Chapter 7

This voyage would no doubt test us as a crew. We would be steaming over seven thousand miles at 14.5 knots, deepwater sailing for most of it. I spent most of my time with Ellen either spelling her at the helm, acting as the radar operator or checking our coordinates at the plotting table. We read and played a lot of cards, too. Sure, I spent some time helping wipe down the mechanical space and helping to clean the ship to give me a chance to talk to the rest of the crew--taking their temperature so to speak. From all I'd read in Ellen's books I operated as an unlicensed second mate and purser.

We'd be roughly half a month at sea if the weather held. I held out little hope of perfect weather with it being mid-March.

We had a minor celebration as the equator slipped behind us. We were in African coastal waters and the weather held. I remembered something about the equatorial doldrums of the sailing age but it didn't quite come to me. Soon we would be heading out into the deep blue waters making directly for South Africa.

We were mentally prepared for high seas but we really were not. Too many things were not fastened down. Pictures came down off the walls and had to be stowed until we could reach port to obtain proper fasteners. We lost a few dishes which was to be expected, and sick bay had a couple of storage cabinets crash to the floor. Some of the crew were unprepared for the way our ship reacted to 24 to 26 foot waves. Our cook had previously worked on a cruise ship which took such weather with hardly a quiver. The pitch and roll of the galley had him catching a mixer more than once. The slicer was bolted down, thank god. I didn't even want to think about the ramifications of him trying to catch a running meat slicer! We weren't equipped for microsurgery. The rule became no fried foods during heavy seas--an open topped fryer filled with 350 degree oil was just too damned dangerous.

As we approached the cape the weather cooled off, cold rains came in heavy bursts. It kept the decks clean but sure precluded any use of the hot tub! The lowering clouds and heavy spray made us rely more on the radar than our eyes for navigation and any collision avoidance--much as on night watch or in foggy conditions.

Early morning, day 26 brought Cape Town harbor into view. We were running on fumes--the weather had consumed almost all of our margin. We radioed the portmaster and a tug was dispatched to meet us. We were assigned a slip then paid rental and bunkerage fees. The silence was eerie after we cut power to the engines.

The weather was quite pleasant being in the mid-seventies during the day. We decided to cut loose and run wild for a while. After hiring port security to keep anyone from steaming off with our ship or any parts thereof, we hired a mini-bus taxi to 'Take us to the third best hotel in town.' where we took the top floor as ours for a minimum of a month. Instead of having us sweat and slave over cleaning the Jamieson we were going to get a professional maritime cleaning team in to do it for us. The port master helped me get in contact with a reliable firm. Doc warned us about TB and AIDS being alive and well in the city. I gently reminded them to go in teams of three wherever they went. We hired a tour bus and driver to give us a three day tour of the city. It was still early enough in the fall that the botanical gardens were a good place to stop for a while. The beaches were nearly empty but that didn't stop us during the afternoons.

The city was a snacker's dream. there were little eclectic restaurants everywhere. We had Vietnamese, Maylay, Moroccan, Chinese and local ethnic places to pick from. Thank god that they were big believers in barbecue! I'd missed barbecued goat since leaving my Chilean days. We found a place that did Argentine Asado--vertical spit-roasted beef done in a sand pit within the restaurant. Brick walls around the pit kept the place from burning down but there was a layer of wood smoke thruout the place about four feet off the ground. It was served with beans and chimichurri sauce--kind of chuck-wagon style. Can you tell that we had evolved into foodie tourists?

We spent a couple of hours each morning in the hotel gym. While sweating away I asked the crew if they wanted to sacrifice one galley for an exercise room with a few work-out machines in there. The general concensus was 'go for it'. One of the galleys was right off the kitchen, the other across the passageway and down a bit making hauling food and dishes back and forth more difficult. That was our candidate. Free weights were a big no-no on a ship. Instead we bought a bow-flex (takes up less space than a nautilus), a rowing machine, an eliptical trainer and a treadmill. A few rubber mats and a CD player finished the place off, for less than 8,000 dollars. We had the movers take the equipment below decks and install it. I used the crane to get them to mid-deck which made things one hell of a lot easier.

Carey and Tina collared a rep for a drug company and got a CD with a Physician's Desk Reference addendum showcasing his company's products. This was stuff that wasn't available in the U.S. because of licensing issues. They bought blood expanders; fast-acting wound dressings that would stop arterial bleeding cold, previously only available to the military; some chelating agents designed to be used with dialysis machines; a next-generation arthroscopic surgery system and a small microsurgery system capable of repairing a torn retina or re-attaching a severed finger with an 'acceptible' to 'good' prognosis. How she shoehorned all that shit into the old ship's workroom simply amazed me. Engineering still had their work room and storage so no serious crabbing over space occured.

We were in the second week of April.

We found ourselves bored. It was a beautiful, complex city but it was winding down for winter. I shrugged my shoulders and yelled "Next destination?" Nobody had been to India. We went to India! I did some reading and came up with Paradip, just a shout south of Baleshwar, which boasted a notable temple complex. We went touring to see how this continent differed from what we'd seen before. Their polytheistic culture ripped the sculptural and architectural barriers wide open with worshipers attempting to outdo each other down through the centuries.

We didn't stay long. I personally wanted to visit Thailand to see how the Buddhist traditional Wats compared to the temples of India. We stopped in Bang Lamung. I'd made a mistake--it was essentially a rail stop. We steamed on to Laem Sing where the temperature in the upper 80's/lower 90's lured us to the beach. We were informed that if we saw any buddhist priests it was proper to offer them food, but never money unless it was covered, as they had taken vows to never touch money. Okay, envelopes were cheap and I had a few krugerrands in my pocket. I was going to blow some minds.

Three old men in red/gold robes waited patiently for offerings where the road broke into parking spots for people to get to the beach. I placed a coin wrapped in paper and tied with a piece of green yarn in each of their bowls, then sai'ed to them and walked away. I could hear their excited talking from half way down the beach. I love being a bastard sometimes.

As I returned to the group sunning on beach towels Ellen asked "I know you just did something. You're smiling. What happened?"

Well I told her. Ellen, Janet, Carey, Tina and Wanda each gave me a hug. The guys just smiled. After a while a younger monk stopped where we were sitting. He gave me the hairy eye. "You cannot buy karma with gold, you know."

I patiently replied "I realize that. I have killed, I have loved, I have brought others into their centers. Sometimes I simply wish to raise hell by doing good. Is there anything wrong with that?"

He looked at me for the longest time. "Are you Buddhist?" I nodded. "Think of me as a Buddhist warrior. I don't identify with any one temple but I try to keep the proper attitude. Balance is good." He nodded very fast. "Balance is good. Balance is very good." He sai'ed quickly yet deeply and walked away.

Ellen just had to come back with "Thus the fool confounds the wise man." Damn. She got me again. I couldn't catch a break with that woman! I caught shit from the rest of the crew for weeks after that. A guy can't win sometimes. A little smiling thing inside me understood and didn't fight.

I deeply wished to re-visit Thailand. The culture was so integrated with Buddhism that the feeling of being there brought an involuntary smile to my face. The country felt right to me.

I was rowing my way across the English channel courtesy of the exercise room when Ellen entered, leaned against the wall and watched me sweat for a while.

"Where are we going next?"

I stopped, panting, and covered my knees with my elbows, resting. "How about Nha Trang in Vietnam? It's on our way and we hit another culture."

She considered it for a while, then nodded. "Okay. This one will be interesting." She sauntered out.

She wasn't kidding. I was expecting an exploited vietnam-war-era wreck but the blue waters, pristine beach and thriving business district showed this city to be a dynamo. there were some Buddhist influences that I noted, but the whole place screamed 'vacation paradise'. What a shock! There were no bar girls, no hookers, nothing to give a tourist family pause. It was if the place had been disneylanded without the advertising. (A new word--think of a war zone. A big pink bomb goes off and mickey mouse appears waving his magic wand wearing his sorcerer's hat turning everything into a place the mouse built. Gaah. Spit--Ptui.) We still stayed a couple weeks touring the old temples and touring. Late April was upon us.

Okay, let's talk food. Let's talk LOBSTER. These guys didn't know what a lobster po-boy was. Well, I think we started something. City Vietnamese are street-food people. There were little hot carts and stalls everywhere. These people didn't stand still once they saw something that would make money. By the time we left there were street carts serving up lobster po-boys fit to beat the band. God love 'em.

Next stop, China. I did NOT want to visit shanghai. I did not want to experience several million people trying to out-compete one another while stacked like cord-wood. We hit up the coast a bit--ShanWai. We had our tanks pumped and the fuel bunkers filled. I inquired about a company that I'd seen on the internet--they specialized in two-cycle high-efficiency desalinization units. With a water plant we could reclaim some good cubic and increase our range. A small water tank--say, 200 gallons--fixed to the top deck, a couple of pumps and a twenty cubic foot water plant would replace two tanks taking up the space of a full-sized shipping container. Granted, it would increase our fuel utilization by a fraction but I thought it was worth it. I purchased a 300 gallon-per-day unit and three sets of filters. I had another twelve sets of filters shipped to our warehouse in Florida. We had a door cut into the wall of the old tank, a water-tight hatch installed and removed the old fill snorkle, corking it with a threaded cap. The insides got an epoxy paint job. A duckboard deck went in because of the sloping sides of the tank led to the drain. By calculation, including the waste space below my feet, we'd recovered 71.8 cubic meters. Now, a 40' marine container holds 68.7 cubic meters. Yup, we got a full-sized shipping container's worth of space back below decks, where it was the most valuable.

I wanted to hit the yearly sword auctions in northern Japan--Noshiro. We steamed into the harbor, got our passports stamped and I stormed the beaches like the allies stormd Normandy searching out the auctions, hoping that I wasn't too late. I managed to land some of the most beautiful examples of hand forged steel swords that I'd ever seen. I managed to get my hands on an antique-- NOT cut-down--horseman's katana with a bull nose. A major Japanese news service sent out a reporter/photographer team to find out about this ganjin that spent a lifetime's worth of money on traditional Japanese swords. I welcomed them onto the Jamieson and handed them into the mess where we had tea and biscuits (cookies). I described my Buddhist leanings and love of art. Then came the denoument. I led them into the museum where the newly-aquired blades were displayed. I let them wander through the exhibits, touching, lifting, caressing. Cotton gloves were available for handling some objects such as the blades. I hope to think that they came away with a new understanding of how to appreciate beautiful things.

With trepidation we sailed for Vladivostok for a meeting with the leader of all the Russias. We had done him a life-giving favor and were anxious as to what he planned for us. He said that he was going to make me Russian. That was ominous. I didn't sleep well during that voyage. Ellen called me a fool. I replied that I was an educated paranoid. I had proof that someone was out to get me. Our steaming into the harbor at Vladivostok was pretty low key. We were directed to berth next to a big-assed blue-painted ship that was obviously built for the Soviet navy. 'Glenmorrie' was painted on either side of her prow. I had a bad feeling about this.

It took Vladamir a couple of days to break free and schedule a flight to see us. The first thing the bastard did was to present each of us with black-covered russian passports--diplomatic passports. I was now a russian citizen. When he handed it to me I said 'Nazdrovia'. I watched him turn red as he tried to stifle the laughter. Next, I was presented with the charter and ownership papers for a Udaloy-class destroyer--the Admiral Panteleyev, renamed the Glenmorrie. Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh damn. Oh hell. Now what the fuck do I do?

"Fuck, Vladimir--I can't read Russian, nor do my crew. And how many does that thing crew? a hundred? two hundred? This is ridiculous."

Calm down, calm down. You are hereby commissioned by the soviet government to act as diplomatic agents of good will to the world. Everything aboard has been renamed into your vile English. I have fifty crewmen for you that speak English, know how to party and know the ship inside and out. The big guns have been removed but four 30-mm electric cannon much like your GE chain guns are installed and I have been informed that the fire control system has been updated to use them to their fullest." he leaned over and whispered to me "They're mean sons of bitches. I had them leave in the fire control software and mounts for the missiles if you need to step it up. The vessel was built for anti-submarine warfare and anti-aircraft capability was grafted on later. Try not to start any wars, my friend."

They'd already opened up the cabins to make them more comfortable to the crew. I shook my head. "Vladimir, I am touched at the lengths to which you have gone to repay us. However, we couldn't afford to run her!" I thought for a while. "What would you say to installing a truly large desalinization plant on her, stock her with emergency supplies and have her head out whenever disasters strike, such as hurricanes, earthquakes or tsunamis? If she flew under your flag, re-purposed to render aid after natural disasters, it would benefit your country's reputation much better than having my bunch of madmen running loose under your flag. You can show how innovative you are as well. There have been some things published about using industrial insulating board with high strength fiberglass tape to make emergency housing that should last for years. She looks as if she could hold a lot of stores." We walked as I talked, over to a dockside bench. We sat and argued.

I wasn't lying--much. A vessel of that size would have a maintenance schedule that would drive us nuts. The engines were gas powered rather than diesel which increased the risk of fire quite a bit. She had long legs and was fast which no doubt put extra stress on the engines compared to our old reliable diesel pushers. Again, high maintenance. Our older ship was slow, but it was dependable. Its icebreaker certification meant that it had a thick hull with lots of bracing. We had a good thing. I talked, he talked and I ended up by handing back the ship's papers. He did offer to dry dock us, sand blast the hull, replace the zincs and coat her top to bottom with a good anti-fouling paint. I was no fool--I accepted! We were going to stay in the city for the two weeks that the job would take. Yes, that was fast, but the military shipyard was commanded to do it and that was that!

Vladimir was shown the new changes, including the museum. Being a swordsman he appreciated the weapons I'd bought in Japan. After he shook hands with all of us he left to get back to his schedule. The harbormaster was interested in what the big deal was with giving us a good, fast job. He got a tour of the ship, focussing on the electronics and the mechanical spaces. He patted one of our big diesels and said something about 'last forever'. We looked at each other and grinned. The workmen needed to get busy to meet the schedule so we cut the tour short, packed our bags and left the ship in the harbormaster's capable hands.

We were taken to the Hotel Hyundai and took several suites on the top floors. They had English speaking staff and a reputedly pretty good Korean restaurant on one of the first floors. There was a bar with live music on the top floor. It was a business hotel--what can I say? The guy at the front desk found us an English-speaking tour guide that showed us around for a couple of days. After that we were on our own. The hotel was within sight of the harbor so we walked down to see what the progress was on the Jamieson. They had the steering gear torn down and the prop off. Men in bosun's chairs were sand-blasting the hull clear. They were obviously pros, taking the paint down to the metal quickly and efficiently. We weren't going anywhere for a while, so we went back to touring.

Pizza seemed to be the local specialty. We consumed pizza and ran up and down the streets like a squad performing PT during the early morning hours. One morning a sailor from the Glemorrie saw us doing our run. He stopped us and asked "Why are you running?" I answered "To get rid of all the pizza!" He laughed. "Good idea!" The next morning there were sixty of us pounding the pavement. Some were in not so good a shape but most had the breath to laugh and joke as we ran. I wasn't one of them. It seemed as if we had the entire fleet pounding down the street in time. I'm certain that we made some enemies before we left. Some of the captains from the ships in harbor heard about our little exercise party and thought that it was a pretty good idea. Soon squads from most of the ships were pounding the concrete in the pre-dawn hours.

After a little time on the internet we pounded in one morning and greeted the desk clerk with "Jo-un a-chim!" (good morning in Korean). I think we flabbergasted the man.

The restaurant was willing to make us congee, or (in Korean, juk) with beef stock and onions for breakfast. We spooned a little cooked vegetables into the mix and it hit the spot to set us up for the day's adventures. (Cook rice overnight, slowly turning it into a gruel. add spices, broth and green onions. It's like asian oat-meal.)

We ran around in a bunch, visiting museums and 'cultural' spots. You can only visit so many museums and cultural spots without wanting to burn one or two to the ground. We got damned tired of Vladivostok, let me tell you.

Soon our ship was out of dry dock and had gone through trials to make sure all the nuts were nutted and bolts were bolted. We tanked up on diesel and headed out to sea. "Where do we go next?" The consensus was "somewhere with a goddamned beach and English speaking people!" I languidly said "They kind of speak English and they're good people. Let's hit Australia." "Yeeeah!" It was May Day.

We were headed for the land of the barbie and Bondi Beach. We didn't run into any storms but the fourteen to eighteen foot waves let us know that we were blue water sailors. Offshore of Mindanao in the Phillipines we were overtaken by twelve costal patrol boats out to make a little spare cash. They demanded that we heave to and prepare to be boarded. We blew them out of the water and kept sailing. We sailed almost due south with a few jigs and jags to avoid the islands. Once we sighted Australia proper we kept sailing west and south until we sighted a sand beach. From there we found a harbor. I radioed the Freemantle harbor authority. They suggested that we put in at Fishing Boat harbor, just a bit further south. We ended up at the commercial docks just inside the mouth of the river. We'd travelled about 4700 nautical miles. After breaking in our brand new Russian diplomatic passports signed by Vladimir Putin himself, We found that we could purchase bunkerage but there were no secured docks. I shrugged, went ashore and asked the harbormaster for the loan of a telephone book. He didn't have any opinion over which security company was better than any other so I split the difference in the phone listings and gave Nelson Security a call. Sorry, they did store and home security. They suggested that I give Joshua and Joshua a call. Hey, nothing like advice from a disinterested expert.

We contracted with the port authority to hold our spot for two months and with the security service to guard the ship for the same duration. Ellen procured good maps of the area and our own phone book. Perth is not a little bitty built-up area. It sprawls out like Miami Florida. We sat there fat and happy wondering what to do next. After Vladivostok we were definitely into sand and sea, beer and barbecue. Being in the southern hemisphere and the middle of May winter was beginning to set in. It was still nice enough to sit on the beach with wind screens. We cleaned out and warmed up the hot tub, too. We hired a stretch van and driver to shepherd us around. I paid him weekly so that he wouldn't take the cash then cut and run. Massive construction was everywhere and none of us had international drivers licenses.

There were several ship's chandler's operating out of Perth. Wanda got with Carl for a wish list and started shopping around for choice and quality. We stocked up on locally grown lamb, pork and beef. We bought our seafood still jumping from the fishmarket, but you had to get there at 3:30 in the morning for the best of the catch. We played merry hell buying charcoal for the barbecue grill. Tina took her job as pharmacist seriously--she inspected her inventory for expiration dates and replaced anything that looked remotely suspicious. All the Ringer's Lactate, buffered iso water and packs of frozen blood platelets got dumped and replaced. We had some specialized burn dressings with amazingly short shelf lives that got replaced. How do I know all this? When I started hyperventilating after seeing the bill she told me why it cost so much. Eventually I calmed down, but Jesus!

We traded some of our smoked salmon to a high-end restaurant for some excellent dry-aged beef. Carl asked for and got a restaurant-quality, Hobart stainless-steel band saw to break down quarters of beef, cut apart crab legs and split marrow bones. We bought an itty-bitty steam cleaner to get all the nasty bits out of it after use, otherwise it would have been toothbrush work.

We couldn't find a single goddamned tapas bar in all of Perth. Carl, the dirty bastard, set about changing that. There were three competetive restaurants near where we were berthed called Cicerello's, the View Restaurant Fremantle and the Char Char Bull. He invited the owners and head chefs over to the ship for a tapas party. We ate in the crew's lounge while the owners and chefs shmoozed in the galley, trying different combinations. Carl said that he gave it eight months, tourist season, when tapas would take over the seafront. I didn't doubt him--Carl's taste was damned near impeccable. We had to re-stock our cellar's beaujolais bins after that. He stacked the deck. You see, a beaujolais is a soft, less tannic wine that lets the flavors of the food come through.