Six Months At Sea In The Merchant Marine

when I was younger I dreamed of taking off on a sailboat exploring the oceans meeting exotic women climbing deserted islands for myself things have turned out a little differently recently I spent over six months at sea working on a container ship it was my first time working offshore as a merchant marine the ship was over 900 feet and took me nearly entirely around the globe from New York to the San Francisco Bay the long way people often ask me just what is the Merchant Marine and truthfully it can be pretty confusing so just to clear a few things up the Merchant Marine is not part of the military though we can be called into active duty during times of war but normally it is a fleet made up of one nations ships run by civilians it is ships not planes that bring the majority of everyday goods you see in stores from clothes and food to cars and the gas that make them go but while the American commercial fleet once soared in the thousands a recent push for cheaper International shipping has diminished the US fleet to a dwindling one to two hundred ships these days the occupation is a bit of a secret you can get into the industry by two ways go to a maritime school to become an officer or work your way up from the bottom by gaining see time and tonnage from work experience which is what I did by using over a decade of sea time on sailboats commercial fishing boats and an oil spill cleanup ship I was able to get in able-bodied sailors license and the necessary requirements to ship offshore with this I got a job on my first morning into my union hall and as I was flying from my homeport of San Francisco to meet the ship in Staten Island I became a little nervous that I might not fit in with my crewmates ever since I was a little kid I've been hearing sea stories from the Pirates and Robinson Crusoe to the characters of Jack London novels I didn't know which were true or made up which qualities in a sailor were outdated or still valid I knew that ships had sure changed but I wondered if the sailors had but as it turned out the crew was great ages ranged from 16 to 60 each had taken their own paths to the sea sailors by nature are travelers interested in other ways of life and other cultures I learned that on the job it is crucial to keep a positive attitude and stay supportive of each other to be able to rely on your shipmates you know at some point you're going to need a hand whether it's physically while working on deck or even if you just want a night off in a foreign port and you're stuck with gangway watch the old-timers taught me these lessons and others as he moved along from port to port after New York it was down the eastern seaboard to Charleston then Savannah then back up to Norfolk we slept little because we were in and out of ports so quickly there was always something to wake up for during our short rest breaks get up to release the dock lines from a fuel barge or bow lookout as we came into port maybe the food stores had arrived and we quickly had to get them on board and stowed before the long journey it became normal to lay down in my bunk with my work clothes on and a handheld radio turned on in case a job came up quickly finally went out to sea heading across the Atlantic we could breathe a sigh of relief and get into our daily routine I was a watch standing deckhand meaning I had two four-hour watches each day up on the bridge from 12:00 to 4:00 a.m. and 12:00 to 4:00 p.m. I worked as a lookout and helmsman when coming into ports or through narrow Straits and canals I also worked for hours of overtime every day on deck from 8 a.m. to noon helping to maintain the ship and cargo because my watch was the 12 to 4 a day began just before midnight I would get a wake-up call from the deckhand I was relieving to get dressed and be up on the bridge in 15 minutes this watch was always in the dark all the lights on the bridge were turned down or off to keep our eyes adjusted to see the other ships at night sometimes it was hard to stay awake through the watch but a lot of coffee and the occasional cigarette out on the bridge wing would get me through it was nice being out in the elements far out in the middle of the ocean the moon reflecting off the water the constellations above and no one else around for as far as you can see after my night watch I had a few hours to catch some sleep and grab some breakfast before I was to meet for deck work sometimes the deck work was enjoyable like when we were sent down each row of containers to tighten or grease the lashing gear it was nice to work outside in the fresh sea air and the views of course were hard to beat not all the duck jobs are so enjoyable of course sometimes they were loud and nasty such as the never-ending battle against rest while chipping priming and painting this huge steel ship sometimes the jobs were flat-out toxic like when a fuel pipe burst inside the ship and we had to do our best to clean up the oil with our limited materials but every once in a while you get a job that would make you feel like an actual sailor again I up in the rigging somewhere the wind in your face you appreciate your perspective for the moment whatever my deck job happened to be each day I always had to be back up on the bridge by noon to do my next watch and that was my schedule every day for basically six months straight on each trip our course continued after the Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean sadly we cruise through the Med without stopping but it was nice to stand out on the bridge wing and smell the earth again soon we got to Egypt and picked up our pilots to make our way through the Suez Canal it was standard practice to bribe the Egyptians with cigarettes in order to get through we averaged about 20 full cartons on each passage without them I was told the pilots would simply not put us in a convoy and they would wait until we coughed them up it was strange to be passing by a place so close to land where we can see far across from a high vantage point at the south end of the canal is the glittering resort town of Port Suez there we dropped off our pilots and we were suddenly in the Red Sea we then began preparations to pass cautiously through the pirated waters of the Gulf of Aden our deck gang rigged fire hoses and large metal spikes on the stern design so that if a grappling hook was thrown it would catch and drop the apparatus on the unsuspecting pirate we sat Watchers on the stern at night staring out into the darkness chain-smoking and hoping that the pirates left us alone once through the Gulf of Aden we quickly began to hit our foreign ports within the span of a couple weeks we would stop in Oman Dubai Pakistan Singapore and Sri Lanka before heading back on the same route towards New York long ago it would take longshoreman many days to unload ships these days ports are efficient machines and ships are in and out often in less than 24 hours this means that there is much less time for sailors to enjoy their time ashore on top of our normal working ports we were required to stand watch if a port was particularly dangerous so time allowed ashore might only be a few hours and often the free time would be in the middle of the night some guys went straight to bars or brothels some took the time to be tourists and see the sights like the indoor ski slope and Dubai but whatever you did you had to be back on the ship quickly because it would not wait for anybody and that was the way it was run after run days weeks and months blurring together another port after another all starting to seem the same weather in Savannah Georgia or Salalah Oman gradually you start to become sort of institutionalized on the ship taking comfort in the scheduled work shutting off that rebellious part of your brain everyone deals with the monotony and solitude in different ways some are avid readers some socialise and drink a few in their off hours myself being the artsy type I would typically lock myself in my cabin and do a little painting on my hour or so free time I had hoped it would get my mind off my daily activities but as you can see that didn't really happen the old-timers warned me about keeping the job as a career they say it gives you so much freedom but it comes with the price both for you and for your family it's strange in some ways you are thinking so much more globally than the average person the entire world is at your fingertips but really the whole world becomes this little ship a floating community with the 20 people you see every day after about five months at sea we are nearing Dubai one of the last ports before we were to head back to New York where my contract would finally end rumors known on ships of scuttlebutt began to circulate that we were going into the shipyard sure enough the head honchos of the shipping company had decided to start sending this fleet of ships through a drydock in Singapore and we were to be the first so unfortunately I was not going to be home for the holidays as planned and my stay onboard was going to exceed six months on the bright side we were to spend two full weeks in Singapore and I would be allowed to take weekends off if I wanted to so we unloaded all of our containers and made the trip to a drydock on the west side of Singapore huge overhead cranes assisted us with tons of mooring lines to ensure the ship would not tip over when the water was pumped out instantly we were flooded with hundreds of workers from the shipyard most of the laborers were on two-year contracts from their homes in India they were friendly and good workers but immediately stole anything that we had not locked away spare line flashlights shackles life rings and more they make so little money that we didn't put up much of a fuss but we were careful to lock her cabin doors the heat was sweltering it rained insanely hard every afternoon and the noise was constant unbearable without earplugs there were hundreds of projects being worked on but the main job was stripping than painting the whole and inspecting and cleaning the prop in the Dec game we worked extremely hard for the first few days clearing the hatches of thousands of heavy steel lashing rods turnbuckles and container cones then most of the work was up to the shipyard specialists so we did our best to stay out of sight I took advantage of this opportunity to see more Singapore whenever I could there is a great subway system there and finding new areas to wander became my favorite pastime it was great to call place home for a while I feel like a regular person again but in the dusty shipyard it didn't take long for everyone to get a bit antsy a couple of crewmates had spent nearly their entire paychecks ashore on tattoos booze and women in less than two weeks there seemed to be a unanimous desire to get back to sea after all sailors aren't meant to be on shore this long finally the necessary work was done we had a bright new paint job and a shiny prop because time is money in the shipyard they filled the drydock with water and we got underway even though the ship was a complete mess somehow with a stroke of luck our ship was assigned to the Pacific run so we were to head up from Singapore to China Korea and Japan before heading across the Pacific towards home I was excited to be in some new ports Korea in particular was a wonderful surprise with the streets lit up for the holidays but the port stays flew by and I was happy to be finally back at sea heading towards home crossing the Pacific took about ten days and got quite cold as we headed close to the Aleutian chain in our Great Circle across the ocean Christmas was spent at sea I made a tree out of an old tarp and my pal Charlie help me decorate it with paper ornaments soon we found ourselves in sunny Southern California and after a brief stop in Los Angeles we were finally sailing toward San Francisco I volunteered for Bao lookout at dawn so excited to be finally home the fog seemed to split as we cruised under the Golden Gate and the waterfront I knew so well was a sight for sore eyes finally we pulled into Jack London Square and Oakland and my contract was complete looking back over the journey I think about all the places we traveled the people I met and the thousands of miles we covered there were certainly rough and lonely times but I am happy to have seen what it was like to ship these days I'm sure I will ship again someday soon but for now I am on the beach as they say in the industry catching up with friends and family and watching the ships from the shoreline as they head out across the sea you

Channel: Martin Machado

Views: 1,248,169

Rating: 4.9357243 out of 5

Keywords: Ships, Shipping, Merchant Marine, Ocean, Boat, Sailing, Container Ship, Sea, Water, Ship, Merchant Navy, Life At Sea, Containership, international, Seafaring, Seafarers, Six Months At Sea In The Merchant Marine

Id: vMnWK6apliQ

Length: 22min 5sec (1325 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 30 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/baron_von_jackal]

Really enjoyable watch, thanks!

[u/lomlslomls]

That was a nice video. I wonder how much money he made with that contract, and all of that overtime?