by Lydia Laube
10 All at sea again
Ten months later I was on my way back to Burma for the fifth time. This time I left Adelaide on a ship, my preferred method of travel, but it was not going to Burma. In fact, I was setting off in completely the opposite direction, but that’s nothing new for me. I was about to sail halfway around Australia and almost all of the way around New Zealand to reach Singapore from where I could get to Burma.
The freighter Buxstar arrived at Outer Harbour on time. At the container terminal gate the guard greeted me by my first name. He had been expecting me, the only passenger boarding here. My date with the immigration and customs officers who came to clear me went swimmingly despite the embarrassment my bag full of pills and lotions always causes me. I look like a travelling chemist shop.
I checked in with the security watchman at the top of the Buxstar’s gangplank, signed on in the ship’s office and, hey presto, I was officially a seafarer. Hauling my bags up the stairway to the cabins, the officer of the deck asked if I wanted the owner’s cabin. Of course I did! It is big and would have cost me fifteen euros more a day if I’d had to pay for it.
The Buxstar is a huge German-built ship of 40,000 tons that was carrying 3700 containers (not fully loaded). Although she belongs to a German company, she is registered in Monrovia and sails under a Liberian flag. My accommodation consisted of a spacious day cabin, a small bedroom and a bathroom. It had masses of storage, a fridge and a TV and DVD. One porthole had an excellent view of the lifeboat, reassuringly close in case of Abandon Ship calls. The other two were occluded by containers.
I met the Filipino captain who introduced me to the cook, also Filipino. Hooray, this augured well for the food. The second officer was appointed my custodian. Another Filipino, as were all the crew, he was a fine, big, handsome fellow with a devastating smile that never seemed to leave his face as he gave me the ship’s safety tour despite the Disaster areas, lifeboats and distress signals that featured heavily in this adventure. There were the Man Overboard Rules—Throw Life Ring. Call for help. Launch open life-raft. (Calling I could do okay, scream, in fact, but I wasn’t sure about the others). But he said that when the Abandon Ship call came, one of the crew would come to escort me to the lifeboat. Not if, when! Nice.
A trapdoor above the porthole in my cabin was pointed out to me. It was marked by a sign—‘Life Line’—and surrounded by a fluorescent strip so it could be found during light failures or dense smoke. It was a wonder I didn’t get off immediately after contemplating all the nasty things that could happen to me on this ship, but the Life Line was the worst. Its trapdoor opened to reveal a rope with which I was expected to attach myself, then jump out of the porthole and over the side of the ship. No thanks. I would look like bait on the end of a fishing line to a passing shark!
We left sometime during the night and I woke to a gentle swell and a grey, cold day. The young Filipino steward came wanting to clean my cabin but I fended him off. Give me time to mess it up first. It was his first ship and I was the first female passenger he had had to deal with. He was justifiably terrified of me.
Two days later we were sailing up the Yarra River to our berth in Port Melbourne. The Stella Maris van took me to the Seaman’s club in Little Collins Street—all part of the wonderful service they provide to seafarers, a definition that includes anyone travelling on a working ship. On the bus I met some Indians who were on shore leave from a ship carrying dangerous chemicals. I was glad to hear they were anchored far away from us. The berths next to us were occupied by CMA CGM’s Manet, sister ship of the La Tour and Matisse on which I have travelled, and the Italia.
Returning from shore leave, I climbed the Buxstar’s very high and wobbly gangplank hanging onto the dirty, oily rope sides. At the top my hands were seized by the seaman on security watch and scrubbed with a cloth. I was polished up like a grubby three year old and given a pair of workman’s gloves for future use.
The crew of the Buxstar from the captain down were a cheerful lot, always smiling and laughing. All except the Ukrainian chief engineer were Filipino. There was one other passenger on the ship when I boarded, Dave, a New Zealander, and we collected another here in Melbourne, Rick from the UK, who was on a quest to go around the world in eighty days without flying.
Two days later we arrived in Botany Bay, the container port for Sydney. I went to the gate with the wharf van and waited in a shed with some of the crew and the captain for the mission to Seafarers Flying Angel van that took us to the city. It was a lovely sunny day, everything was bright and green after heavy rain the previous night. The bus took a scenic route past the iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House. The Seafarers had moved since I was here last and is now almost on the waterfront.
Back at the ship I was a good little passenger and used the gloves I had been given, and this time didn’t need cleaning up by the crew. In the morning I saw, to my delight, that the containers that had blocked the outlook from two of my portholes were gone. I could see right to the mast and the front of the ship. Now to get rid of the lifeboat. Or maybe not.
I stood on the deck as we sailed through the heads of Botany Bay, watching planes taking off from Mascot Airport alongside us. The captain told me that there was now a serious low out in the Tasman Sea and we would be taking a different route further south towards Antarctica to try to avoid it.
The swell began in the afternoon and by evening it was extreme. We started to roll badly. We did not have enough weight to hold us steady—many of our containers had already been discharged and some of the remainder were empty. Everything bounced about my cabin; nothing would stay on shelves or surfaces. It was very difficult to move around. During the night I was actually afraid for the first time on a ship. I felt we were about to tip over. In bed I had having visions of being called to the lifeboat. I lay in the dark deciding what to take with me—passport, money, lipstick … yes, lipstick, a girl can’t face a lifeboat full of sailors without lipstick.
All that day and the next it remained very rough. The captain spent the entire time on the bridge; he even slept there. And he kept the crew working at inside jobs. It was too dangerous out on deck. Later I heard that this storm had been the severest in this area for years and that roofs had been blown off houses in Wellington in two hundred mile per hour winds. And that, yes, a ship had once overturned in such a storm and 165 passengers drowned.
We anchored off Bluff, the port of Invercargill, our first call in NZ, and stayed there all day, the ship bouncing and tugging at the anchor. We were waiting for the pilot to take us in when the tide was right. The Buxstar was too big to sail into Bluff’s small harbour except on a full tide.
Bluff is some distance from the town of Invercargill, separated by an inlet that is crossed by a ferry. It was excruciatingly cold and dreary but I set off to go ashore anyway. A seaman went down the gangplank in front of me to catch me if I fell. There was no wharf bus here so I had to wear a yellow safety waistcoat and walk on a clearly marked yellow line among piled containers and machinery.
This is the south end of the South Island, straight down is Antarctica. It had still been dark at eight in the morning. I struggled in the bitter wind as far as the Seafarer’s Centre at the gate but went no further. The weather forecast posted here said that the next day would be a four-layer clothing day. I complied, piling on all I could find on the two days it took to off load and load at Bluff.
When the tugs came to push us out of the harbour, I watched a flock of small birds fishing, diving and swooping into the swirl of water churned up as the tugs grunted against us. The crew had been fishing too and had caught some wonderful big salmon that the cook served up later.
Our next call was Port Chalmers, the port for Dunedin. It was a fine day; the weather wasn’t as cold here. There was no wind and the water was mirror smooth. Shore leave until three pm was posted so I galloped off the ship straight after breakfast. At the wharf gate a helpful guard gave me a timetable for the bus to Dunedin.
Port
Chalmers is the last stop for those heading down to bases in Antarctica and the nautical museum on the wharf edge had photos and memorabilia from there as well as anything to do with the sea. I saw a large photo of Joseph Conrad and asked if he had been here. But his only connection with this place is that his ship was called the Port Chalmers!
I checked out the cosy and well-equipped Seafarer’s Centre adjacent to the wharf gate, then sat down to wait for the bus. This day, Saturday, must be the dog’s day out in Port Chalmers—lots of owners went by with pooches on leads. Everyone said hello.
The bus driver was amazingly friendly. At first I was the only passenger. He had left the bus when he arrived at the port and wandered away to buy a pie. Then, after we took off, he stopped a little further on and sat in the back seat to eat it. We continued on. He waved to everyone he passed, greeting some of them and most of the passengers who got on by name. He was never in a hurry to take off, waiting until everyone was settled. He seemed to be the local information service as well. No question was fobbed off no matter how long it took to answer.
We rode up and down incredibly scenic picture postcard hills with trees and little wooden houses clinging to their slopes beside fiord-like inlets. But where were the famous NZ sheep? I saw none.
Dunedin was a lot of shops, an impressive church and a street the inhabitants claim to be the world’s steepest. I gave that a miss, but strolled about the others.
Later that day I watched the pilot climb up the gangplank as the ship prepared to leave port. It was pulled up after him and we sailed out through the fiords. On high vantage points along the spits of land overlooking the channel I saw cars parked here and there and realised that they had come to watch us leave. On the last headland a line of people stood waving. The crew waved back and I fluttered my hankie, the ship hooted a last farewell and we sailed out into the Southern Ocean.
Soon after that we passed a lighthouse, as lonely as anything could be, on a narrow outcrop of land. From there, there was nothing more until Antarctica. We came to Timaru at about 10 pm, drawing closer to a line of pretty lights, and we were met by a well-lit tug. There was no shore leave here; we were leaving as I got up. But the sunrise was magnificent. At sea it’s more impressive due to the open space and the water. This one began with a blood red crimson line along the horizon that lightened and spread upwards until it hit the clouds. Then spectacular rosy streaks streamed all over the pale-blue sky and sea.
Now the weather was warmer and the ship was steady, weighted with the extra cargo we had taken on.
We arrived at Littleton, the port of Christchurch, on Sunday afternoon to be told that no work could start until after midnight Monday. Was this because it was the Queen’s birthday long weekend or don’t they work on the Sabbath? We anchored in the bay to wait. It was a dreary rainy day, but the calm sea was a lovely pale milky green that became a true aquamarine as the sky darkened later.
Finally we went alongside, passing through many small islands. This bay is the crater of an extinct volcano. Closer in to land there were bare, steep hills that looked mostly uninhabited, and I saw only a couple of houses.
I was so keen to get ashore that I hung over the side watching the gangplank being lowered. But it was atrocious on land. I had to walk a distance to collect the wharf van and the wind nearly blew me into the water. It turned my umbrella inside out and I got wet and cold. Not happy. But the van driver was a cheerful sort who took the other passenger and I through the gate and up to the town without making us stop for a passport check.
The small town rose steeply with all the houses spread out along the hillside. Everyone had a sea view here. The main street sported a few shops and cafes, nothing big. The library was lovely, warm and cosy and full of little kids. I used their internet with a lot of help from a kind librarian. Then it was out into the gale again. In the co-op, a wonderful old health food shop with board floors and brown paper bags, I bought muesli.
I did not try to get to Christchurch; sadly it is a ruin since the earthquake of 2011 devastated it. I found a postcard of the no longer cathedral. What a shame that something so beautiful has been totally destroyed.
In Napier the next day the weather was fairly calm. I went walking towards the town without my umbrella, but the minute I left shelter it began to drizzle rain. The walk along the foreshore of Hawkes Bay, where waves crashed on the pebble beach only a few feet away, would have been nice otherwise. I passed the Seafarers Club and continued on under a row of Norfolk pines that led to the town centre. It was still raining. I came upon a charity shop, nipped in and bought the only umbrella they had—a child-sized one—for a dollar. I ate a slab of lasagne I bought under my small umbrella on a bench in a lovely park where a large Carillion came on suddenly and frightened the wits out of me.
Another couple of rough days and nights followed, the first for a while. One day we passed very close to New Zealand’s most active volcano, which sat alone on the sea blowing out plumes of white smoke, bare except for some little green plants along its base. Jutting out of the sea nearby were three skinny pointy rocks, like three guardians.
It was very pretty coming into the Taranga Harbour, our last port of call in New Zealand. Green-covered headlands rose to heights and little boats and buildings hugged the shore. Pushed by muscular little tugs, the work horses of harbours, we were turned around in the small body of water that contained our berth so we would be facing the way out when we left that night.
We crossed the Tasman Sea, then we were out on the smooth Coral Sea, and the weather got warmer, thank goodness. After a short stay in Brisbane, we began passing along the outside of the Great Barrier Reef. Ships travelling this route is not as safe for the reef, but it costs less as a pilot is required for the entire transit of the inside passage. The ship was idling now in order to arrive on time at the rendezvous with the pilot who would take us safely through the Torres Strait.
I was shamed into taking a tour of the engine room by being told that I would hurt the chief engineer’s feelings if I refused his kind invitation to do so. I didn’t have to like it, though. In fact, I hated it. Climbing down metal steps into the bowels of a ship among mountains of depressing olive green steel stuff did nothing for me. In the past I had seen all the engine rooms I will ever have the need to see. Being told that I was then seven metres underwater didn’t help with my claustrophobic memories of the Poseidon Adventure. But the two male passengers with me thought it was riveting. Oh well, to each his own. I’ll bet they wouldn’t get as excited about Tiffany’s as I would.
I did, however, absorb the fact that the drive shaft was 90 centimetres wide and that there were ten pistons, whatever that indicates. The chief engineer was a friendly soul and he seemed most proud of his engines, so I assumed a look of interest. He had provided me with gloves and earmuffs for which I was grateful. His engine room was, as such horrible things go, neat and clean, but appallingly hot, noisy and oily.
The agenda for the next day was clocks back one hour and lifeboat drill. I watched the crew launch the lifeboat—not the small man overboard raft but the thirty person fully enclosed boat used for the Abandon Ship lark I kept hearing about. The lifeboat was swung out over the side of the ship with a winch and taken for a run to test its engine. I wanted to get in it for the test drive but was told that swinging out and over and high above the ship is dangerous and is only done with passengers in it in an emergency. Apparently the crew who were used for the test did not warrant such concern! Judging by the time it took to get the boat in the water, we would all have been on the bottom of the ocean by the time it got away from the ship’s side. On the third attempt, after swinging alarmingly back and forth on the way down, the boat finally made it onto the sea.
Then it was Emergency Lifeboat drill that the rest of us, crew and passengers alike, had to go through. It was performed on the deck with the lifeboat, having now returned from its little cruise. The alarm sounded and I reported to my allocated muster station as ordered in l
ong pants, sleeved shirt, sturdy shoes, helmet and lifejacket. I spent an hour climbing in and out of the lifeboat in this horrible get-up, and, much to the amusement of the crew, managed to sit in some wet paint. Next time I will ask if I have the option to go down with the ship. The lifeboat is like Doctor Who’s tardis—much bigger inside than it appears outside. I had been sceptical about all of us fitting in there until I tried it and discovered it was indeed big enough, at a squeeze, to take all twenty-two of us. It had all manner of accoutrements like food, water, first aid and instruments I’m sure I could have learned to use if I really had to. But sitting there I had a sudden nasty thought. Where was the toilet? And in particular the ladies toilet! I decided to definitely take the going down with the ship option.
The next day was a lovely quiet day at sea. Towards evening I watched seagulls flying around the mast in front of the ship, swooping and diving as they fished. They looked a long way from shore and I was glad to see them taking turns to sit on the mast rigging for a rest.
Then it was a Birthday Beer Night in the crew mess. Loud karaoke featured heavily in this soiree, compounded by a full drum kit that a junior officer who looked like Ahn Do played rather well. The captain had a good voice and loved to hog the microphone. Everyone sang, even the shy young steward. Lots of beer was handed out. I drank half a bottle of white wine but could not be induced to sing. I actually stayed for three hours, a record for me. I am not a karaoke fan.
After two days of loitering along to keep our date with the pilot, he came aboard from Thursday Island, a long way in a small boat at three in the morning. Then we were transiting the Torres Strait, a narrow passage between Australia’s Cape York and Papua New Guinea. On the bridge the captain and five officers were all attention as the pilot called the course. There were islands either side of the channel, which has only a five-metre draught—just enough for the Buxstar at high tide.
