The Scurvy Dog’s Logs Chapter 2

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.