New Years Eve

It was so close the crew could taste it. “Put on your dancing shoes” the Honduran Boatswain said as he passed by my office. It looked like a sure thing, New Years at the dock. As a coastal fog shrouded the Sabine River the chance of sailing was getting slimmer by the hour. Cargo had finished the night before and the stern ramp was all ready raised. All hands had broken foreign articles the day before and with the $10,000 the captain had distributed amongst the crew whom elected cash at pay off it could have been an evening of epic proportions.

Just as I was allowing myself to imagine what a beer or two would taste like and how different being in public around people I haven’t been working, eating and socializing with for the past ten weeks would be “Pilot aboard” came over the radio. More than a few crew’s shoulders slouched as everyone knew there was now not the slightest chance that anyone would be doing any amount of the Texas Two Step on New Years Eve.

The agent, a breed of people I am continually disappointed with, had obviously not been doing his job and provided no warning that the good pilots had decided they could get us down the river just as the fog lifted and before complete darkness settled in. My thoughts of walking on terra firma and allowing my mind to wander very far away from work evaporated as the engine was hurriedly turned over and the deck department rushed fore and aft. As the line handlers tossed our hawsers into the water a drizzle began and the emissions from a pair of nearby refineries blended more and more into the low gray sky.

Adding to the disappointment was the news that our load of 700 cars had been delayed and wouldn’t be reaching our next destination in Texas for two days. The inside story was that the pilots in Mexico, where the cars were manufactured, had a habit of getting into the tequila after dark and if sailing was scheduled any later than that they were routinely too borracho to take the ship off the dock. Because of their insobriety our schedule was now pushed back two days which for departing crew such as myself meant delaying vacation another 48 hours.

I wasn’t really surprised. There are very few breaks in this industry and New Years wasn’t going to be one of them. The last three days had been non stop work. Between discharging and loading cargo, facilitating the repair of hydraulics (Which could only take place after cargo operations ended at 2300) and the annual CO2 system testing, not to mention stores and garbage, it had been a full couple of days. Departing now rather than the following morning would mean another full night of work ballasting the ship and anchoring of the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel.

Sitting in front of the ballast control panel watching tank gauges slow fall reflect the massive amount of clean mid ocean seawater I’m pumping out of the ballast tanks and into the Gulf of Mexico I have a little time these last few hours of 2010 for reflection.

The first thing that comes to mind is I will never allow longshoremen to eat food in my cargo holds again. This could be considered my one and only New Years resolution and is all ready company policy but from time to time I have turned a blind eye allowing them to bring food onboard. It seemed fair for lashers and drivers working 5 hour shifts without a break to be able to eat while working but my sympathy, which as professor of mine oft remarked is found between shit and syphilis in the dictionary, has waned considerably.

This is due to the amount of trash myself and my mates found ourselves picking up over the last three days. Dozens of chip and peanut and cracker bags. Cans of soda and water. Candy bar and gum wrappers plus cigarette buts all over the stern ramp where they’re allowed to smoke. My department is 9 persons large and we are tasked with keeping a floating parking garage measuring in at over 40,000 square meters spread over ten decks clean. We try to pick up every bit of dunnage and even have a sweeping machine that brushes up dirt and oil absorbent. There is no way another longshoremen will ever watch me bend over to pick up their trash off my decks again after repeatedly telling them to use the trashcan. As one longshormen said when I was chastising his buddies for not picking up their garbage, "It's like talking to a dead dog man". Yes indeed, it's just like a dead dog.

Another reflection is that the more Texans I meet that don't litter, the more I like them. I have always found it comforting when a group of people bound by a geographic region display similar endearing traits and Texans are definitely included. They are a tall, humble and outgoing people, funny as hell, quick witted and polite. Of course I’m generalizing who is a Texan but I speak mainly of the river pilots and stevedores that I work with. They take their work seriously but not themselves and because of the industry that is pervasive in Coastal Texas have a better understanding for what makes the world go round and the lights stay on, more so than my compatriots to the North who feign locally importing gas, developing wind power or any other energy source that Canada will gladly sell to us.

Industry is always close at hand down here both on land and in the Gulf of Mexico. I had to carve out a little time over the last few days to read the entirety of the New York Times latest piece on the Deep Water Horizon and what I consider the most pivotal event in the maritime industry since 1989. While I dislike reading about disaster at sea while being at sea, at least recent disasters, this article was the best account of the event I have read in the media yet.

Much of the information is nothing new; the Captain chastising the junior DP watch stander for sending out a Mayday call when the rig was minutes from sinking, lifeboats being lowered without a complete muster of occupants, inaction playing a major role in what may have been a preventable sinking. What this article did better than the rest was to tie everything I had heard over the last 8 months into a succinct timeline explaining exactly what was and was not done in the short amount of time the crew had to react to the blow out of the Macondo well.

I highly encourage anyone involved in the maritime industry, especially the O&G sector, to read this article. It made me very curious to know what repercussions this has had in the safety culture at Transocean and other offshore oil drilling companies, especially because I now have so many classmates working in the same field. It is always startling when I put myself in the shoes of another mariner faced with a decision where no matter which course of action is chosen all have drastic consequences. I feel that the lessons of this event will unfold for years to come.

Work this past week has grown tiresome. Three days of cargo kicked my ass and my normal resilience is slightly depleted by the early onset of severe channel fever. I'm always anxious towards the end of the trip to get off the boat and on with my other life, a life filled with everything I've worked for and enjoy experiencing, but this time there is another feeling. It involves more longing and homesickness than I'm willing to admit to myself but it's there. It's something new and indescribable but completely welcomed and is giving me the feeling that 2011 will be a magical year.

With the ballast almost wrapped up I went to the bridge to hear the GPS chirp the new year in. Clearing the sea fog the anchorage at the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel was packed with delayed ships illuminating the overcast sky. Watchstanders, mostly Filipino with a few Texans mixed in, were wishing all stations a Happy New Year on the UHF. We too would soon join the throng waiting for our turn to enter Bolivar Road and our cargo in the dock yards.

Happy New Year!

Christmas at Sea - Robert Louis Stevenson

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;

The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;

The wind was a nor'-wester, blowing squally off the sea;

And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard.
So's we saw the cliff and houses and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every longshore home;
The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessèd Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessèd Christmas Day.

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
"All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate, Jackson, cried.
. . . ."It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood;
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

Eclipse

Void of all matter besides the liquid ocean and gaseous heavens the sea is an amazing place to call home. I adore living in the immensity of this natural world and have been to no other place on earth where so much of it can be seen at once. Granted it’s all blue, or in the middle of the night a purple grey, but the sheer scale of the ocean continues to awe and inspire me. On nights such as this when visibility is limited only by the horizon, the moon is full, the water rippled by a light wind and undulated by the swell from a forgotten storm, the majesty of seafaring is tangible.

Because of the moons effect on the sky the horizon appears as a sharp line delineating where a pale metallic blue meets the inky purple sea. Everything is circular. The horizon circumscribes a body of water in every direction beginning at eye level 14 miles distant giving the impression that you’re slightly depressed as if standing in the middle of a shallow bowl. Above the sky appears like a dome fitted perfectly onto this watery disc and with the moon shinning only the brightest stars are visible causing the winter constellations to stand out that much more.

The weather for the past three days has been exceptional. The sky has been clear and the air absolutely dry. Warm water and warm days at this southerly latitude normally means humidity but because the prevailing easterly breeze is blowing off Saharan Africa the air is completely dry. All night long I can feel the warm breeze as it blows through open bridge wing doors over my bare arms and legs. It feels like a fleece blanket just from the dryer is being wrapped around me.

On top of all these sublime conditions today is the winter solstice and to kick this celestial phenomena off a full lunar eclipse took place all morning long two points on the starboard bow. Through the entire watch the lookout and I viewed the full moon turn rusty red and the faintest stars become emboldened by the increasing dark. It’s enough sensory stimulation to give reason to doubt if this is really my job as if something besides the need to work calls me to live half the year in this place.

Our track has been laid well to the south of the major low pressure system that will be developing on the East Coast later this week. Because of this we will be entering the Caribbean south of Cuba through the Caicos passage and not the usual route through Hole in the Wall in the Bahamas just off Florida’s southern tip. Being closer to the Cape Verde Islands than the Canaries is why we’re having such a stellar run of weather.

It is drastic a contrast to the solstice I spent at work two years ago in the North Sea. We were on our way to Germany and the sun refused to rise until ten in the morning. The air was bitter cold and damp. This morning as the earth’s shadow recedes from the moon the sun is simultaneously warming the eastern horizon and it’s only five in the morning. Ideal weather at sea makes life much easier and I’ve noticed how it has also buoyed spirits. This is good because the holidays can be stressing for mariners stuck at sea.

Besides having awesome watches filled with stars and lunar eclipses I’m also elated because I’ve had a string of days with the crew doing nothing but chipping rust and painting without fear of rain and flash rust. It’s greatly increased both my own and the Boatswain’s sense of productivity though he continues complaining about how slow the guys paint. I agree that they are slow but as long as it gets done without drips, spills or holidays I’ll be satisfied.

I had an epiphany the other day while I was working overtime. A hydraulic cylinder had decided to start leaking and I was hurriedly trying to free a corroded block valve that would stem the leak if closed. Looking at my watch I grew frustrated that I was running out of time to get the job done before having to clean up for watch.

As I sat there wrenching and hammering away I couldn’t believe that there had been a day many years ago when all I could do at work was count down the hours until I would be released from my servitude. Back then I was mucking Alpaca stalls or stacking hay bales on the back of a trailer and spent as much time sneaking cigarette breaks as I did wheeling wheelbarrows of shit out of the paddocks.

It was such a different experience as a teenager needing money but really preferring to not work. Now all I want is more time in the work day to get things accomplished and always come up short. There is just too much to do on these big ships and neither enough people or time to get it all done. That’s the challenge though and probably the reason sailors make more now than the what the minimum wage paid in the nineties.