Well, it’s been an interesting last few days. When I left
off, I was going to play poker with some of the crew. This was one of the most
nautical feeling things I’d ever done. The whole experience felt straight out
of a movie. Playing poker with a bunch of Newfoundlanders on a cargo ship
sailing into a storm. I had to stifle a grin when the bosun began to play Newfoundland
folky fiddle music on his iphone. I spend the next few hours on the wheel. It
was pretty hard to get used too at first because I’m used to feeling the
pressure of the rudder on the helm. With this, it’s all electronic and when you
turn the wheel over, you have to wait for the rudder to catch up. As the wind
and waves picked up, it started to get a little harder. The wind was about 30
degrees off our port side and when it pushed on our relatively huge
superstructure (the large “building” at the stern where the accommodations and
bridge are), it drives the bow into the wind. This is something you have to get
used too so you can counter steer. It is pretty amazing to be up on the bridge during a storm. You can see the entire ship, all 600 X 90 feet of it being tossed around in the waves like it's a little bath toy. You can really relate to the stories of how powerful the sea really can be. I steered for about 2 hours, then went to
bed.
That night was wild. We had a gale force wind gusting to
hurricane force, which is over sixty knots, and with our cargo 2/3 empty, the
ship was rolling like a pig. Fortunately, I stowed my things before I went to
sleep and put a bunch on the floor, but this was not enough. As she ship
rolled, the shower curtain opened and closed. My bag slid back and forth across
the floor. So did my books. And water bottle. Even my mattress slid back and
forth over the bed (it is not a tight fit) and loose change banged around
inside the desk. That was quite the wake
up at 330 am, but not a huge deal to re stow everything. I took the third mate’s
advice and shoved my lifejacket under my mattress to prop it up on an angle and
keep me against the wall. This worked for a while, but on one especially big
roll, it actually worked as a wedge to fling my mattress half off the bed- and
me with it. In the end, I was lucky enough to get around five total hours of
sleep, with lots of wake ups along the way. Most of the crew were not so lucky
to get even that. However the next day, I started to feel how the six meter
ocean swell was different from anything I was used to.
Our work the following day started with cleaning and mopping
the officer’s mess, which had basically been completely covered in mustard, V8
juice, peanut butter, and margarine. These experienced sailors had apparently
forgotten to properly stow their food and chairs. When the condiments fell on
the ground, the chairs chased after them, smashing them to pieces and spreading
their contents over the floor and walls. We still had four meter waves and the ship was
rolling heavily, making it a challenge to walk over that slippery floor.
Sometimes, you just had to accept that you were about to slide 20 feet over the
floor into the wall and there was nothing (save for grabbing onto the table)
that you could do about it. Most of the heavy weather I have been in on the St.
Lawrence II has resulted in pitching (fore and aft motion) and a fairly steady
angle of heel which we would keep by setting a sail as a stabilizer. I am used
to being over 30 degrees and staying there. But 30 degrees of roll from side to
side every 25-30 seconds is a whole different matter. I progressively started
to feel worse and worse. Fortunately, Myles, the bosun noticed and sent me to upstairs,
telling me I could take an evening watch instead of finishing my work day then
and there. By then, the waves were supposed to die down and I would likely be feeling
better. He was right. In fact, we were stopped when I woke up. Just adrift 60
nautical miles (110 km) offshore. The ship’s engine had been running off only 5/6 cylinders and
our speed was down around 7-8 knots instead of the usual 14-15. The engineers
were busy repairing the damaged fuel pump and getting us going to full sea
speed again, with the engine running at its full 122 rpm.
We got tied up in Portland, Maine around 2330, ship’s time.
There was nothing left to do on my 8-12 watch because we couldn’t begin
transferring cargo until samples had been taken, and sent to Boston for
analysis. I’m told discharging of cargo began around 5am, and we finished eight
hours later, but had to complete an intense and thorough annual US coast guard inspection before departure. After that finished, we anchored to take on fuel oil- the heavy, black, high sulphur
stuff, and prepared to make the 20 hour trek back to St. John. It was another rocky night, but not as bad as
the one two nights before. We arrived in St. John this morning, passing several
anchored super tankers feeding the refinery, and a small pilot boat being
tossed about in the three meter swell. On arrival, we promptly attached the
cargo hoses to fill our tanks with diesel and gas. We also had to load three
weeks worth of food stores, which goes fast when you have most of the crew and
the crane helping out. We should be leaving sometime tomorrow, on the first
high tide. The next trip will be Charlottown PEI, St. John’s NL, and back. I am
looking forward to it quite a bit.
