:00 p.m.) and pulled out of Altamira. Originally, the captain said that it would take 24 hours to reach the Houston pilot station, which is actually in Galveston. The trip up the river gobbles an additional six hours. Later he vacillated on the time to Houston by four hours and leaned closer to 28 hours. Either way, that put us alongside building 16/17 Turn Around Dock, at around 0800 on Wednesday morning.

I wish I could have kicked that bastard up to 30 knots, steamed into Houston in 14 hours, caught a plane, and been in bed with my babe and an icy glass of Jack on the rocks before the sun set on Tuesday. A man can hope. Okay, snivelin’ won’t do me a damn bit of good, so I will humbly bow my head, do my duty, and write the fuckin’ report.

The port of Altamira was not as poorly maintained as some, and not as organized or pristine as Korea or Japan. I’ve pounded this drum until I’m Pacific blue in the face, but here is yet another grand seaside that looks like a 50-year-old industrial complex on the edge of nowhere. I hope, fuck, I pray, that the public wakes up someday and forces ports to share the area with the workers and retail for a rounded environment that would benefit everyone.

As this trip around the world draws to a close, I’ll harp on one more item that has surfaced like a bad apple on so many occasions that it has become predictable and an almost daily expectation. At times it’s as if business is not a people function. Like my boss, Joe Teresi, told me from behind his small but ornately carved Italian desk several times at Easyriders when I brought up the feelings of the employees, “They’re employees and they get a regular paycheck. I have no other responsibility to them.”

I disagreed then, because we were working in an entertainment industry. To him, filling pages was no more than stamping out hubcaps. The bottom line is that all business is for people.

The shipping industry is losing people left and right. There’s got to be at least a quarter of this crew who is looking for a way out. Like the factory assembly line, and CNC machines that eliminate people from the job equation for higher profits, the shipping industry is forcing people out by reducing the number of crew on ships. The limited crew is forced to stay aboard ship, because there are no watch changes, no back-up. They can’t leave the ship in ports, can’t see their families, satellite phone calls are cost prohibiting, and they don’t make enough to enjoy most ports. It’s tough.

Even the captain performs the tasks of three or four people and rarely leaves the ship. He’s the radio man, the navigator, the accountant, the negotiator, the ambassador, and the captain. On top of that, if anything goes wrong on the ship, he’s responsible. He has no XO, like naval vessels have.

So why enlist to be a merchant marine? Where’s the excitement of being a wandering seaman?

A couple of days ago, the blonde of blondes said to me something about how much she had gained from the voyage on the rusting Leon and it got me thinking about what I had learned. The more I contemplated, the longer the list became. I experienced writing lessons from Michael Crighton, WEB Griffin, Beryl Markum, Francis Chichester, and the list rolled on. I experienced the shipping industry firsthand and economics globally. I learned of my mother’s travels and worldwide reflections. I learned a taste of navigation and weather patterns the world over. I bit into my own sordid past and faced some of my own personal demons. I wrote like a man addicted to salt spray.

As we entered Galveston Bay at 2 a.m. and I stood on the bridge at the final port of entry, I pondered the future as if I had graduated from a lengthy educational process or divorced another wife.

I was nervous about the future. I wanted the world to be simpler, more romantic. I have tremendous tasks ahead. Yet maybe it will all come together. Who knows? The conflicting question always in my mind is whether to kick ass or be political and understanding. As the Romanian said, “To be a business owner you must grow in that culture.” I guess that it’s a matter of knowing when to be dog-eat-dog and when to be romantic, considerate, and understanding.

Has the world changed–will it ever change? Behind 9/11 and people I know who are members of warring motorcycle clubs, will man ever go beyond his fierce, combative instincts to appreciate and care for the world, or continue to make every effort to kill all that stands in his way?

As we pulled into the river leading inland to Houston and passed the Battleship memorial, I remembered reading about all the countries that Japan attacked and wondered what the hell they were thinking and who allowed them to make such foolish decisions. Yet it was a blessing in disguise that they attacked Pearl Harbor in their unrelenting desire to control the Earth. It was the first card they drew in their final hand. It was an ace of hearts for all of the Asian community, and Japan lost big time only to be forced back to their battered shores to begin life again.

Hitler played similar cards in the same game on the other side of the table. If ego, history, and hate hadn’t pushed him beyond his means to play one more round, Germany could have taken all of Europe and grown to be a powerful nation. Instead, he borrowed on an empty bank and played another round, taking on England, Russia, and finally the mighty U.S. He lost big time.

It was almost 8:35 a.m. when the first nylon line, almost 5 inches in diameter, was thrown ashore in Houston and various agencies clamored aboard. We were docked in exactly the same location as we departed from 139 days prior.

There were guys from immigration, customs, and port agents storming up the wavering gangplank. I felt at home immediately. The customs guys were three black men who were jovial, helpful, and outgoing. I sensed how the U.S. differed from the rest of the world. They performed the same job functions as men in every port, yet with a friendly air that indicated confidence and support. Then Immigration arrived and they were highly curious of our journey because very few ships arrive with passengers in their port, almost none. Again they were friendly, “cowboys” as the Captain described them.

We said our good-byes and left the ship with a taxi contact through Coco, a woman who has worked with the editor of Tattoo magazine, Billy Tinney, for 20 years. A taxi waited on the dock. The chef, and our steward Antonio, helped us with bursting bags off the narrow, always greasy gangplank. Natch, the cab driver was not an American, but a Jamaican who spoke broken English, yet knew his way around, sorta.

We left the ship, jamming to get home, like a couple of inmates finally freed from a war camp, or a couple of crew members from a naval ship after a lengthy service in the gulf war. We slid down the gangplank without looking back and jumped into the waiting van/taxi. I often regret the good-byes. This was a good crew of people, and I dislike good-byes, and more so after the fact. There’s always something more I would like to add, some experience I would like to share or reflect on to make someone know that my thoughts were of them.

So to the crew and the officers of the Leon, I would like to give my very best for an experience few will enjoy, on a ship that’s not long for the seas. They were men simply doing their jobs, yet they afforded us the experience of a lifetime, insight into their industry, time to write my best works, and their knowledge to share. I will never forget that time, except to remember it as 139 of the most special days of my life.

I’m still sitting on the rusting bucket of moneymaking (I think, not sure) bolts in 4 degrees celsius in Antwerp, Belgium. Did I have any notion that I would ever be on a world run in Belgium? Fuck no, but I’m here and enjoying it. Sorta. As usual there are crimes and mayhem involved in every sordid tale I weave. This one started calm enough like Christmas, then all hell broke loose.

First, some background. Belgium kicked off its history in the 13th century with cargo ships rolling across the English Channel to England. It rapidly became the heart of cargo shipping between Europe and England and vice versa. Between Brugge, Gent and Antwerp, all cities on the coast of Belgium, they had it made. But, between religious wars, the French Revolution and any other numerous catastrophes, they survived to have one helluva friendly country. If you open a map on any cobblestone street corner, a resident will step up and offer guidance.

The basis of the name of this city is wrapped around a biker of sorts. Seems there was a giant who stopped every ship that entered Antwerp along the Schelde River and demanded a toll before they could enter the port. If he wasn’t paid post haste, he hacked off one of the captain’s hands and threw it out to sea. OK, so one day this little Belgian tyke named Barbo comes along, lops off the giant’s hand and throws it to sea, putting an end to his carnage. Hence, Antwerp was named after hand throwing, which is called handwerpen.

So we arrived through another river leading in from the North Sea in blistering cold weather. Every day we have a cab take us to the train station where the Russian mafia runs diamond and jewelry shops behind a roll-up tin front. Antwerp is known for its diamond trade, with stones shipped in from South Africa. The section of town dedicated to the diamond trade is in no way connected with the mob’s hangout next to the train depot.

There are also a couple of other distinctions that need mentioning. One is the cathedrals, which are unbelievable. The ornate workmanship in churches dating back to the 1300s is beyond belief. I spent some time in a humble church as a kid before I joined the union of outlaws and never returned. But you can see why people escaped England and Europe to find religious freedom and deeper understanding. Religions controlled all that went on, all the jewels and wealth, and wielded tremendous power over the population. You can see it in every gold ornament in these churches. It’s almost frightening. The other aspect of Antwerp that’s wild is the shopping. This is a town full of narrow, winding streets with buildings that were built yesterday or nearly 1,000 years ago, side by side.

This is a woman’s paradise. There are shops everywhere, high-class joints, flea markets in parks, fish markets alongside the river, department stores, franchise Levi’s joints, and fashion, fashion and more fashion. There’s even a bird market on Theater Square on the weekends. So you would have thought that there would be thousands of knockout broads walking the streets in the latest slinky item. Hell, you couldn’t tell, they were all covered from their slinky ankles to their kissable chins with furry shit to keep them warm.

Back at the ship we neared another holiday. I tell ya something had got to change about these godforsaken harbors. Every harbor is an industrial wasteland full of sharp-edged iron chunks rusting while waiting for a ship to be loaded on for a voyage to China. We live in a joyful society while our world of goods gets from place to place by being packed on rusting hulks that pull into one dour desert of junkyard steel after another. All we can see from each port we sail into are burning release valves and smoking, rotten warehouses and refineries for as far as the eye can see. In each case we need to beg someone to come to this area of the destitute to rescue us from a ghetto of cranes and fork lifts and stevedores surrounding 50-gallon drums full of cardboard and burning pallet wood to keep warm. Most of the crew, including the captain, never leaves the ship.

They never see the frozen lakes of people ice skating, or the theaters or grand museums packed with the artifacts and the legends that brought these burgs to the prominence they now enjoy. They never see the colorful night life. They never see the brightly printed magazines after they have carried the paper to port. They don’t go to shore to see the beautiful women after they hauled the machinery that made the dresses. It’s a shame. On top of their steel cells and industrial surroundings, crime strikes and violence reigns.

A couple of days before New Year’s Eve, a religious group from the seaman’s mission came on board to entertain the Filipino crew. Either during or after their couple of hours on the board, two cabins were broken into or a woman’s purse was stolen. Another babe lost her watch and assorted items off her desk while she slept. The next morning the thievery came to light and the captain was alerted. Some assumed that a member of the crew was at fault, another thought it was someone from the religious groups.

At first the captain simply shrugged as the loss wasn’t great, but I didn’t like the idea that someone had entered a woman’s cabin without the correct prompting. I pushed for action that would indicate to the wrong doer that we were going to kick some ass if it happened again. I began my own sideline Chinatown investigation, although I wished I had Jean Harlow at my side during the cavernous hunt into the seaport underworld. I discovered that this harbor, as most harbors aside from Hamburg, had very poor security and people wander on and off ships without so much as a sign-in list. There is no security at the gang planks and kids sneak onto ships and usually hit whatever is close to an exit. The Antwerp police admitted that there are gangs that roam the dark port streets busting into anything they can carry away and attack ships and predominately captains’ cabins. That’s where the electronic equipment and cash is. The investigation continues with constant and unrelenting questioning of any young woman I can find.

Two nights later I slipped off the rotting hulk of a tuna can that carries cargo around the world and slid into the ornate world of the Hilton in downtown Antwerp.

With the blond of blonds on my arm, I entered the ornate ballroom overlooking the historic plaza next to the mammoth cathedral packed full of original Ruben paintings, the man responsible for paintings of men built like steroid-packed oxen and women as voluptuous as your imagination can go. Each painting was based on a religious theme. During one day’s excursion we wandered through the home of Mr. Ruben and I wished I could have beamed in David Mann and shared this experience with him.

Into the ballroom we strolled enjoying the high fashion of women in slinky dresses that slid on their silky skin and old farts in tuxedos. As we sat through one course after another in the lavish presence of the town’s high society, two things struck me: One was the ship and its imprisoned crew cooking another whole pig and drinking whiskey surrounded by cold steel walls and snow capped darkness.

I was suddenly enveloped in lurid visions of my fugitive past. I don’t know what befell me, if it was the tall beautiful blonde two tables away who sought my attention with each sip of wine as her husband spoke to her intently. She wore a loose fitting gown that was held on by two miniscule straps that danced on her otherwise naked shoulders. The silver gown flowed over her unencumbered Rubenisque breasts. Her golden hair was pulled to the back of her head and held with a silver tie that revealed the soft curve of her neck, like Layla wears her hair at home. Something came over me like a silver bullet from my past, a revelation of my sins with women. I thought of the pain I inflicted on my last wife. It wasn’t a mere consideration, but a flashback of painful moments, relationship torpedoes launched in a sea of tears. I reached for my glass of wine, but knew full well that it wouldn’t hide the missile that was all too clear and irreversible. Another bomb came as the image of my first wife crying appeared in my heart. I couldn’t shake them, as if I was forced to relive my tainted past as the New Year approached.

In the Sunday post I mentioned that as a New Year’s resolution we should make a woman smile, something I love to do. In my mind I fight the rules and my spirit fights for freedom while my heart cries for the pain I’ve inflicted. I’m not sure there is an answer, but there is loyalty and truthfulness. I wish all relationships would be filled with joyous days and never end. I wish pirates had a source of maidens who understood their spirit and let them wander unhampered. I suppose if you’re a pirate, you must admit it and ride or sail away to another port as we will in two days. Ah, me laddy, it’s to Genoa, Italy, and another adventure.

We left the bright lights and slinky skirts and returned to the tarnished ship before midnight to spend the last moments of 2001 with the crew. But due to my efforts to enhance security, the gangplank had been raised while the officers and crew partied on the bridge and tried to look past the dark and dour conditions of the harbor to see the fireworks in the distance through the fog. We stood on the snow-covered concrete dock in the dark as the ship’s horn announced the beginning of a new year and a crew member hustled to our assistance. Have a wonderful 2002, and make every day count for something.-Bandit

That’s all the sniveling you’ll get out of me. On the other hand, the weather improved immeasurably as we putted through the Med. It was like motoring on a calm lake, although the attentive captain pointed out to me, “While we will be in Genoa, Greece is being hit with major storm.”

Being on a ship is like being the mercury in a thermometer in the cockpit of a jet. We muscle our way from one climate to another. Hamburg and Antwerp were freezing, so we headed west out of the Black Sea. As soon as we did, we headed into the Gulf Stream then turned south and rolled into the summer zone and milder weather. As we turned into the Med the weather calmed even more and the seas flattened, then it cooled slightly, but stayed calm as we headed northeast to Genoa in the Ligurian Sea.

Genoa is not like the previous ports. We didn’t have to take on three fastidious port pilots to dodge bridges and piers up a 40- to 80-mile river. This harbor was built right on the coast in the 11th century and there are few flatlands. Hills opened to winding streets and tall baroque buildings that now house a city of 650,000. It’s predominately a medieval city of weaving narrow streets, vast cathedrals, ornate museums and spectacular galleries. Again, the cabbies know where to find the ships and arrived on the dot. The people don’t speak as much English as the folks of Belgium or Germany.

I found that even the dark-haired beauty who spent time with me spoke very good English, but struggled with the words, always attempting to put an A on the end. She spent a year in Baltimore training to speak the language. That must be the problem.

It was a little cool the first day, but we didn’t need scarves or gloves and the sun shone constantly. Oh shit, I forgot to finish my description of the harbor.

The port in Genoa is much more picturesque. It has a breakwater that runs across the front of the harbor and inlets to afford the ships entry. Cruise ships are moored very close to the brightly lit town. Since we’re a scurvy lot, they put us on a decrepit dock as far west of town as they could stuff us. The port and related businesses are the underpinnings of Genoa. Since the 1100s shipping has been the mainstay of the region. Just like all the other ports we’ve visited, the industrial portion of the harbor, especially where we sat and rocked back and forth as cranes shifted cargo to get the Genoa stash aboard, was a dump. The roads were a mess, with potholes the size of manhole covers. Containers were stacked everywhere. Old cement buildings sat abandoned between docks with the windows busted out and the exterior metal cranes and hardware bent and rusting.

Columbus was born in Genoa and we went past a house he lived in, but he wasn’t home. I only had two days to chase women and on the second, my time was running out as the sun set on the starboard side of the ship. Dierk, the cargo supervisor, searched the area for the remaining items to load. It’s a riot watching these guys in action. The departure times change as fast your girl’s sex drive. She’s hot to trot one minute and slowed to a stop the next. I had to check with him every four hours for an update.

Finally, at about 7 last night, we pulled away from the dock and headed out to sea. The chief officer still didn’t know what was on board. He had a stack of invoices and manifests that he couldn’t make sense out of if he had an accounting license. He’s still waiting for a report from the abrupt port agent.

We’re heading to a narrow strait between Sicily and the Italian Peninsula after passing an erupting volcano called Stromboli. Right now we’re passing the islands of Corsica (French controlled) and Sardinia (Italian island) on the starboard and the peninsula on the port. In a couple of days we’ll be entering the Suez Canal. I sure hope the captain picked up a case of Marlboroughs or we’ll be in deep shit again.

That’s it for the news. I’m kicking off chapter 20 of Chance’s second dice-rolling book based on this world-wide run. Each port gives me new ideas and a fresh set for the next chapter. I’m up to 17 of the original Chance series, which is being published in HORSE- the chopper rag, and I’ll get caught up with No. 2 before we throw lines over the side in Singapore.
Ride Forever, Bandit.

It’s been two months since I came aboard this stinking, grease-soaked rat bike of a freighter. According to my buddy Mark Lonsdale, a fellow world traveler, I will have passed the halfway point in this world run. Mark recently returned from Afghanistan, where he was assisting a Russian military group. He has also been called to Hong Kong on another scandalous mission and I may hook up with him there.

Speaking of being ejected, my reports have been expelled from the news. I realize that this is not exactly Harley-oriented, but what the fuck can I do? The depression has driven me into the holds of the ship to smoke opium with the hollow-eyed crew. In the future, if I can get something rolling to ride to Sturgis in the form of a project, I will be back in the news with reports on the bike and what I plan to build or modify.

Meanwhile, we’ve been cruising out of the Sea of Aden, away from Egypt and the Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean. At the bottom of the Red Sea we passed through the narrow Bub el Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Djbouti, Somalia. The Somalia region is notorious for pirates. We had a pirate drill, additional spotlights were mounted on the bridge and all the fire hoses were laid out along the decks in preparation for pirate attacks through the entire Gulf of Aden voyage.

Some might scoff at the notion that pirates exist in the 21st century, but don’t be fooled.

While I was in Antwerp, Belgium, at the Zeeman’s Hotel, I discovered a shipping trade magazine that featured a shot of a pirate ship off the coast of Taiwan. It was a sleek- looking, used military vessel . For those who still doubt the existence of modern-day pirates, here are some warnings from a recent Telex report on piracy:

Bangladesh: Chittagong and Mongla at berth and anchorage. Ships have reported theft of zinc anodes welded to ships’ hulls and sterns.

Gulf of Aden: Between four to six fast boats have attempted to board ships around coordinates 14.34/51.22

India: Chennai, Cochin, Haldia, KIandla and Tuticorin anchorages.

Indonesia: Belawan, Balikpapan, Lawi Lawi, Merak, Panjang, Samarinda andTanjong Priok (Jakarta) have reported numerous attacks while at berth and anchor.

Malacca Straights: Avoid anchoring along the Indonesian coast or in the straits. Particularly risky for hijackings.

Malaysia: Bintulu, Penang and Sandakan

Philippines: Davao

Somalian waters: High-risk area for hijackings. Keep at least 50 miles and, if possible, 100 miles from the Somali Coast. Use of radio communications, including vhf, in these waters should be kept to a minimum.

Further warnings included Tanzania, Thailand and Vietnam.

Two miles from Parit, Jawa, of the Malacca straits, three pirates armed with guns boarded a fishing boat and robbed the two fishermen. They tied the hands of one fisherman. Pirates tried to remove the OBM of the boat but when they could not, they pushed the two fishermen overboard and sped off with their boat. One fisherman held on to a floating piece of wood and was rescued by another fishing boat.

At the Belawan port in Indonesia during loading the duty officer of a tanker was attacked by two pirates armed with knives. The alarm was sounded and the crew was mustered. Pirates jumped into the river and escaped by boat, taking the ship’s stores with them. An officer was wounded.

Along the Somali coast a general cargo ship dropped anchor for repairs. Twenty pirates armed with automatic rifles in five boats boarded the ship, taking hostage all 18 crew members and demanding a ransom of $200,000.

Six armed pirates in two white speedboats chased and fired upon a freighter and demanded the master to stop engines. The master took evasive maneuvers and ordered the crew to remain in their quarters. The pirates came close to the ship but were unable to board due to rough seas.

The reports of attacks continue. If I can control this fast-approaching opium addiction, I will work with the crew to build cannon on the bow to ward off such attacks. My disappointment is severe, but this opium is doing the trick. Future reports may become increasingly garbled.

By the middle of next week we’ll be motoring into Singapore for three days. It’s about fucking time. I need a stiff drink and the touch of a woman.

It’s been 18 long, miserable days at sea. I’ve got the shakes so bad I can’t even hold a drink. I need some dirt, man. I need to feel the land. As usual, the shipping business is a comedy of floating (hopefully) errors. Just when you think the whole mess is wavy, day-to-day drudgery, all hell breaks loose.

As we pulled out of Genoa, the captain didn’t know the weight of the cargo. This constitutes the draft of the ship, which you will see is a major consideration in ports. The draft differs depending on the weight of the cargo. The more weight, the more draft, the deeper the ship sits in the water, depending on the viscosity of the water. The man who was supposed to know the answer, the chief officer, had a stack of invoices to dig through.

We steamed that night through the straits of Messina between the island of Sicily and the point of the Italian Peninsula. The channel is so narrow that you are required to have a pilot on board if your ship is over15,000 metric tons. We were weighing in at the 30,000-ton range. It was nightfall but I staggered up to the bridge to check the action. Even after midnight, a multitude of water taxis and ferries blasted back and forth across the channel.

Let me flash ahead because we covered the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and who knows what else. The salt spray isn’t cocaine but I’m writing about opium and don’t have anything to snort besides salt air. It’s getting to me. You’re going to love this: While in the Suez, someone mentioned that the Rickmers Company sent a box of movies to the ship in Egypt, a Muslim nation. Seems the top 20 were porno or adult films. Needless to say, customs did not allow them on the ship. We are scheduled to receive them here in Singapore.

While we were discussing the movie fuck-up, the captain mentioned how strict the people of Singapore are. If you spit on the sidewalk, the fine is $100. He also mentioned how the fueling people try to cheat the ships. They pump almost 1,000 metric tons of fuel in the Bibi (the Leon’s sister ship) that was 16 percent sea water. It’s in court now. Some ships have testers that take drops of the fuel as it is loaded into three bottles, one for the ship, one for the fuel company and one for the lab. In the past, the crooks would ask the chief engineer how much less fuel he wanted. They paid him under the table for the rest. Then they would put water in the fuel because they knew the engineer would keep his mouth shut. Capacity on a ship this size is 1,300 metric tons of fuel oil and 300 tons of diesel fuel.

On Monday I saw the captain on the bridge, his young face buried in his hands. Jakarta was calling, wanting to know when we would get there. He doesn’t know and can’t know. He doesn’t have any idea of the cargo being loaded on the ship. He knows that some cargo will be discharged and some shifted but that all depends on what?s being loaded and he doesn’t know. It is out of his control.

I tell some wild ass stories that give the impression that we’re lucky we aren’t floating in a sinking life raft off the coast of China. Maybe we will be. We manage to get from day to day with decent food and watch as the corroded ship’s conditions improve. The sordid stories continue, though.

Here’s a positive one: The Saturday of the 26th we had an engine room fire drill that consisted of donning fire suits, locking down the engine room and releasing a gas within it. The crew went through the motions, but couldn’t shut down the exterior vents from the engine room due to rust and deterioration. I’ve seen chunks of mild steel a half-inch thick that are so corroded that they look like a chunk of wood left in the desert. The grain of the metal is exposed and separated from the other grains so that the layers peel away from one another, until there is nothing of any strength left.

These vents are 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide and louvered with a lever that runs down the center from flap to flap to shut off the escaping air. One of the vents was shot, so the handyman, Kuriata Andrizej, went to work. He set up scaffolding off to the side of the vent and there was a platform in front. He cut the old sonuvabitch off and fabricated a new one. I thought this guy was cool, but not a rocket scientist, or a JesseJames fabricator, until I saw this project finished. I watched as the crew set up a series of hoists to lift the new vent back into place where it took him two days to finish welding the damn thing into place. I was impressed.

OK, so now that I mentioned something upbeat about the crew and their abilities to refit a rusted vent, I can get back to the bullshit. A few days out of Singapore the captain had to get the paperwork together. He discovered that if we go ashore as the strange citizens that we are, we would be forced to endure a series of interviews by customs people at their offices. Bad news, so we are now consultants and members of the crew hired by Rickmers to write a book. This is actually not far off. I am writing a book. But does a book about a biker chasing his kidnapped girl have anything to do with Rickmers?

All right so last night was the final pirate watch before arriving in Singapore. We had entered the Strait of Malacca between Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. Yesterday we had another pirate alarm drill (general alarm). In this area the threats were even greater than Somalia, so the captain pulled out the stops and taught his crew how to use anything that would shoot from line rockets to flairs. Old rusted spotlights were mounted on the bridge. Extra spots were mounted on the bow and all the firehoses were hooked up and laid along the decks.

I broke out my 1-foot blade sheath knife and prepared for the worse. At midnight I was on the bridge with the crew. We were watching out as the Leon and a number of other vessels crept through the straits. The moon was full and it must have been almost 80 degrees. The skies were perfectly clear as we motored along with the flicker of lights occasionally visible on the coast. The night was incredible and we could have seen pirates from a distance as I stood dressed in all black with by blade on my belt and three, 200-meter flairs jammed into my waist band. Nothing happened.

I awoke at 7 a.m. and felt the sun beating in the portholes. It was a magnificent day as we steamed toward the tip of Malay into Singapore. I was on the bridge as the harbor pilot came on board. He was a short man who wore a pharmacist?s-style white coat, black pants and deck shoes. He wore gloves as he got on board and made his way to the bridge six decks up. He had a round face and almost black hair. His age was showing in flecks of gray. I found out later as I watched him pull a handkerchief and clean his bifocals that he was retiring that night. It was his last night on the job so he was particularly detail oriented. He wanted nothing to go wrong.

That’s where the fun began. There is a buoy that ships must pull near in order to receive a pilot. The buoy was across the channel and since another ship was coming, the captain passed over the channel and continued to wait for the pilot, since he didn’t arrive on time. When the pilot entered the bridge, the captain attempted to shake his hand and welcome him on board but the pilot quickly shrugged off his greeting and abruptly instructed him to stop the ship immediately, back up and use his bow thruster to turn the ship to the starboard. Seems he was on the brink, according to the pilot, of running aground.

You have to keep in mind as you picture the captain attempting to back up a 30,000-ton vessel, that no ships moving along at 14 knots do anything on a dime. It?s a tough job that happens at a snail’s pace. The bridge went into red alert while the pilot explained to the captain that he should never cross the channel until the pilot has arrived. If you look at a map you will see that this is one of the few high traffic areas on the globe for ships. There were more than 42 ships surrounding us as we entered the port. Tankers are running back and forth to Saudi Arabia. All the ships from Japan heading to Europe pass through these straits heading west. It’s a goddamn traffic jam.

So the captain backed the ship down, threw the bow thruster into gear and lined us up with a couple of buoys leading us into the harbor. Is that all there is? Hell no. First the captain hands over the paper work to the pilot who wasn’t pleased with it and made them change it, but the key fuck-up is next. A Telex was sent to the agent in Singapore several days ago with the cargo figured out and the draft of the ship listed at 9.9 meters, or about 10 yards. He was sent a similar Telex three more times before entering port.

The agent contacted the docking people and made arrangements for the parking spot. During the translation of the materials, the draft number was changed to 9 meters. The docking people set them up with a 9.5-meter spot and the agent would not allow the captain to pull into his docking area, but forced him to anchor 300 yards off the docks until appropriate arrangements could be made. That’s where we sit. Welcome to Singapore.