The Scurvy Dog’s Logs Chapter 4

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.