At Sea, Week 4 - Forty-Two Day Sea Journey to West Africa
It is Sunday morning. I slept late. Two days of gallivanting about on land, followed by a gala shipboard birthday party, have slowed me.
Again today, we almost took the two hour roundtrip drive to the craft market. Il Comandante's wife called from Italy and scolded him about his failure to purchase a number of items on her list.
"The car will be here in 30 minutes. Do you want to go with me?" he asked. I thought of declining, but never! Miss an adventure? Impossible. I signed on.
Car and driver failed to appear, so the repeat into-the-far-reaches-of-Luanda-province shopping expedition didn't materialize.
Adrian has not taken nourishment at IC's table since our arrival in port. It is his responsibility to oversee the unloading and reloading of the vessel.
As we left the ship yesterday, I asked him how much sleep he had accumulated since we docked Thursday evening. He shook his head and uttered something incomprehensible. The meaning was clear: not enough to discuss. His fatigue even then, 24 hours ago, was apparent.
"Captain, how are you going to get the containers off the deck," I asked Friday morning.
Astute followers of my seaborne adventures have already come to the following logical deduction: If the Repubblic di Genova was backed into the dock, its bow is pointing back toward Luanda Bay. The ship is, therefore, perpendicular to the dock and not alongside. If not alongside, cranes can't be used to pick up the containers on the deck and deposit them ashore.
"We use big fork lifts to pick them up, put them on trailers, and then drive them off. Remember, these are 40 foot containers we are dealing with," he said in explanation.
I have been watching the deck activity day and night from my porthole. What a ballet! The short-cabbed trucks, pulling 40 plus foot trailers drive onto the steel stern ramp, drive through much of the garage, then up a ramp to the deck; there, they must tightly turn around on the narrow deck and await a container; when it is placed, down the deck ramp the container and rig scoot.
Adrian, the 1st mate -"Primo" in ship Italian- was still working on the bow deck after IC's birthday party and was there when I awoke this morning.
It is almost enough to make one feel a sense of guilt.
Almost.
The birthday party was held in the large passenger's lounge with the long dining table and was conducted in English. Our shore guests spoke Portuguese and English, Il Comandante speaks Italian and English; then there is, of course, the passenger.
Just before the guests arrived, the chief engineer went to his cabin and returned with rank braid attached to his epaulets. "Oh, so this is going to be a formal party, is it?" I returned to my cabin and changed trousers to black and put on a grey, silk Chinese cheap-ee jacket I travel with.
IC's reserve Italian red and white was poured, the anti-pasto was proscuitto, marinated peppers and much more. Next delicate, garlicky spaghetti, followed by shrimp cooked in the shells, followed by a delicious stuffed squid.
Il Comandante again insisted that Salvatore try again to make Jeanne's apple pie. This time a somewhat deep pan was found, and though there was no top crust (therefore it was a tort) there were more apples and the crust he did bake was tasty.
Then the conversation turned to Jeanne coming aboard in Northern Europe. "If she comes, I promise you she will make you an apple pie and a lemon meringue too," I told Il Comandante.
"No, we couldn't have that. She can't come aboard for a short time and be put to work," IC said.
"It would be her pleasure," I assured him.
Early on during the dinner, IC proclaimed to the shore guests that I was a very young man. "I have known 18 year olds who were older than Mr. Frink," he said.
What can I say? We are becoming almost pals. Friday after our excursion to Miami Beach and other stops, he loaded photos from my camera into my laptop, AND went down to the office and emailed off my dispatch for the day.
Mr. Santos, the Brazilian Managing Director of all Grimaldi activities in Angola, has been in the commercial side of the maritime business for 40 of his 54 years; he began as an office boy.
He was interested in U.S. politics and President Bush and curious about my opinion on the outcome of the November 7 elections (when I plan to be here, aboard the Repubblica di Genova, as usual).
Mrs. Lima, wife of the Grimaldi general manager, works for Total, the French petro company and the employer of the American I met at the market. Total has over 1,100 employees in Angola.
Chevron-Texaco has been in Angola for over 25 years, right through the cold war-sponsored Angolan civil war. With the war recently over, Angola is booming, but that is a subject for another dispatch.
Third Mate Damian just walked into my cabin and asked for my Angolan shore pass. Angola Immigration officials on board demanded its return.
It would have been a life-long souvenir, written as it was in flowing, classical hand writing; more important was its substance. Returning to his cabin after meeting with the immigration officials, Il Comandante said: "I tried to get them to stamp your passport, but no. You didn't have an incoming visa, so they would not stamp your passport."
Half way through his door, Il Comandante ducked his head back through my door jam: "Africa."
I have spent the last hour and a half watching us "Go!"
First, the giant rear ramp is slowly, very slowly pulled up until it bends in the middle, halving its length as it doubles up. Then the doubled-up unit is pulled erect and tightly into the ship's superstructure, forming the stern of the ship and tucking in the garage.
I went to the deck below; there, the giant spools were taking in the thick cables as the garage ramp was hoisted. The creepy creaks of the oily cables, as they wound their way onto the spools unnerved me. I climbed back to my deck.
We were away from the dock at 10 A.M. We were assisted by two tugs: The Kuanza, the national currency of Angola and a Christmas-time fiesta observed by some in the U.S., and the Alpena, the name of a Lake Huron town in Michigan.
I heard the American captain of the Alpena on the bridge CB radio while we were in the bay. The repeated reference to a town I know puzzled me. Puzzle now solved.
There was a pilot aboard our ship. His ebony skin was in sharp contrast to his crisp, white officer's shirt. A pilot was not needed, for the Repubblica di Genova propelled itself in a direct line into the bay and out. After the pilot left us to board the pilot boat, I climbed up to the outside of the bridge on the port side.
I stood there, wind blowing through my hair and observed us sliding by the spit of sand, where I watched the Ferris wheel lights at night as we lay at anchor. Of course, facing the Atlantic and therefore unseen by me, was the Miami Beach Bar Restaurant. I know I have begun to make it famous far beyond the shores of Angola. I waved extensively.
After we made our way through the many ships waiting to enter the Port of Luanda, there was nothing ahead but sea and skyline.
I returned to my cabin and laptop.
Hello World!
Spread the word!
My shipmates and I are headed north. Back to Europe.
I don't wish to sound as if I were eager to leave Angola; I was not. I enjoyed my two days ashore there. In fact, I was very lucky to be allowed off the ship.
It was not hot in Angola. It was pleasantly warm, but I encountered no temperatures that could be described as hot. This is spring time below the Equator. That fact probably explains the delightfully pleasant weather we enjoyed at anchor and in Luanda.
At the end of Il Comandante's birthday party Mr. Santos said: "You were the first passenger that Immigration allowed off a ship (without a visa.) I kept telling them, if a passenger just gets off and buys one Fanta, it is to the advantage of the Angolan economy."
Mr. Santos can firmly assert to Immigration, the next time he pops in for an espresso, that I spent enough dollars in Luanda to buy many cases of Fanta.
"You are a pioneer," Mr. Lima chimed in.
I smiled; a pioneer!
More than half of my epic journey is now over.
Next, we "navigate" (as opposed to "sail") two days to Douala, Cameroon; there, the wait for a berth is dependent on the tide and, therefore, never more than 12 hours long.
I arose this morning rested and chipper. I lazed around the ship yesterday. I did little beyond writing one dispatch and reading some Don Quixote. After two days of terra firma adventures, plus IC's birthday party, it was enough.
I also arose early. I knew that we would soon be under way to Douala. This morning, then, would be the last time I could shower and wash my hair for a couple of days without the pitching and rolling of the Atlantic. The bathroom in my cabin is ample. It contains a good sized basin and a bidet, in which my toilet kit is placed.
The tub is the high-sided old English style, sure to be replaced when the Repubblica di Genova is interiorly redone in dry-dock. The shower is one of those portable metal gooseneck-hose affairs, which I place in a clamp for a normal, American stationary shower.
The problem is the bathtub: The safety holds are installed to serve those taking baths not showers. When my 6 foot, two inch body stands to shower it has nothing to grasp. When my shower occurs when the ship is at sea, I have to lean myself firmly against the wall above the tub to remain standing. One quick ship roll to port and I'm gone. Sprawled over the bidet and toilet stool. It made sense to me to wash my hair in the shower before we got underway today.
To conclude the subject of hygiene: Haircuts: Crewmen are on this ship for months at a time. Hair grows. There is at least one crew member who gives haircuts, but they are of the buzz, buzz variety. Even Il Comandante has been puzzled.
I, on the other hand, am not going to remain aboard this vessel for many months. Yet, after a month aboard I need a haircut.
What to do? I don't have the answer.
I do know I do not want to arrive in Northern Europe buzzed.
Il Comandante, during one evening meal, mentioned in Italian to the Chief Engineer that I have probably eaten more pasta aboard than I had during the rest of my life. IC was right, of course.
Octopus was the fish course at lunch today. Octopus goes - ker-plunk - into the same category as pasta. Today, it was boiled with a garlic tomato sauce. Usually it is marinated and placed in among some boiled potatoes, olives (green and black) and long tasty peppers, to make a salad.
One of my readers and a colleague wrote me through "Contact Gary" and essentially said that everything in my adventure struck him as dandy. But for him it was, “No Thanks to Octopus”
The mid-day meal was different today: It was the first time since Thursday that Primo Adrian dined at Il Comandante's table. After Luigi had cleared the fruit plates and the others had gone their ways, Adrian and I talked a while. He said: "You have made good relations with the crewmembers." I replied: "Adrian, when I came aboard this ship I knew that I was a prisoner. I was totally dependent on them. I was determined my jailers would befriend me."
I guess that would be called the Patty Hearst Syndrome.
Then we discussed my evolving relationship with Il Comandante.
I received a "Contact Gary" email today from a dear friend and former neighbor on the St. Clair River. She said she had only begun to read cuisin-thru-100.com and already felt like a "stowaway."
Wonderful! What a great reaction. I hope she will share the web address with others; I hope you all will. Let's start the Cult of the Armchair Travelers (CAT).
I'll do the travelin' and writin' and y'all do the reading.
Disaster has befallen the Repubblica di Genova.
For two days I suffered in silence. Yesterday, I was forced to take matters into my own hands. Before dinner, I alerted the chief engineer and first engineer to the crisis. Then, to sledge-hammer the nail and embed it deeply, at the end of dinner I proclaimed to Il Comandante: "You know, Captain, the ice machine is broken. Americans can't live without ice."
He was genuinely surprised and concerned and barked orders to our engineering dining table companions.
Then to me: "We will attempt to fix it tomorrow, but if not we have other sources."
This was news to me, the poor fellow who had suffered through two consecutive cocktail hours without ice.
The morning arrived. I showered (very calm seas, not the hint of a lurch), prepared the remainder of my toilet and, as usual, hopped down the interior stair well to the next deck and the ship office seeking e-mails.
Next stop, the lounge that fronts the officer's dining room and its anteroom kitchenette for coffee.
Luigi popped out of nowhere, poured my coffee and lead me into the hotel-sized kitchen. Salvatore greeted me with a happy: "Hello Gary" (he is the only person on the ship who calls me by my given name). He had prepared leaden-dough sweet rolls, each covered with sugar with a dollop of yellow goo on top. Something sugary and sweet…Yes!
I returned to the lounge, leaden-dough sweet roll and coffee in hand. While reading Jeanne's email, along came the 1st engineer and his cadet assistant.
They didn't notice me.
They went behind he buffet line adjacent to the kitchen to the back of ice machine (giving the 1st engineer, eating machine that he is, the opportunity to grab one of the leaden-dough sweet rolls which, of course, he did.) While munching, he ordered his cadet to pull out the ice machine.
As the 1st engineer examined the machine, the chief engineer arrived. Now the two chief technical officers on this ship crouch down, each holding a flash light in full bloom, to find the cause of my lack of ice.
When the good-natured chief engineer spotted me, he growled something in Italian.
The other two did not laugh.
I figured it was time to take my leave and head to the bridge for my daily report.
It is well known around the world that Americans cannot live without ice.
That is a fact.
Now the question is: How many Italians and Romanians does it take to diagnose and repair an ice machine?
The answer to that important question is unknown at this time.
The ship is off the coast of Gabon, reversing the same straight line course that got us here.
We are proceeding at our usual 16 knots into a cloudy horizon.
Late in the evening I peered out my porthole. In front on the port side I saw a huge glow in the sky.
What was it, a ship afire?
I scurried up the stair well to the bridge, opened the door and to my surprise touched a heavy curtain; it was dark. I was startled. Joey said something and I got my bearings. "What is that glow on the port," I asked. "An oil well, they are all over here," Joey replied.
After returning to my cabin I realized the obvious: The bridge has to be kept totally dark at night, so that those on watch can see the running lights of even the smallest vessel that might wander into the path of the Repubblica di Genova.
This morning while on the bridge, I looked at the chart. There are tens upon tens of Angolan, and beyond, Atlantic Ocean oil wells charted. The flames I saw must have been an oil drilling rig flaring off natural gas.
I spend as much time on my deck as possible; yes, my deck. I am the only passenger on this ship and deck 13 is my deck.
Each afternoon I take the dirty white plastic chair from one of the work rooms and place it near midship, against the back railing of my deck. I sit in the sun.
I look left. I look right. I see only ocean and sky.
I look ahead and I see the top roof of the bridge.
This is my ship. No one disturbs me on my ship. Il Comandante and the rest of the crew work only for me.
For example: The ice machine has been repaired and is again producing cocktail hour ice.
A few minutes ago, as I sat on my deck, three of my crewmen were washing down my bridge deck, swabbing the deck they call it in the ship biz.
At this moment, Salvatore is down in the galley preparing my dinner.
Luigi is cleaning up the area and preparing to serve my dinner.
In St. Maartin at Christmas time Jeanne, Sister Jane, Rummy and Murph and I encountered billionaire Paul Allen's billionaire kind of boat. It was sleek, new, all rounded and curvy and well over 100 feet. Well, Mr. Billionaire Bigshot, my ship is 650 feet long, and 100 feet wide in the stern which, by the way, goes up and down every time I have my ship come to dock.
How many crew members do you have on your boat, Mr. Billionaire? My ship has 37 crew members, all here to serve me.
How much you to pay your crew and how much does it cost you to stop by the gas station and fill up? How much does it cost you to run your boat, Mr. Billionaire?
Well, try this on for size: The nice Grimaldi family, in Napoli, pays for everything on my ship. I just roll with the waves.
In my head I can hear a train conductor singing out: "Douala, Douala next stop, Douala."
We are scheduled to be in port a couple of days, but one never knows.
The plan is to take on 8,000 tons of expensive African hard wood timber, mahogany and such, to deliver to Northern Europe. We will also find room for many containers filled with African cocoa beans.
The destinations for the cargo, and placement of that cargo within the ship, will determine where we port first in Europe.
I have heard that much of the timber is destined for England; if that load is placed to be extracted from the ship first, then first to Tilburg we will go. (On the Thames, practically to London.)
If the load is placed for Amsterdam first, then it's Amsterdam first.
I have heard nothing about Hamburg.
All of this is maddening for Jeanne. She is trying to rearrange her travel plans to meet the ship wherever it first pulls along side Europe.
We will all know the first European port when the Repubblica di Genova begins its journey north again, after its stop in Douala.
I have already had one person sign up for the Cult of the Armchair Travelers (CAT). Okay, it was Jeanne.
Regardless, I believe we have an international movement going here.
We know we are being read in Napoli, Italy. Grimaldi man, Mr. Isler, who put this voyage together for me, emailed me that fact.
Maybe the Texan family in Angola I met is reading; I gave them the address, or Mr. Santos.
Adrian has emailed his wife the cruising-thru-100.com address. We are now being read in Romania.
They are probably still taking a peak at the Adornes Hotel in Brugge.
Maybe Alvin Tong has some friends in China who might be interested in reading and joining. I hope so. I like China.
If our St. Clair river friend sends it to her daughter in Australia and she takes a look, that would give us an entirely new continent.
This baby is on the move.
I bolted upright.
I was in bed reading Don Quixote and I couldn't believe what I had just calculated. I have been living on the Repubblica di Genova for four full weeks.
We are proceeding through the Bight of Biafra at our usual 16 knots. After getting our position from Joey in the enclosed portion of the bridge, I stood for a while on the starboard side outside. It is hot: 93° F. "Joey, why is it so much warmer here than in Angola," I asked. He took me to the chart and pointed at a parallel line. "We are nearer the Equator. Look. We passed across it at midnight."
When Joey checked for me one day while we were anchored in Luanda Bay the temp was 82.4° F.
"When do you re-provision the ship", I asked Il Comandante this morning. "We fully provision in Europe; it depends where we are. For example, if we are in Antwerp on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, forget it. We buy wherever we are during the rest of the week. Now, in Douala, because it is cheaper and because they are better organized than in other African ports, we buy fresh vegetables, tropical fruit and fresh fish."
"What about meat?"
"In Africa, never, IC replied firmly. “We buy our meat in Northern Europe."
There is not a single Grimaldi employee aboard this ship.
All crew members, Il Comandante on down, are contracted by the company for various monthly periods; some five, six, some more.
Maritime companies worldwide and crew members usually operate through agencies, employment agencies that operate just as they do in the U.S.
For example, the 1st mate who stayed on board until Lisbon (Adrian came aboard as I did, in Antwerp) was Ukrainian. Grimaldi paid for his flight home, through Moscow to his home in the Black Sea port of Odessa. When he decides when he wishes to return to sea duty he'll contact a ship agency in Odessa, pick among the offers from all over the world and sign a contract with the company he chooses. Then the company will direct him to fly to a port and join a ship. Adrian works through one or more Romanian ship agencies. "If the money is the same, I prefer to stay with Grimaldi. I know their methods and customs, so for me it is easier. If the money is higher somewhere else, I must go there," he explained as to how he chooses companies.
Pay can vary with nationality. It is no secret that Italians with Grimaldi are paid more for the same rating and job than nationals from developing countries, including Romania.
It is a free market, supply and demand. One would suppose that if the supply of rated developing country maritime officers should tighten, wages would follow. I might have written before that Grimaldi has a strong tradition that the captain and chief engineer on its ships are Italian (and I might add, the cook).
Damian and I had a conversation this morning. He is a self-assured to the edge of cockiness 3rd mate, the one Il Comandante and Chief Engineer usually jest with inter-table within the dining room. He grew up dirt poor, always working as soon as he was old enough to get a job. His home town, the port city of Brindisi on the heal of Italy, has been inundated with Albanians from across the Adriatic straight of Otranto. The tidal wave of Albanians has caused severe unemployment among Brindisi citizenry, according to Damian; regardless, his father has been unemployed for many of Damian's 26 years.
Damian has street smarts and a knowing twinkle in his eye. Navigation school was his ticket out of poverty. He first wanted to be an aviation pilot but couldn't pass the physical exam. Now, his is a life at sea. While he wants to work his way to captain, he at the same time would like to work ashore "if the money were as good", but it never is.
It is the high pay that keeps the men of the Repubblica di Genova (and I assume all merchant seamen) enduring the hardship of this life at sea. Away from their families and the normal interaction with lovers, friends and neighbors. "It takes discipline to live four to six months at a time with strangers,” according to Damian. “You might not like someone, but you have to get along with them. I must not think of girls, beer, parties while I am on board. Discipline, you must have discipline to live this life. The ship is the last monarchy, where the master is king. He can even arrest you, put you in cuffs," sums up Damian.
Would Luigi be my steward if he could make as much money as a waiter, or another marginally-skilled job, at home? Of course not.
If Adrian didn't make during his time at sea each year four or five times the annual wages of his family doctor-wife, would he be aboard? Absolutely not.
As noted before, it is more difficult each time for IC to leave home and family and return to his solitary life at sea.
The second mate left the life at sea to return home and join the generations of his family before him who made their way fishing. "My father does well fishing Monday through Friday. He has a 25 meter boat. My boat was too small. I couldn't make a living. After five years I had to return to this life."
Il Comandante has received his orders for our return ports: Amsterdam, Hamburg and Tilbury, in that order. We'll be in Amsterdam one day. Jeanne can come aboard for the day and the 12 hours navigation to Hamburg. "I hope for her Hamburg is in the day time. It is wonderful, up through the city in the canals, close by children playing, people waving. Wonderful," he said.
If Jeanne were to wish to stay on to Tilbury, there is some question about the availability of my cabin. More technicians are boarding in Europe, according to IC.
Less than an hour to Douala.
"Where it is always raining," said Il Comandante.
A post script: My ship is not 650 feet in length; it is 720. IC informed me of that fact today at lunch.
The Grimaldi folks must read my stuff very carefully.
Damian (Damiano in Italian) walked into the ship office this morning, saw me and broke into a beaming smile. "Mr. Frink, yesterday I went to an internet café; I read what you wrote about me."
"I got it right, didn't I, you growing up, wanting to be an aviation pilot, your quotes?"
“You got my life," he said and beamed again.
I laughed and said: "I've made you famous, Damian."
His radio crackled. "I have got to go. We must move 40 meters. Why? "To make room for another ship," and he was gone.
Moving the Repubblica di Genova a few feet while in port is no small matter.
The steel ramp must be raised, the ship slowly repositioned and another precision ramp lowering accomplished.
It all takes time from the task of taking on cargo.
I watched from my deck. IC was on the bridge for the maneuver.
The junk vehicles are gone, some towed out in lines of five or six by an old Massey Ferguson farm tractor.
Now begins the loading of the many stacks of milk-chocolate-colored lumber stashed along side. They appear to be 2x4s of various lengths. I was told by crew members that we were going to take on logs in Douala. Now, when I see the lumber, I understand the mistranslation into English.
At least Africans got some work at the saw mill. There was a dash of value-added to the exported raw timber.
High-lows will place the stacks on waiting flat bed trailers and the lumber will be driven aboard. Other high-lows will remove the wood from the trailers and place it in various places in the garage, according to a strict plan.
They will distribute the weight of the lumber evenly to keep the ship stable in all weather.
That is a worthy goal.
"I forgot to ask him if it was our time or African time," Il Comandante said while informing me last evening that the ship agent would be aboard at 10 a.m. to take us ashore.
The answer is African time. It is 10:45 and no sign of the agent. "It will probably be after lunch," and IC summed up the subject of going-ashore timing.
In midmorning my phone rang: "Mr. Frink, could you come right away to my office?" It was Il Comandante.
When I entered, he motioned me before him at his desk. He was on the phone. Cross-talking to me he said: "I have bad news." The bad news was that the guys in Cameroon Immigration want to hold me up for $100 to stamp the visa that I paid $100 for in Washington. I would have to pay or I couldn't go ashore.
A shakedown!
"It is up to you," said IC, but he was clearly upset at my being subjected to "mordida", as we say in Spanish.
He made a phone call to Grimaldi in Italy. After the call, he motioned me over and shook my hand firmly. "We have solved the problem." Grimaldi offered to pay the hundred, if necessary. A generous offer.
Francois Peris, the young, London-trained, French national Grimaldi representative in Douala, arrived. He made two phone calls. The matter has apparently been resolved.
But wait!
We learned that the immigration official at the port has been replaced. Today, a big celebration is about to take place after the investiture of his successor.
There will be no stamp upon my passport in the Port of Douala today.
IC planned an elaborate luncheon jointly for the Douala Grimaldi staff and in celebration of the chief engineer's birthday. Six courses - dessert, pastries and Bordeaux red wine.
When Mr. Peris and his staff arrived, there was a call for my passport. "Now?" I asked. Yes, so up the stairs and into my cabin I dash.
"We are going to send your passport to the airport to be stamped there," said Mr. Peris.
"Excellent," I thought to myself. I might yet get off this ship and see a bit of Cameroon.
During the luncheon, which lasted three hours including the time we waited for our shore guests, Il Comandante announced: "Mr. Frink, The airport immigration official was in the port. Your passport was in the airport. At this moment, your passport is in the airport waiting for the return of the airport immigration official."
I, of course, have no idea how this comedic drama will end.
Will I be allowed into Cameroon to spend dollars and bolster the economy, or will I remain on board, conserving my hard earned Yankee dollars?
There was a knock on my door. It was six p.m. I knew it wasn't IC; he phones. I opened the door. There stood Damian, in his royal blue Grimaldi work coveralls with the silver reflector stripes. He handed me my passport. "There it is, Mr. Frink, stamped. The agent brought it. Go out with the Comandante. Don't go alone. It's dangerous." I thanked the young 3rd mate.
Earlier, after the long luncheon, I had stood on my deck watching the lumber-loading activity below. As I pondered, I became genuinely concerned that my passport might be swept up and lost in the Cameroonian- Italian-French vortex it was in. Little frightens a seasoned traveler like the possibility of a lost passport, the loss of freedom of passage, the loss of ones identity. I am relieved to hold in my hand again my own "Gary Richard Frink, U. S. Department of State" signed and sealed passport.
The passport was not stamped at the airport, as I was lead to believe would be the only possibility. It was stamped at the Port of Douala. How this happened, what had to transpire to make it happen, I have no idea; nor do I wish to know.
Africa.
Tomorrow, God and the Cameroonian authorities willing, I am scheduled to be included on a tour of Douala and environs to be conducted by Grimaldi representative Francois Peris and Claire his stunning girl friend (as he described her) for Armelle Petetin; she is a newly married young woman, involved in the West African business of Grimaldi in London. All are French. At lunch, I asked Ms. Petetin what the language of cohesion was for the far-flung Grimaldi floating empire. "English," she answered. Well, if I am along with these three French nationals tomorrow, it will be English or silence from this Jewell Hollow resident.
I skipped dinner this evening. Basta is the word in Italian. It was only four hours from the time the luncheon ended to the beginning of a three course dinner. Can't handle it, gang, just can't handle another full-spread Italian meal.
Last evening, after Luigi had cleared away all remnants of dinner, Il Comandante and I did some tale-spinning. It began with me telling him how much Jeanne and I adore Venice and how much we are looking forward to a couple of days there before our return to Virginia.
He then told me a tale of Venice.
Five years ago, he was captain of a ship that was carrying armaments to Italian military installations in the Venice area. It was December. "Well, you know," he said, "Christmas, New Year, everything closes down in government. So they told us to stay there aboard. Venezia. We stayed on the ship for 35 days, through Christmas and the New Year."
He and the first mate invited their wives to join them; no surprise, they accepted. Christmas passed and it was New Years Eve. A party was planned for the rest of the crew aboard, but Il Comandante, "primo" and their wives had more exciting plans. With champagne bottles and glasses stowed in the ladies large purses, they left the ship and took a launch to St. Mark's Square. To their surprise, when they arrived the giant square already was half filled. To their further surprise, most of reveling couples had wisely stumbled on the same stratagem: Bring your own champagne to the party and avoid paying the confiscatory prices that would be charged on New Years Eve by the cafes that ring the square. Just before midnight, many Venetians, dressed in the traditional costume party regalia of dark capes and masks, joined the St. Mark's throng. "It was a once in a life time experience, I tell you. People with their friends in small groups. Wonderful. We stayed until 3 a.m., and then it took us 45 minutes to find a taxi back to the ship. When we reboarded, we were hungry. We went to the dining room and, how you say-nibbled on the leftover pastries and chocolates from the party.”
"A magical night," IC summed up.
I await my day ashore. I arose early, showered and got dressed in light colored clothing, including the now famous yellow button down that Luigi laundered so expertly.
I don't wish to lure a single Cameroonian mosquito.
Email satellite sends and receipts have been very slow during our stay in the Douala port; I wrote two pieces yesterday, morning and afternoon and they went out together at approximately midnight.
Il Comandante has phoned. The Douala parade is about to begin. My first stop? Francois Peris' barber.
I have, however, become somewhat enchanted with my new Donald Sutherland-very-long-over-the-ears look in the TV series "Commander-in-Chief."
I got a casting call to be his stand-in when the production company was doing some filming in Virginia. But Jeanne, sister Jane and I were about to board the Holland-America Maasdam in Norfolk. Perhaps another time.
Francois drove me past the flower market - where Il Comandante bought his batik and we will visit later in the day - to a broad side street. In the first block, on the right, up the stairs we went into a modern salon.
Goodbye Donald Sutherland! Hello Paul Newman! I have been to the barber. We exchanged two words: "Short?" "No."
So much for that exchange.
I am in Africa, Cameroon, French, colonial Africa, where everything is cheap, dirt cheap-correct?
Wrong!
The haircut, performed by a master barber I will admit, cost me $20. Dig the sign in front of the 20. Those are 20 U. S. dollars.
Francois had prepared me. The local franc here is tied to the Euro.
My new Paul Newman look completed, I preferred being out of doors while waiting for Francois' driver to return me to the ship.
Across the street, on the corner is a very large, foliage-sheltering tree; under it, spread on the ground were a makeshift fruit market and some African masks and other crafted wooden objects.
What was I to do?
Across the street I traipsed. The young guys at the stand spoke only French.
A young not-too-spiffily uniformed security guard working next door listened to the English-French non-communication. He sauntered over to watch what might be a little business action between the newly shorn American and the young men.
The guard spoke excellent English.
I fancied a couple of items, both masks.
With the help of the guard, my new best friend, the price came down quickly. I bought the long flat one, with very thin white stripes, like a zebra; it's old, or they are very good at roughing such objects to make them appear old.
I fancied the round mask more. That one I could actually put my face into, but packing loomed quickly into consciousness. Alas, the round mask was simply too much mass.
The haircut cost twice the price of the wooden, hand-crafted mask.
While I was in the salon, Europeans arrived for their appointments, one woman with a son and daughter. European families in Cameroon have relatively a great deal of money. They need the services of a good hair salon. They don't need any more African masks.
That explains the disparity in my costs thus far today.
I like Douala. It is a town. Luanda is a large city, with a grand winding oceanfront boulevard, similar to Havana's. Luanda was a people-jammed capitol city. Douala is a genteelly shabby town, with its low, beige, run down concrete colonial relics. It is a port town, the kind that must have some interesting cafes and bars.
It feels to me like the quintessential African colonial town. This is a place where you might stumble unto Humphrey Bogart, with a three day growth of stubble, or accidentally bump into Peter Lorie hunched over and slinking around a corner. Sydney Greenstreet might run an illegitimate ivory exporting business out of the back of a an expatriate saloon.
Once you get past the blast of light when the door is opened, if you look very closely. One or all of them might be at the extreme end of the bar in the back, under the dim glow of the low-wattage overheads.
I really like Douala.
This evening IC and I are to be the guests of Francois Peris and his girl friend, Claire, at dinner.
Then, the rumor is, we shall take in a jazz club.
"Captain, have I told you that as a young man I played some."
