The secret life of cargo
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Locomotion is better than Valium. Get on a long distance train with passing scenery and a gentle bounce in any direction and stress will directly dissolve into fairyland meditations. Upon leaving New York, sedated by the Hudson’s sparkle and Amtrak’s rattle, I slipped into this anticipated state of daydreaming where I remained until the state of New Mexico. There, my seatmate, a Zuni Indian man, offered his service as a tour guide through the desert. He pointed out the hills where the government mined uranium for Big Boy, and soon after, he pointed to an old volcano, which the Zuni believe houses a protective spirit. A true geological paradox: cataclysm hidden under one hill and spiritual protection under the next. He also told me that the Zuni settled on land where the water strider’s heartbeat can be heard, and that our own heartbeats sound not from the physical heart, but from a metaphysical orb that floats closer to the sternum. Anxiety or sorrow can displace this orb, sometimes causing it to move up and become a lump in the throat, but it can be replaced by healers such as his grandmother, or by people who have been struck by lightening.
A cowboy drinking Budweiser cans sat across the aisle from us. He was going to California to visit his father on his 90th birthday and was looking forward to playing the ‘gee tar’ with his pop. He wished he had brought his new Yamaha on the train so he could play us some ‘true’ cowboy music but even without it he managed a wistful a cappella song about a boy and his only friends, the saddle and the horse. After he finished singing, the three of us discussed UFO’s while the setting sun colored the water strider’s land red. I smiled at our gathering of archetypes: a Cowboy, an Indian, a Yankee, and ET, and then let the narcotic effects of the train nudge me back into more absent-minded reverie.
When I reached California, I thanked the economy for freeing up my friend’s schedule so she could help me while I finished my last bits of business on US soil. On the day before she delivered me to the docks, we looked for a pair of army fatigues, visited the gun store for some mace, and a lawyer’s office for me to write a will and send it to my parents. I am traveling alone, and the shock on people’s faces when I explained my means around the world would be trains, buses, and boats convinced me that I should pose as a female mercenary, armed, and ready for death.
“You’re not a terrorist are you?” asked the security guard, Marco. I was standing at the Long Beach port, confused, under an awning at pier T, berth 136. I had a grimace and a suitcase. I threw a grunt his way.
“Do you need transportation to your ship?”
I held my mace in my bag and put my sunglasses on. No need to give away any emotion.
”Yeah”
Marco threw my suitcase in his truck and radioed my ship, the Hanjin Phoenix, to expect the passenger. He jauntily complained about the evils of advertising as we drove past miles of cargo containers. We agreed that the world is too frantic, and everything needs to slow down. He had a pleasant, lilting accent as he emphatically stated “Turtles! You might see some turtles in the ocean, pay attention to them man.” Needless to say, I couldn’t hold my grimace very long. I crack too easily around people who share my beliefs.
The second mate skipped down the gangway and took my suitcase. He and Marco flashed smiles in every direction: at the trucks, the sea, each other, the robotic arms moving the containers, and then at my camera. They ushered me up the gangway and I acted nonchalant, as if it was no big deal to me I was about to spend three weeks on the ocean in a 50,000-ton vessel with a bunch of unknown seamen. I was so giddy and nervous however that stifling my emotional response to boarding the vessel made me snort and then drool–not a good contribution to the hard mercenary image. I met the German captain (earring and Birkenstocks! phew) and got a tour of the entire vessel including the engine room. I retired to my cozy cabin thoroughly disarmed.
Normally, the passengers are the responsibility of the third mate, but the second mate, a Filipino named Joeson, was excited to have a passenger close to his age so he took charge of my comfort and safety as soon as I stepped on board. He also threatened to be the one to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in the event of an emergency. Like Joeson, the chief officer, Steve, and the third mate, Mark, were friendly Filipinos, but the crewmembers were wild looking men from the Republic of Kiribati sporting every variation of mohawk, tattoos, and gold teeth. Joe told me that despite having the appearance of “head-hunters” they were quite all right and not to worry, he was thereby appointing himself my bodyguard. The chief engineer was German and his second in command was a young Russian man, the third engineer, the electrician, the chief cook, and the cadets were Filipinos. English was the working language of the vessel but I was the only person on board whose first language was English. I was also the only passenger and the only woman.
Itinerary changes are common in commercial shipping, which worked in my favor because I got to take a trip to Mexico before going to China. This surprise vacation consisted of traipsing around Ensenada near the port, noticing strip joints and knock-off pharmacies selling cheap Viagra, followed by a quick lunch with Joeson my bodyguard. Over tacos I learned that the conspicuous gentlemen’s clubs we passed are favorite stops for seafarers with a shore pass. Some seafarers have visited so many of these clubs in port cities around the world that they get anxious before their annual physical because they have to get an HIV test. Joeson’s only worry, he swore, was that his cholesterol was too high. Later, we passed Club Xstatis and he knowingly suggested that at least a few of the crewmembers were inside.
When we walked back to the docks, Joeson carried an extra bag of tacos and I carried a Marie-Claire magazine for quality reading and female affirmation. We looked like a deliveryman and a ditsy gringa heading for the wrong side of town. Because Ensenada is close to Tijuana, and because I sometimes live my life by the book of never ending fear and suspicion, when I noticed a tough looking bunch of dudes walking our way at the docks, I reached for my mace. But Joe waved them over and then I recognized them not as Tijuana drug lords, but as the friendly headhunters from the Gilbert Islands. We stood there for awhile in front of surly Mexican security guards making chit chat and an interesting tableau: blondie with a fashion magazine, Filipino officer, and four South Pacificers with punk rock haircuts.
“See, they are going to visit some ladies” Joeson chuckled. “They won’t stop talking about it until the next port and they have something new to talk about.” The guards made no secret of staring at my behind when we went through security and were it not for their machine guns, I would have unloaded my mace on them. I was experiencing acute wariness in my sternum and my heartbeat orb squirmed at the full realization of being the only woman amidst this sea of men.
By dinnertime, the steward had still not returned to the ship. I wondered aloud about kidnapping which led the chief officer to explain the effects of alcohol to me. Sure enough, about a half an hour before we were scheduled to leave, our steward and another crewmember burped themselves up the gangway, bona fide drunken sailors. They had been picked up by the Mexican police for unloading their bladders on the street and after paying a fine, delivered back to our ship. These shenanigans are grounds for dismissal as there is a strict no alcohol policy for the Kiribati, but by breakfast the next morning, the steward was back to looking sharp with a tidy mohawk, pouring coffee and handling the bread tongs with professional flair.
We changed our course because of two new typhoons that developed in the Pacific. One hit the Philippines, and the other attacked Japan. Rather than following an arc that would leave us vulnerable to dangerous low-pressure weather, we skirted up to Alaska, through the Aleutian Islands, over to the Russian coast, down through Japan to Korea and then China. When the captain explained why we were changing course, he became a dark storm himself. He said he is losing touch with the ocean because the weather patterns have become unpredictable and sea life is disappearing. “Especially the dolphins, there used to be dolphins everywhere, all the time. Now we rarely see them, and even less we see whales.” He and the chief officer both told me the increasing number of typhoons is proof that nature is sick of us. “Living ashore,” the captain said “people don’t understand the sea is warming, but now we have to change our course too often. The ocean should be colder this time of year, if not typhoons will develop.“
Listening to the captain’s dismay, I came to think that although our modern understanding of the physical universe has been shaped by Newtonian ideas, we still don’t fully understand the cause/effect theory. For example, I traveled for 22 days (one week in anchorage in the China Sea) on a vessel that was half full of empty containers and half full of containers carrying America’s best rotting animal hides. The hides are going to Chinese factories to be made into sneakers on the cheap, which will then be sent back, along with other disposable essentials, to California. The ship consumes 160 tons of heavy fuel a day and we took the long way so as to avoid unseasonable typhoons caused (according to the captain’s estimation) by human behavior. My illogical voyage then is an argument for buying less, and for buying locally made goods!
Another study in cause and effect is that of slow, solo travel; it can cause irritating loneliness, but also unforeseen connections with kindred spirits. During the voyage to China, Joeson and I developed one of these surprise friendships. He told me that, had I been traveling with someone, he would feel shy or like an intruder if he approached us for conversation, but since I was alone, he felt comfortable talking to me. At 31, Joeson is on his eleventh year as a seafarer and had been waiting and praying for a passenger who was under the age of retirement. He had even applied for a third mate position (a lower position!) on a cruise ship because he wanted more human contact, but everything was filled. Seafarers have tricks to fight seasickness (smell orange peel or tiger balm) and tricks to fight libidinous urges (eat papaya), but loneliness is a difficult ailment to cure without the help of a friend. I was happy to help, and as our friendship grew, I became privy to the inside scoop on sailorly gossip.
Meanwhile, Mark, the third mate beamed for the entire voyage because of a fateful encounter that he had with an old friend in Long Beach, where I boarded the ship. While running errands on his shore leave, he serendipitously ran into his old girlfriend in the Long Beach Wal-Mart, otherwise known as the ‘seaman’s mall’ (more irony in global machinations is that the seafarer carries goods from Shanghai to the west, and then purchases them in the local Wal-Mart to use on the trip back to China). This old girlfriend is a Filipina nurse working in California and apparently shopping at Wal-Mart. She and the third mate broke up due to the strain of long distance when she was still in the Philippines and he was just a cadet sailing on a Mediterranean liner. But wait! Years later, destiny popped up in the toiletries aisle of a California Wal-Mart and Mark has been smiling since. A story of love and globalization– the same monstrous chain that ruined my country’s backyard became the location for a cinematic reunion of two lonely hearts working abroad. It was a truly providential meeting for the third mate and it left him searching the horoscopes in my Marie Claire for some cosmic explanations.
Despite the missing wives, girlfriends, and family members, birthdays were celebrated on the ship with good cheer and karaoke (invented by a Filipino) in the rec room, which was next to my cabin. On the night we left Ensenada, the chief cook celebrated his 50th birthday with an impressive amount of Celine Dion and N-Sync dubbed into Tegalo. The trend of macho Asian men singing ‘my heart will go on’ continues to mystify me, but it was a fitting song to hear as we headed up to arctic waters. I listened with a non-judgmental grin from my cabin and started to read Moby Dick. We were going to whale territory so I wanted to be intellectually prepared for my transcendent sighting of a great Leviathan. I identified with Ishmael’s desire to explore the watery part of the world and I was happy to spend my first night on the way to China with gentle waves and crooning Filipinos rocking me to sleep.
There was a refreshing lack of disdain for ‘chick flicks’ on board which is probably related to the Celine Dion phenomenon- that is, certain culturally constructed gender rules that specify some things (Lady Dion) as categorically gay or girlie in American culture do not exist in maritime culture. Thus, the rec room had a stockpile of movies starring Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock, or Julia Roberts. The chief mate could recite Notting Hill, verbatim. Joeson regularly quoted Kate Hudson. They giggled like, sailors? when they discussed the plot of My Best Friend’s Wedding. The unabashed romanticism added a confusing dimension to my understanding of a seafarer; does a passion for romantic comedies go together with a love of strip clubs? Regardless of logic, I still wanted to fit in so I set about educating myself by watching at least one romantic comedy day.
In addition to analyzing the loveable quirks of leading ladies, the officers often exchanged personal stories of the occult in the bridge of the ship. At sea, superstition and tall tales of ghostly encounters are well protected from the deadly frost of scientific proof. Steve, also a gifted karaoke star, was particularly accomplished in the art of putting goose bumps on the body. He never whistled while on board, and did not abide by whistling in his presence, as it is an invitation for strong wind and bad weather to join the journey. But one evening, as we drew close to the Bering Sea I sat on the deck and watched the last sunlight land with showy panache on the ocean. I cheered and whistled, and then settled into vespers, full of gratitude for being able to experience such a show.
Sure enough, fog developed and a sudden icy wind sent me inside. Steve complained about his knee. The weather was quickly becoming cold and damp, which irritated his bones. “Oh, I was so cold once” he said. “My dead father came and sat on my bed while I was sleeping.” The ship was passing through what had become an intense fog, almost zero visibility, and darkness started to surround us. I felt duped by the charismatic sunset—such natural capriciousness! “I couldn’t move at all. The ghost of my father was crying. He was worried about my brother. I yelled for my wife to turn on the lights but she didn’t wake up. Eventually she turned over and put her arm around me and then screamed because I was like ice, like death.” Wind shook the life rafts outside and we closed the door because the winter weather was creeping inside. “When she turned on the light we both saw my father stand up and leave the room. Later he inhabited my sister’s body, but I’ll tell you that story later….don’t worry, we only have one ghost on this ship.”
Night fell, the temperature dropped, and the swells started to grow. We were 12 hours away from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Joeson joined us in the bridge and let me read the weather report sent in to the ship. Without previous experience to relate the alarming report to, I felt claustrophobic dread run through my veins upon reading the words STORM WARNING. STRONG WINDS. Seas 18 to 24 ft. I had just learned that despite the size of our ship, capsizing is still a danger in bad weather and that hypothermia would get me in about 20 minutes—there would be no time to lower the life boat in the event of capsizing, it would be everyman, and me, swimming alone. I looked for reassurance:
“So, we are going to avoid the bad weather right?” I asked.
“Do you want some coffee?” Joeson replied.
“Wow, the wind sure is strong, so….what happens when there is a storm warning?”
“Did you ever see the movie Music and Lyrics?”
“No. Do you think the weather will be bad then?”
“Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, so funny, oh I love that movie”
“What is the worst weather you have seen—why does the boat capsize again?”
“I think I’m gonna watch that movie again after my watch—it makes me so happy.”
Nobody would respond to my insistent requests to talk about the worst-case scenario. I went to my cabin and took four sleeping pills to quiet my mind as I rolled back and forth in bed listening to the steel creak, trying to banish Melville’s words “for ever and ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder man, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make.” I kept my bathroom light on to dissuade the resident ghost from visiting me on the night of a storm. I promised not to whistle again. Poseidon snapped back with stronger gusts and angrier waves. In preparation for my watery demise, I attempted a prayerful joining of my soul with the spirits of the depths but they tormented me until the magical effect of sleeping pills overpowered my fear.
The next day, the second mate told me it is unlucky to talk too much about the weather. The storm had passed, the swells were back to three meters, and the sun was strong. I felt an absurd sense of accomplishment just for surviving the night. I thanked him for saving our lives by not indulging my desire to discuss the details of arctic storms and then kept vigil with binoculars looking for whales. Possessed with the monomaniacal madness of Ahab, I stayed glued to the watch. I tried black magic, I tried singing to them, I tried meditating. I scanned every wave’s crest (called a ‘white horse’) waiting for a giant humpback to communicate with me. The electrician joined us in the bridge and told me the best way to see whales is to go on a Princess Cruise to Alaska. Apparently the cruise line sold its soul to the devil in exchange for whale sightings; it works in tandem with a ranger who goes out to sea and emits some sort of sonic wave under water. The sonic boom makes the whales jump (duh, cause and effect) and guarantees a photo op and satisfactory nature experience for the passengers. I didn’t see even one whale spout, but at least I came by my disappointment honestly. Conceding defeat, I communed instead with one of Aleutian’s gracefully aging snowy volcanoes.
The night after my failed whale watch, I dreamt that I looked out of my cabin window and saw three foamy circles float up from the waves into the sky. After the circles evaporated in the sky I looked down at the sea and the swells were enormous and bright green. The boat pitched violently but instead of being scared I was delighted. Upon consulting my dream dictionary, I discovered that dreaming of circles can be interpreted as a manifestation of feeling complete and comfortable in the self; dreaming of waves can indicate inner exploration and spiritual expansion. Indeed I did feel complete and round (the ship had a very good cook), unfettered from the chaotic schedule of my life on land. Also, since my body had relaxed/been forced into the rhythm of the tides and I highly appreciated each celestial extravaganza, I must have expanded spiritually. Well! according to my dream then, the consequence of unplugging from the world of cell phone relationships and too many engagements, was an induction into a world of spiritual growth and inner harmony.
We sailed through the Bering Sea occasionally encountering stoic Russian islands, but no more storms. I continued my course in romantic comedy and reading Moby Dick. I wore a winter jacket and smiled timidly at the waves. They were strict disciplinarians, administering a chilly punishment to those who goofed off on deck. At night the ocean and the cosmos competed fiercely to inspire the most awe from my tiny soul. I gasped at Jupiter and the milky way swirling directly above, but then gasped harder at the dark sea pounding the ship, but then I looked up again and gasped at the white spray of billions of stars, until finally the icy, effervescent spray from below hissed at me so I called a draw—Both water and sky were equally and infinitely mysterious.
After a week in 54 latitude, I had forgotten that it wasn’t actually winter. I was confused one morning when I went outside and the ocean wasn’t in its usual fearsome mood–it had lightened up a bit. The air was warm, almost balmy. Since we left Alaska, we had been retarding the clocks one hour each evening, a process that resulted in me waking up for the day at 4am mildly disorientated. Back on the Pacific Ocean, a day away from Japan, I was additionally confused by temperature. My internal clock and thermometer by which I gage the time and season were completely off kilter; passing through many latitudes and the International Date Line is like an exaggerated game of pin the tail on the donkey. At the same time however, the process of crossing the ocean was less upsetting to my internal compass than zooming through the air. Traveling to far off places always shakes up my system, and until now, traveling by ship was the gentlest way to transport my body to the other side of the world.
In fact, Joeson told me that ships like the Hanjin Phoenix are a popular way to transport many bodies to far off places– it is just not so gentle for most who travel by freighter. “In China and Africa we have to stay and do a stowaway sweep to make sure there are no people hiding on the vessel” he said. They sneak onboard by swimming to the docked ships at night and hide in the engine room, the garbage bins, the cargo hold, or near the mast. The crew usually knows a few days after departure if there is a stowaway on board because of the smell—they have to relieve themselves somewhere. Once they are discovered, their fate is up to the master of the ship. According to word on the sea, when a stowaway is found on a ship with Filipino officers, they are humanely delivered to the next port of call and the shipping company pays the expense of sending the stowaway back home. But if the stowaway is unfortunate enough to have chosen a ship with Russian or Ukrainian officers, they can expect to be thrown overboard or severely beaten.
During his miserable tenure as a young and overworked AB (able bodied seaman i.e. one who chips rust and paints the ship endlessly in dangerous and frigid conditions) Joeson himself uncovered a stowaway who had snuck onto the ship in Nigeria. Quebec was their scheduled next port of call, which meant, if discovered, the stowaway would go through a long process before repatriation, and might even be able to stay in Canada. For this reason, ships scheduled to sail straight to Canada from Africa are especially popular targets for stowaways, but with last minute port changes being so common it is never a guarantee that the ships will maintain their original schedule. Such was the case on Joeson’s ship. After he discovered one stowaway, two others were found and then the boat made a last minute stop in Ghana where they picked up extra cargo and delivered their extra passengers. Before the stowaways disembarked, Joeson learned from one of them that he had been sold the information about which vessel was scheduled to sail to the west by a local politician in Lagos. That stowaway was a professional and had made it all the way to Brazil once (the best time in his life, he said). There are also more extreme cases of human smuggling that involve shipping people in the containers, but now ports use x-rays to examine the cargo. Still, the chief officer told me of a case in France where an unsuspecting truck driver discovered 24 dead stowaways from China in his delivery. He scowled as he said, “this kind of business makes a lot of people a lot of money.”
Of course it is not just people that travel illegally. “Everybody who works in this industry has been approached with an offer to smuggle something—usually gold or drugs.” Joeson told me. “We have a good, clean ship now, but I have been on other ships…” One of those other ships happened to be the same ship with the professional stowaway. From Quebec they went to Bombay where Indian Customs officers found 350,000 US dollars behind a panel in the chief officer’s cabin ceiling. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison in India for running a gold smuggling racket. There is a rumor of a Kiribati man awaiting execution in China for smuggling drugs through Shanghai. And one year, Steve was on a vessel traveling from Columbia to Miami when they found two stowaways in the ship’s tanks. The vessel dutifully notified the DEA (whenever stowaways are found coming from Columbia the ship must notify the DEA) and 8 million dollars worth of cocaine was found in cubbyholes that had been welded underwater to the bottom of the vessel. All this information made me curious about how much the economic recession, with the decrease in shipping, affected the black market economy.
Sailing through the Sea of Japan was like going through a slalom course of fishermen. We made clumsy turns around tiny fishing boats, looming above them and creating a wake that almost docked our score. We passed through a sudden rainstorm, which left a dazzling but malicious double rainbow that we also had to avoid due to another superstition; leprechauns don’t go to sea, but squalls and evil spirits do. Joeson was excited because a real human hand, not the GPS, was needed to steer. He explained how to maneuver the vessel (5 degrees portside, 10 degrees starboard side etc.) and offered me a quick try but I don’t even know how to drive a car so I opted to remain a watchful passenger as we zigzagged in suspense to Korea, avoiding rainbow spirits and fishing men.
Due to the recession, many boats have been anchored for months and the ports are only half full of cargo. Upon arrival in Pusan, the officers were surprised to see the port nearly full. “Last year, this whole place was empty” said Joeson as we took a brisk walk on land “it looks like the economy is getting a little better.” It felt great to be on solid ground. I skipped around the port like a woman who had been on a ship for two and a half weeks. We ate Korean snacks in the port canteen and I was overwhelmed with affection for the female cafeteria workers. I wanted to hug them. More than anything, I missed a balanced ratio of the sexes. By the time we reached Korea, I had come to empathize with seafarers for the unbearable lack of yin on the ship to the extent that I could almost understand (were it not for my principles) the lustful visits ashore.
Sometimes women do make it onboard vessels during extended periods of anchorage in remote places. Our ship was in anchorage for a week about fifty miles off the coast of Shanghai. We didn’t receive any visitors, but had we been anchored off the coasts of Thailand, Vietnam, or the south of the Philippines, we might have been boarded by groups of women who motor out to sea in small boats. Some of them set up food and drink stalls in the aft, some act as ‘wives’ for the seafarers, doing laundry and cleaning their cabins, and others are simply prostitutes. If anchorage is a traffic jam, the ladies are the people who walk through selling ice-cold water and soda. Of course it is the captain’s decision whether to let them board or not, but in Thailand if they are not allowed to board, then the stevedores won’t unload the cargo at the port. Joeson joked that the Thai system was similar to the unions we have in the United States.
We were anchored in the East China Sea, surrounded to each horizon by other parked vessels. Though I was surprised by the number of other vessels waiting to dock, the chief officer told me the ocean was comparatively empty—another sign of the recession. “It used to be like a city with no parking spots,” he said. Cabin fever struck me hard during those days because the ship just lazed around in the hot sun. Everything stayed the same except the increasing number of flies. I finished Moby Dick and wandered around staring at the silt in the water. How did those whale men manage years at sea?! Once, we received a pirate warning from the South China Sea which momentarily shook me out of my drowsy stupor, but the ceaseless rolling forced me back; even the excitement of pirates couldn’t compete with the hypnotic power of gentle swells and hazy sun. Joeson let me use the radio and I called random vessels to practice Chinese phrases with them: “Bao Lin, come in, Bao Lin, this is Hanjin Phoenix– I like to play badminton every afternoon.” But then one of the vessels told me to shut up so mostly I sat in a lawn chair on deck watching yellow finches flirt with each other and plotting my future success.
Strangely, the sea during the last few days on board was the same emerald color that I had dreamt about in Alaska. When I pointed this out to Joeson and Steve they told me their thoughts about my dream. When I told them about it before, in Alaska, neither seemed very interested, but actually, they both had ominous interpretations of my dream that they didn’t want to discuss while still in potentially treacherous waters. Seafarers use the term “green seas” when the ocean is in its deadliest mood, and last winter our own ship had been badly damaged in a storm by green seas. The steel wave breaker in the forward had been completely mangled and a steel post was ripped out during a storm in the Bering Sea. In severe storms the worst waves come in threes, the “tres marias.” The first is strong, the second is stronger, and the third rips out posts. Joeson and Steve believed I had some sort prophetic dream that foresaw the wrath of green seas and tres marias attacking our vessel. It was an interesting example of hermeneutics; I believed the symbols in my dream represented spiritual transitions and the sailors believed they pointed to tempestuous destruction. I assured them my interpretation correct because we hadn’t been attacked by the tres marias but I was happy that I wouldn’t be on the ship during the stormy winter months, just in case.
One night, right before we went in to Shanghai, the electrician hung colored lights and brought out the boom box for a BBQ party on the chief engineer’s deck. The Kiribati crewmembers came up, the cook and the cadet manned the grill, the captain drank Heineken, Filipino pop music blared, we were all smiles, and the Russian second engineer warned me that after the fun, there would probably be a fight. We had just learned about a murder that happened in the engine room of another German owned ship after a night of drinking. “Sometimes the crew get in fights, this guy killed a cadet with a knife from the kitchen–alcohol.” Joeson said. I spied on other vessels with the binoculars to see if they were also having BBQ parties or knife fights. Sitting there eating grilled shrimp and leche flan with Kiribati, Filipinos, Russians, and Germans, in the middle of the ocean parking lot, I felt like I uncovered a secret society, a brotherhood of festive, semi-lawless ships, hidden from land waiting to load up with China’s bounty.
The shipping industry carries about 90 percent of international trade, and every product it transports has been through an adventure. On the way to China as raw material or on the way back as finished products, maybe our sneakers witnessed a knife fight or suffered though green seas and tres marias. They might have seen women boarding the ship, a tired able-bodied seamen crying in the cold, or a professional stowaway. They could have been pushed up against a million dollars of cocaine. They moved through the sea on giant freighters operated by anonymous, sentimental men. After my voyage on the Hanjin Phoenix, each time I see a shipping container I’ll think about the secret life of cargo and the unknown seafarers who ride on white horses across the ocean to deliver our “affordable” goods.
