Day 38

9 October, 2003

(I am writing about this last day over a week after the fact. It has been very intense, the last day and then reinserting myself in my old life.)

I awoke at 0700, which is much later then I had hoped as I knew we were coming to the coast early. But the, almost, complete fog mooted the experience. From the breakfast table (a... sausage) I could see the tops of the mountains over Santa Barbara, although the Channel Islands on our starboard were closer. They dramatically emerged out of fog patches and then back in. Fishing boats crossed occasionally.

After breakfast I set up a chair on my old F deck haunt, and sat down with binocs, video camera and some coffee. Behind the islands the water was smooth and the wind low, but the latter would blow a bit between the islands. It was actually necessary to wear an outer garment, being a bit chilly.

Although porpoises and pelicans seemed to thrive, a general dirty oiliness to the water, along with a trash content equal to China’s was somewhat offputting. As we were ahead of schedule as usual, we were going at a medium slow pace. The cold finally was too much and I repaired into the wheelhouse. I remained there as the captain, thirdmate and electrician ran the ship through a brace of emergency maneuver tests including stops, turns, starts etc. This is required by the U.S. Coast Guard. I was impressed by the captain’s knowledge of his ship. The ship, itself, shuddered under the strains but performed admirably.

After the pilot made us wait an additional half hour because of traffic, we picked him up just outside the Long Beach- San Pedro breakwater (long hated by local surfers). I moved back to my outside perch and watched the harbor and it’s familiar and less familiar landmarks come out of the fog.

There has been a lot of work on Terminal Island since I last explored the port a few years ago. Where the old Navy Yard buildings were is a large Hanjin terminal. Other container terminals with large Maersk and P&O ships were a bit north on Terminal Island. We slowly pulled in, having to wait on a last minute departure by a smaller ship.

The linesmen in Long Beach, the longshoremen who catch the ships hawsers and throw them over the stanchions, securing the ship to the berth, are of a different sort to all those I’ve seen in our previous ports. In other ports, they were in the same uniforms as the other workers, all with hardhats. And if they were not already in place before our arrival, they arrived in official, small buses or such. In Japan they even arrived by bicycle. In Long Beach, at the last minute, a variety of expensive late model cars came racing up the quay at the last minute. Each had a card in the window with the word “linesman”. They pulled up, four at the bow and four at the stern and out popped well dress but hefty in the stomach kind of men. One fellow was even in a suit. They all talked to each other as they pulled on boilersuits and went to work. By 1830 we were tied up, and they raced off.

The gantries were much slower to get into place, but the berthing space is not at a premium in this harbor and the ship will be in port almost thirty-six hours. This is because almost every container on the ship is removed in Long Beach. This is where it all goes, to fill shops. But eventually the stevedores (the first American voices I have heard in weeks, maybe months) fat and surprisingly hard hatless, start crawling over the ship. This is the first port where there are women mixed into the work crews, mostly truck drivers and tally clerks. I didn’t see any female stevedores.

Within an hour of shutting down the engine, the entire engineering staff is busy replacing the number nine piston and connecting rod. An operation that takes about fourteen hours. One, three ton, eighty thousand dollar piston and rod is replaced at each Long Beach visit. It is not a place of rest for the engineers. This stop they are also going to have divers come to patch a leak in a water inlet valve.

I was of mixed emotions. Thrilled to be back, but somehow very sad at leaving my companions of five weeks. I eat a final dinner of boiled chicken as the immigration and agent gets started with the officers. By 1930 we are cleared for shore, but this terminal is huge, yet somehow a bit dead, and a long way from anywhere. I contemplate my possibilities to get all my baggage home. Call a cab, limousine, friend? The agent is leaving, I ask him if he can help but he seems unwilling. I ask if he is at least driving into Long Beach and this he allows and agrees to give me a ride to the Metro Blue Line. But obviously my baggage cannot go.

I put my laptop and neccesities, in a back pack and run off, promising to return the next day. The strange young agent (he keeps pointing out he is only twenty-four, a recent mechanical engineering grad from UCLA) is really weird, but he drops me at a tram station in downtown Long Beach.

Riding the tram through Compton and South-Central L.A., I might as well be in a foreign city. And though I am impressed with the general condition of the line and the warmth of the humanity crowding me in, I am surprised how poor everyone looks and the world outside the tram as well, compared to all the asian ports I had just visited. I got off at the end of the line, 7th and Hope, and went upstairs to the street thinking I could find the Wilshire Boulevard bus, but on seeing a cab, take advantage to get home. A Somali driver. I was home by 2100.

I slept well!

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