At Sea, Week 4 - Forty-Two Day Sea Journey to West Africa
Adios, Africa.
I was in the ship office at 9:30 when I felt the engine surge rock the ship. I climbed the stairs nearest the kitchen, opened the heavy door and went out to my deck to briefly watch our departure from Douala…despite the rain.
I was stunned. There was not piece of wood, a car, truck, trailer or tractor on the dock.
The ship behind us was gone.
There was not a single human being in sight.
Previous days the area along side the Repubblica di Genova was the site of always focused, sometimes furious, activity.
First, the vehicles being pushed and driven off and then stacks of lumber and containers of cocoa beans being loaded.
There were scores of people as far as I could see, some working some lazing about.
This morning, it was as if God had sent down a giant vacuum cleaner and swept our Douala dock clean.
It produced in me a disquieting and eerie feeling.
It was as if we had never been there.
On my way back to my cabin I reflected happily on the fact that I had not encountered a single Cameroonian mosquito.
Standing at the porthole, I watched us make our way, passing incoming ships in the very narrow navigation channel in and out of the Douala port.
A mosquito arrived. I swatted at it. As Yogi Berra might say: ‘Tain't over 'til it's over.
Yesterday after lunch, Francois Peris and his driver took Il Comandante and me to the flower market. The intensity of IC's shopping drive had not diminished a whit from Luanda.
As the doors of the car closed behind us we were headed in a straight line to IC's batik merchant. The shop is owned by a sweet and jolly Cameroonian woman.
I purchased a long blood-red and soft yellow themed table cloth (and eight napkins to go with it, each one a different African motif) for the same price the IC had negotiated for himself the day before.
At this point, I was drained of dollars and I borrowed from Il Comandante the rest of the day.
Next, it was into the main structure of the market.
As we entered, shouts of "Comandante" were heard up and down the aisles. The merchants crowded around shouting as they offered their wares. If they pressed him too relentlessly, speaking French to them, he firmly ordered them out of his presence.
He intensely examined the quality of everything in which I was interested, particularly jewelry stones. He painstakingly sorted through over 20 examples of one type of necklace, handing back to the merchant the rejects and to me the ones "possible."
He said to me more than once: "They don't know what this is" or "They don't know what they have here."
Then he would ask the merchant the name or origin of a stone or object. The merchant seldom knew the answer.
Over an adult lifetime of navigating around the world, the man has developed an expertise in native craftsmanship.
We were in that market 3 ½ hours. We stayed so late that when we departed it was deep dusk and the Muslim men among the merchants and hangers on were on their knees praying in a group by the side of the building.
Accompanying IC to an African market is a unique and unforgettable experience.
My first evening ashore during the calendar month I have lived aboard The Repubblica di Genova was enchanting.
First, a short sojourn within the walled and 24-hour-guarded home of Francois and Claire, a short walk from the site of my Paul Newman haircut.
The fourth member of our out-on-the-town group was Armelle Petetin, Francois' houseguest and London colleague.
Dinner was at a French-Lebanese restaurant, that included a bottle of good Bordeaux chateau-bottled red wine.
Then it was on to the promised jazz club. I absorbed the Afro-Latin rhythms propelled by the blind keyboard player. In the first two hours we sat in front, then to the bar. The core band never took a break. A very good vocalists passed on and off the bandstand, backed by the keyboard player, a drummer, bassist, electric guitar player and a horn line of one trumpet and two trombones.
They were excellent players and the music foot-stomping, hand-clapping exciting.
I was dragged away by my host after a performance of physical and vocal bravado by a James Brown type singer/screamer and dancer/jumper.
It was a wonderfully entertaining evening in the company of charming and generous people. I was in bed by 3 a.m.
No more days or evenings ashore.
No more visa fears or entanglements.
No more stops.
No more Africa.
We are at the beginning of 12 days of navigation that will put us alongside in Amsterdam no earlier than November 9.
Europe! Here we come!
We are churning directly west in the Bight of Benin, 115 miles off the Nigerian coast. Ship coordinates: 3 degrees, 46 minutes North and 3 degrees, 55.8 minutes East.
It is sea legs time aboard the Repubblica di Genova. The ship is rolling. Very strong winds out of the southwest.
Was it to be a shower or a bath this morning?
When I awoke at seven it was clearly going to be a bath; then the rolls subsided somewhat and it turned out to be a shower, but a very dicey one.
I don't believe I have given the chief engineer his due.
First, he is Sicilian. A rather short, round-ballish, chunky Sicilian.
The distinction is important. I have surmised that the emotional facial contortions and uncontrollable arm and hand movements during speech that I have always associated with all people from all Italian regions are more likely to be produced by Sicilians.
For example, Il Comandante. He takes a back seat to no Italian man when the subject is machine gun-quick, eyes, piercing, intense spoken Italian. But, he doesn't flail his arms nor turn his hands into roving, rotating expressers of dramatic emotion. The expression on his face remains stable.
This is what I propose for the chief engineer: I get him a guest gig on The Sopranos. Then his hand-darting, expression-changing manner of speaking could be appreciated by millions
He doesn't speak much English, so this is how I would put him in the production mix: He'll be a restaurant owner, having a discussion in Italian with Tony, or one of the main characters. There is no way he could one of the made-man bad guys. He would be incapable of projecting evil in a convincing way. He is too open and benign a man.
I passed up dinner last evening, probably a mistake: Sunday and Thursday are the calcium dinners on the ship.
After fruit, cheese is also placed on clean plates by Luigi. Ice cream, served in a proper metal ice cream dish, follows.
Cheese and ice cream at the same dinner? What is this?
It's a tradition.
It is as if the great executive chef in the sky decrees: "You will now ingest your calcium needs for the next few days. Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam!"
From cheese and ice cream to fruit juice: When I delineated in earlier reports familiar items I hadn't been exposed to aboard ship (newspapers, TV, women, etc) one was fruit juice. Luigi now makes certain that my refrigerator is stocked with juice. Presently orange and apple.
The power of the written word!
Winding down.
I suspect few people alive have taken a 10 day ocean voyage during which no land is touched. Yet for some crewmen of the Repubblica di Genova - and me - this is the beginning of the wind down of a very long voyage.
This is my 35th day of living the faux life of a merchant seaman plying the African trade. I am the current reigning Walter Mitty, the George Plimpton, of the international maritime industry and very proud of it.
But, it is coming to a close.
This morning, Il Comandante entered the remainder of my photos into the laptop. A total of 120, mas o menos
As he was leaving my cabin, he picked up one of the necklaces he had so patiently and expertly selected in the Douala Flower Market. "I should have bought one of these myself."
"Yes," I replied "but you'll be back."
There are four classes of working persons aboard this ship: officers; navigation and mechanical; and seaman. All performing various, well-defined deck, engine and kitchen/dining/cleaning functions. Then there are the three cadets.
Alex is the cadet who works with, and is mentored by, Joey. He is the previously mentioned 19-year-old who wants to work cruise ships after he passes his Italian Coast Guard examination for 3rd mate. Alex is of medium height, wavy long hair, with a shy smile and manner. He wants to work as an officer within the Carnival cruise empire.
When he comes aboard for his first 3rd mate cruise ship job, the Canadian girls in the cruise department will have cat fights over him. He is a handsome lad.
"It has been my dream since I was 5 years old," was his answer as how he got to be a 1,500 Euro ($1,900 US) a month cadet aboard IC's ship. He grew up on the Italian Island of Ischia, near Capri, in the Bay of Naples. He entered nautical school on his home island when he was 14. Now graduated and a deck cadet, he began working on ships as a ferry deck boy. He has been aboard the Repubblica di Genova for "five or six months." After working as a merchant ship cadet for a total of 18 months, he will be eligible to take the exam which, if he passes, will provide the first step on the ladder to a successful career at sea.
Cadets dine with the 2nd and 3rd mates in the officer's dining room. Seamen have a dining room at the opposite end of the kitchen. In it, the tables and seats are bolted to the floor. They have their own steward, a young man who could be described as an apprentice to Luigi.
The seamen enjoy a raucous time at meals; we can hear them in the officers dining room.
I stop by occasionally after my meal to briefly hang out with them.
The first time, I was surprised that they are provided beer and wine at the midday meal. I guess it's a case of what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Like the officers, the seamen's lounge fronts the dining room. They, however, use their's much more than the officers, who congregate only at meals.
I have now been aboard ship for a portion of three different calendar months. It has been 40 days since lifting off from Virginia's Dulles Airport to Europe.
So far, Dolphins have seemed allergic to me.
Today displays a gorgeous, wispy-clouded, light blue sky and a royal-to-navy-blue ocean. The sea is a dash more active than calm, but the swells are very manageable for us seagoing men aboard the Repubblica di Genova.
I climbed the outdoor stairs to the unsheltered bridge on the starboard side.
I stared about, taking in the majesty of the Atlantic Ocean this idyllic sea day.
I entered the bridge.
"Have you been watching the dolphins?" Il Comandante asked.
I had not seen a sign of one.
He and I went outside to the port side and scanned the rolling water together.
"They have been leaping with the ship swells," IC said.
No dolphins a leaping (nor maids a milking) for me.
Our course has altered from straight west to northwest, as we swing around the western bulge of the African continent. We are off shore from Liberia. Our coordinates are N 04 degrees, 28.7 minutes, W 008 degrees, 55.7 minutes.
The focus of my life has sharply changed. For over a month, the focus has been getting along on this ship, visas and African ports of call. Now it is the rest of the quest for 100 countries and detached jurisdictions stepped upon, to complete my eligibility for membership in the Traveler's Century Club.
The ship was late leaving Europe. Obviously, that put us behind schedule. Despite dropping two ports of call in Africa, the days bobbing in the bath tub of Luanda Bay further exacerbated our tardiness.
When Jeanne learned our ETA in Amsterdam, after the ship pushed away from the dock in Douala, she set about to change our return tickets from Venice. The ransom demand from Austrian Airlines was over $1,000. Sorry, Mien Herr, we'll have to stay in your prison equivalent: A loss of four needed days of Balkans-bopping.
The Balkans plus Romania are where the cruising-thru-100.com master plan dictates I pick up the remaining five nations, to bang through (or thru, if you wish) 100.
This morning I learned that the airline taking Jeanne to Hamburg wants $500. To change her ticket and is forcing her to drive a 150 round trip to Dulles Airport today to do it. The drive would do a super job of rubbing salt, gravel and finely ground pieces of beer bottle bottoms into the wound.
What to do?
What to do?
But wait: I am a virgin South Atlantic dolphin witness no more. This afternoon, while on the bridge and looking out beyond our bow, I saw unnatural breaks in the waves. Binoculars validated my perception.
On came a small school of the sea-scooting mammals.
Those of us on the bridge rushed to the outdoor port section of the bridge
Up to the ship came the dolphins, leaping above the waves like Alaskan Salmon fighting the dams and currents to return to the place in the river where they were spawned.
I saw one dolphin leap in front of the bow.
The dolphins playing with the Repubblica di Genova were, to my eye, small. About the size of a sail fish. They were a far cry from the ones I have seen in movies and on television.
From my vantage point, it was impossible to determine if they could speak English, or any other common tongue.
Back to the sometimes harsh, sometimes more pleasant realities of travel.
Ms. Armelle Petetin, the young African specialist for Grimaldi in London and one of the gang of four out on the town in Douala Saturday evening (and Sunday morning), offered to determine if I could box-up and ship home books and other weighty items from the Grimaldi office in Hamburg - rather than drag them around on Balkan trains and buses. I'll bet that she already knows the answer.
Saturday evening I learned she spent more than a year in Michigan, split between a town 15 miles from Rochester, where Granny lives, and Eastern Michigan University.
At this moment, I wish Grimaldi were in the airline and hotel businesses.
They are such nice folks.
The squadron attacked our starboard side at an angle to the bow, like PT boats in the big war.
It was early afternoon, I happened to be walking the horseshoe of my stern deck from port to starboard.
There they were, coming at us: twenty or so in formation.
They had heard the ship and were coming to play with us.
They were leaping, diving, darting about in the water, up close beside the ship.
They had come to entertain us.
Dolphins were with us again.
"When I see them I am like a child" Damian said to me after I climbed to the bridge.
"They are so free.”
“They should always be free, never put in-how you say-aquarium for people make money.”
“Never!"
Dolphins excite the crew, no matter how many African voyages, how many sightings. These sleek aquatic mammals bring life to the endless waves of the South Atlantic.
Who could be blasé about that?
A couple of days ago, I held a different kind of sea race in my head.
Four miles off our port side (which is practically encroachment in the open Atlantic) and far ahead was a ship on our exact course.
Damian had first spotted smoke from its engines that day before, when it was 24 miles ahead.
I watched the parallel ship on and off for five hours.
In my head, it was the race of the turtles.
Our competitor was long, 332 meters (1089 ft by my calculations-akin to the thousand footers we used to watch on the St. Clair River). It was a crude oil tanker, fully loaded with a 95 foot draft. She was the Ascona, scheduled to arrive in the United States the same day as Jeanne and I, November 17.
It is going to Galveston, we, of course, to Virginia.
The race?
We won; it was inevitable. The Ascona was a slowpoke, proceeding along at 14 knots. We were zipping through the waves at our usual 16 knots.
No race today, but we might be exceeding the speed limit: 17.5 knots. We have a tale current pushing us: Same power, more speed.
We are 65 miles off the coast of Sierra Leone, not far from Freetown. Our coordinates are latitude N 07 degrees, 55 minutes, longitude W 014 degrees, 15 minutes.
The crew wake up call is 7:30; they are at work by 8 o'clock.
As anyone who has owned even the smallest of boats knows, maintenance is ongoing on anything that floats.
This morning from the bridge, Adrian and I watched as the seamen, under the direction of the Boatswain, cleaned debris out of the holes in the deck which enable the lowest level of containers to be locked in place.
We have a few empty containers on the deck being returned to Europe. However, perhaps 60% of the deck space is bare, enabling the maintenance being carried out today - a bright and beautiful one in the Atlantic.
Adrian stressed the importance of firmly locked-down, on-deck containers; which brought him to the subject of rough weather and its impact on ships at sea.
On one of his container ship voyages, the vessel was returning empty (and light) in very bad seas. "It was the first time I was on a ship on a zigzag course (trying to avoid the larger swells.) It was rolling 5-6 degrees... terrible."
Then the subject turned to seasickness (yes, on that voyage even experienced seamen were ill).
This morning I awoke early thinking about the type of people who should not, as a lonely stranger, walk onto the Repubblica di Genova, as I did.
No one who has ever had a touch of seasickness should try it.
Do not apply for this gig.
It is also not for a person likely in need of health or dental care of any kind.
I often see people in airports and cruise ship terminals carrying their bed pillow from home. I don't think such a person should try signing on to spend 45 days with, and controlled by, complete strangers on a floating island, without any of the accustomed comforts of home.
Those folks might need their mommies, and a mommy doesn't come with a long cargo ship voyage.
This is my sixth Friday living aboard the Repubblica di Genova
I walked onto the bridge and was startled by the noise. Joey had turned on the CB radio and tuned it to the Dakar harbor channel. We are 90 miles south of Dakar and won't be pulling into the harbor this time.
Junk vehicles only go one way: South.
The raw materials we are currently conveying only go one way: North.
Our coordinates are: 13° 11´ N, 17° 46.5´ W.
Luigi is asleep with a headache according to Salvatore, who should know.
Having witnessed his work ethic for these many days, Luigi must be ill; clearly not good news for the officers and passenger of the Repubblica di Genova.
Somebody is watching:
"THIS IS SO EXCITING!!!" Jeanne announced in her cover to the forward of a "Contact Gary" email. It was from a stranger, one in Melbourne, Australia no less. Dave is a "bit of a cruise nut", recovering from four surgeries to repair a smashed elbow and wrist, "and I have to tell you that finding your blog tonight Melbourne time was one of the better things that have crossed my path recently!"
According to Dave, someone has posted our link on the cruisereviews.com site.
Bruce, who, I assume lives in the U. S., also wrote: "I just finished reading your entire travel log in one sitting." Wow, Bruce, thanks! He would like to try a freighter trip but "The wife does like her comforts." He sticks to Holland America. "Surely he doesn't mean his accommodations," you have just muttered.
Yes, yes, chisel it in stone: Cult of the Armchair Travelers (CAT) is catching on. My dream is coming true, be certain of it.
This period, from the time I first approached the little reception desk at the Hotel Adornes to this moment, has been the most luxurious of my three score and ten plus.
I have had the luxury of focusing intensely on writing this travel piece and nothing else. There were no distractions, no vehicles to drive, no chores to perform, no important matters to focus on other than observing, scratching some notes, forming the pieces in my head and then each day attacking my laptop.
As luxurious as it has been to write, it pales when compared with the luxury of my pieces being edited, magically placed somewhere in the sky and published, ready to be read by persons known and unknown. All of this luxury heaped down upon me within 24 hours of the completion of my daily offering.
At the cabin in Jewell Hollow, I have great plastic containers jammed with my words: books both completed and abandoned, travel pieces, an incomplete autobiography, Memoirs of a Nobody.
Everything, all of it, unpublished.
Now I am published each and every day; incredible! For this sublime privilege, the ultimate luxury, I thank the three persons who made it possible: my editor and friend of 40 years, Tom Sand, in Minnesota; my webmaster, personal trainer and new friend, Allan Comer, in Rappahannock County, Virginia; My dear wife, Jeanne in Jewell Hollow, who is managing it all. Without her unstinting encouragement and push-out-the-door-of-the-car at Dulles Airport, I wouldn't have had the guts to walk into that tiny elevator, in the rear-end of a strange ship in a Northern European harbor.
And it's not over.
The warm days of African Atlantic sun will soon pass away to the late autumn cold of the north of Europe. Il Comandante told me that the Canary Islands will be the line of demarcation.
After lunch, on my deck absorbing the comfortable rays of the sun, I moved to the port railing.
I stood and studied.
Below, the bow was slicing through the rich, blue, benignly Caribbeanesque Atlantic. The thrusting bow created waves of snow-colored foam. Behind the bow, in rapidly changing kaleidoscopic patterns, the water was the palest, faintest, light greenish-blue; a mixture of the foam and the blue of the ocean, undisturbed.
The scene was mesmerizingly tranquil and calm; a moment of beauty.
I am going to give you a business school management case study worthy of The University of Michigan graduate business school:
You are the manager of at least 30 employees. One day, 1/3 of them retire, including several very key members of your staff.
Replacements will walk in as the retired employees walk out the door.
You have never, however, met the replacement employees.
Obviously, you didn't interview them to determine if they would fit into your business culture.
Further, the new employees will live with you, in the place where you and all your employees live and work.
Given, the new employees are accredited and assumed capable of carrying out their assigned duties. How do you, as general manager of the business, successfully integrate the new employees into your living and working cultures… and quickly?
The business is a roving one, and it will be on its way in 12 hours.
This is the task facing Il Comandante and primo Adrian in north Europe.
The employment contracts have expired for a third of Repubblica di Genova crew members.
Goodbye and Good Luck!
"What does he want," I asked Damian.
"He wants you to interview him," came the reply.
I didn't need another deck cadet interview.
"He has interesting story.. He is from Brazil. His mother gave him up. He lived in-how you say-special place for boys." "Orphanage?" "Yes, orphanage."
Well, maybe I do need another deck cadet interview.
I interviewed Emerson. He speaks no English beyond: "How you?" The quotes will be those of Damian, who translated Italian to English.
Emerson lived in an orphanage until he was nine years old. He is now 23.
Conditions were brutal.
"They beat him everyday."
At this point, Emerson removed a shoe and sock to show me the scars.
One day, as the fairy tales begin, an Italian couple came to the orphanage, in Manaus Brazil, in search of a child to adopt.
They had pre-selected Emerson from photos sent them.
The director came to Emerson and asked if he wanted to go out for a while with the couple.
"He didn't want to go, because he afraid they take him away from other boys."
Eventually, he did go into the town with the Italian couple; they got along.
The couple stayed for three months in Manaus, dealing with the legal requirements of the adoption
Emerson returned with his new parents to Palermo.
"They gave him total love… material things… money… everything."
At age 18 Emerson developed stomach cancer.
"Probably from food in Brazil," Damian decided on his own.
The young man was in a coma for 30 days.
During that entire time, at least one of his adoptive parents stayed with him in the hospital at all times.
He finally came out of the coma.
Specialists were brought in from various regions of Italy.
As least one surgery was performed.
Again a demonstration by Emerson, this time of the long surgical scar.
Emerson was speaking passionately. As I watched Damian, waiting for some English, I saw his eyes moisten. "He says that he would lay down his life for his mother and father, he would die for them." Now, there wasn't a dry eye on the bridge, where the three of us were gathered.
Emerson showed me a photo of the three of them.
He clasped it to his chest, arms crossed.
"He wants to be a captain. He won't have any problem, after all he's been through," Damian summed up
Damian and I have developed a grandfather-grandson relationship.
After the interview, Emerson took photos of us with Damian's camera. Damian put on his braided officer insignia for the occasion.
After approving the photos, he said: "Mr. Frink, I am going to put these in my computer and keep there forever."
He told me he will write once a year.
"You know, so you can follow my career."
I will put money on it that he does.
The African weather has broken.
The calm Caribbeanesque waters of yesterday are gone, probably for good.
Today, looking out my porthole, I see whitecaps.
We are facing a strong wind out of the north.
I just did a repeat trip to the bridge to double check: we are plowing ahead at our normal 16 knots, in spite of the wind.
We are 75 miles off the coast of Mauritania at 19° 31´ N, 17° 53´ W.
The Canary Islands are still far north of our position in the Atlantic Ocean, now acting like a normal Atlantic Ocean.
While on the bridge, I spotted a boxy ship on our starboard, off the bow; it is so box-like that at first I took it for a cruise ship going north.
In fact, it is a car carrier heading south, to Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Her name will tell you all you need to know about the origin of the cars aboard: Hual Seoul.
For those following carefully the events aboard the Repubblica di Genova, Luigi is back on the job. He mimed to me this morning that a pill took care of everything.
Today is my day for clean sheets and towels.
When Luigi wants in my cabin he simply sticks out his right hand, palm up. I give him the key.
Of late, Il Comandante has been reminiscing about his navigation days before roll-on, roll-off and cargo containers.
Back in the days of bulk carriers and general cargo, ships couldn't be unloaded and reloaded in 12 hours to two days.
"I remember taking a load of coke to Milwaukee. We were there five days unloading."
Some times the stays in port were longer. He has told me about the long stays in Duluth, when the ship took on wheat for the Soviet Union. The crewmen would cover each other watches so that they could have prolonged time ashore.
This allowed them time to learn local customs and to get to know the gentry ashore, particularly the young women.
"In those days we would stay on the ship a year. We would be at sea five months with seven months in port.
Now! It is impossible!
The men never get off the ship. Now, four, six months maximum on board."
A moment ago, I heard a knock on my door. I ignored it, because every time the Boatswain knocks for permission to enter Il Comandante's office, he whacks the door so hard I believe it is a knock on my door.
I would get up from my desk, open the door and see the Boatswain standing, waiting.
This time a second knock and I answered. There stood Primo Adrian in his blue Grimaldi coveralls, life preserver, and white plastic safety helmet. "We are having a drill. You do not need to participate."
Then the piercing alarm bells sounded.
Last time, the alarm jolted me out of my seat; then Joey knocked.
A couple of days ago, I walked around the ship to the bridge, ship office and the kitchen looking for Damian. The malaria pills had not yet been put out in the officer's lounge; I did not find Damian, but the pills were in place by noon.
After this weekly pill, it is my duty to take three more. Malaria has me spooked.
I awoke this morning (rocky-rolly shower and shampoo) thinking about the virtually miraculous fact that, to my knowledge, no one aboard has been ill during my 39 days living on this ship (with the exception of Luigi's headache).
My normal morning first stop out of my cabin is the ship office, in search of incoming emails.
Jeanne has a serious case of stomach flu, I learned from her understandably short note. There must be an irony in the reversal of our health conditions, one might well expect or project.
Last Saturday was my Paul Newman haircut, spending spree in the flower market and gala night out on the town in Douala, with the charming Armelle, sensual Clair and Grimaldi's man in Cameroon, Francois.
I cannot resist the cliché: My, how time flies!
