Literary Yard

Search for meaning

In the company of eight thousand boxes and a gallery of soft-porn

The electrician is doing his routine rounds, checking all the reefers and the other systems. The Indian ABs are moving around giant CO2 cylinders in bold red colours. At the aft, the welder Simu calls out to us by our names. This is the first time we are meeting him and I am surprised that he had memorised our names from the list that was pasted on the elevator.

Marius says that the fore is his favourite part of the ship, “Sometimes at night, I come here alone and stay for hours. You can see all the stars without a frame of containers.” He looks out at the blue water passing behind us. “I want to start my own company some day in Romania. Maybe I will do something in agriculture.”

Today, the ship’s provision store is open for an hour, selling beer and cigarettes. At evening, the bossun, the only person among the crew who looks like Jack Sparrow, and a few other ABs take off their shirts, open cans of just-bought beer, and enjoy the sunset.

We swing by the master’s room, not too different from a fashionable service apartment. In his hall, there is a guitar and tabs for ‘Girl for Ipanema’ and some Andrea Bocelli song. “When I am on land, I play with a retired captain,” the master says. There are many books scattered around, ‘History of the world’s major religions’, a big collection of novels, a few graphic novels, operational manuals. “Sailors tend to read a lot,” he says, “And, watch a lot of movies. Of course, the younger ones play a lot of war games.”

While I was fascinated by the engine room, Lobo is intrigued by the small flags kept at the bridge. “These are for signalling,” explains Ionut, the burly Romanian navigation officer, “As a backup to the radio or when the radio is too inconvenient.” There is also a signal lamp for communicating using Morse Code and the Engine Order Telegraph for communication between the bridge and the engine room. Lobo spends hours studying the manuals for these, “I have always struggled to communicate with words,” she says, “These are so much better.”

Omelette meal number six. When we go to the bridge, Ismael is in an excited state, “Something extra-ordinary happened today. An eagle attacked one of the swallows and she collapsed on the bridge. I gave her some water to drink. I thought it will not survive. But then, after one hour or so, it suddenly flew away.” Container ships carry along their own wild life. Ionut is the expert in container wildlife. He is a person who can’t keep still, moving around like a hovering bird, talking to us as he turns and turns. “Sometimes, sparrows from Brazil join us to migrate without having to fly. But when we reach South Africa, falcons from the shore come to the ship to catch them. When we approach Hong Kong, you will see falcons again looking for sparrows in our ship. There are also sea-birds which will always fly around container ships because as the ship moves forward, small fish jump out of the water and the sea-birds hunt them. These seabirds are always on the ship, they never go onshore except to rear babies. Then there are the dolphins which follow container ships to rub against the waves the ship generates to help them shed their skin. Do you know that dolphins need to change skin every two hours?”

What about animals inside the ship? In Indonesian ships, I had always encountered foul-mouthed song birds in the master’s room. Earlier it was common for ships to carry a lot of cats, not only because they were considered good luck charms, but also because they hunted rats, which were a nightmare for sailors. These rats fed on the grains the ships carried and they could cause havoc by munching on the ropes and the wood. Ships of the olden days also used to be full of cockroaches. When I ask if there any rats and roaches around, Dragoslav, the administrative officer has a smirk, “Rats? No way! Container ships are hypersensitive about pests. I will tell you a story. Somehow, whenever ships go through the Suez Canal, a lot of flies come inside. People say the pilots of Egypt who help steer through the canal are the ones who bring in these flies. So as soon as the pilot was gone, all the crew in my ship came to the bridge with repellent sprays. We would be like the US Marines, men on a mission, bang, bang, spray, spray, hunt down all the flies.”

But ships can also cause significant damage to sea fauna. The North Atlantic Right Whale has been driven to endangered status, arguably as a result of collisions with ships. Underwater noise caused by container ships can disorient marine animals of all sorts and result in fatal consequences. The ballast water from ships, particularly tankers and dry bulk carriers, also bring along enormous quantities of sea creatures, which, if not treated properly before discharging, can ravage the local ecosystem by introducing invasive organisms. Then, there is the massive amount of greenhouse gas emissions from container ships.

I decide to investigate seamen’s superstitions. Everyone in the ship has an attitude of ‘it’s them, not me’ about superstitions. Dragoslav says, “Yes, in general, seamen are a superstitious lot. There are some universal ones. Like you never whistle on-board a ship, they believe it brings bad weather. Then there are some national ones. The Romanians will never stand with their back facing the bridge. The French will never say the word ‘rabbit’.” Ionut defends Romania, “Well, anyway it doesn’t make sense to stand with your back facing the seas. On the bridge, we are supposed to be always on the lookout, right?” “We also have elaborate rituals,” says Marius, “Like we have this line-crossing ceremony where we baptize people who sail for the first time through the equator. They have to wear funny hats and lick mustard sauce splashed on the feet of a man dressed up as Neptune King, the god of the sea. Then these rookies have to kiss the greased belly of the Royal Baby who is usually an ugly fat man from the crew.”

Omelette meal number eight. Today we are sailing past the disputed Paracel Islands. We get a call from Ionut from the bridge, “Vietnamese war ships, do you want to see, come, come to the bridge!” The seas are calm, the sky is cloudless, but the warships look unwieldy and single-minded. For rival powers, China, the Philippines and Vietnam, filling up the sea by undertaking massive reclamation projects has become essential part of their strategy and posturing. Who knows how long the South China Sea or the Philippines Sea will continue to remain a sea; just as man has eliminated the Aral Sea, leaving camels grazing next to ghostly ship ruins, on what used to be the seabed?

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