The Merchant Marine Express

We’re currently underway and heading towards our loading berth in Lake Charles,Louisiana. There, we will be taking a load of fuels and will also receive bunker fuel. We ought to be anchoring for a short while prior to accepting a harbor pilot. In recent past, it’s been customary for the ship to anchor and wait for definite orders. The “Hurry up and wait” expression applies.

My trip out to the ship was quick! With only a day’s notice; I hurried by gathering some incidentals such as new boots, undershirts and chewing gum, stuff like that. I hadn’t even completed some yard work that I had already started back at the house, and so I give my sincerest apologies to my wife.

My flight went okay. Although, I acted as a surrogate big brother or babysitter, on behalf of the rest of the passengers, as I sat next to an unruly passenger for most of the connection out of Atlanta. For the first part of my journey as the flight departed Detroit and landed into Atlanta, a man sitting in the next row was initially very loud. He spoke on his cell phone as many could hear and also looked back at me and pointed out at the various landmarks as we flew past. I wasn’t giving it much thought, and
nodded with only a low acknowledging grunt.

No sooner was I boarding onto the next flight a couple hours later and anticipating a nice quiet and peaceful flight as I prepared for my lengthy two month voyage, when low and behold, my seat would position myself NEXT to the loudmouth of a man! I was a bit in shock as he blurted out if I
wanted the window seat and mentioned to trade spots. Being witty with words,

I quickly mouthed,” I would rather jump out of the window than to sit there!. And with that, I sat in the middle seat and an older woman sat on the aisle to my left. Unforgiving, the man used his cell phone to make a call that would make every soul on the plane notice. His voice seemed to resonate throughout
every person’s body as each seat rumbled to the sound of his chatter! Thoughts quickly ran through my head as I would not have this nonsense ruin my trip to work. So I said, calmly,” You might want to quiet it down, sir. My ears are ringing and we are about to depart. In fact, the flight attendant is closing the doors and you will need to silence your phone.” He initially ignored me, but silenced it,a few seconds after.

With a sudden request to use the airplane bathroom, he nearly barged out into the aisle and disappeared quickly just as another flight attendant made passenger checks. Soon, however, he sat back down and quickly made some more loud remarks as I reminded him to keep his voice down. Surprisingly, he obeyed and actually apologized for speaking out loud. For half the one hour flight, he slept and I was able to settle into a quick slumber. Once he woke as the drink cart trekked by, and after we all had our beverages, the man again surprised me with a final gesture that absolutely floored me. He opened up a package of bulk tobacco and spoke of rolling his own cigarettes and getting in trouble at the airport bar with the bartender chastising him.

Just as he was describing his dilemma, he started to roll this same cigarette with the tobacco in his hand, at this time! I spoke with an affirmed voice and said, “You shouldn’t be doing that, there is no smoking
or handling of cigarette paraphernalia while in flight!” He replied back that he wasn’t going to smoke and would merely be fixing his cigarette for his next opportunity. I mentioned emphatically that this would not be tolerated but that “he was old enough to know..” This whole drama took part almost as if a father was trying to mentor his own son not to smoke. But this childish older man was forty-something and seemed a bit mentally challenged, now that I think back. He ended up dropping the half rolled cigarette back into its package and acknowledged that it was too soon to do anything about it.

We landed without any further incident and I soon had my baggage in hand and was whisked quickly bound for the ship by the local shipping agent in Tampa.

The ship lay quietly as I boarded the familiar sight of all six hundred and seventy-eight foot of pure steel. She had only been alongside the dock for only an hour before and the cargo hoses were just being
connected in preparation for unloading the cargo of Ethanol.

I wandered towards my familiar stateroom whereby the Third Mate which I would be relieving was waiting patiently for me. I shook hands and was given the quick “turn over” as is customary for one mate to pass
information to the newly relieving officer. I made my presence known as I peered into the Chief Mate’s office as both he and Captain Smith stood nearby and gave a cheerful “Hello”! I remembered Mike as Second Mate just a few months before, but was informed on his promotion and jokingly called him
“Mate”. This was a pleasant surprise to have him as my senior officer.

I finished up the watch as the hours of “four till eight” would be my responsibility for both morning and afternoons from that point on. I dozed off around nine o’ clock and was woken up at three thirty in
the morning for the start of the new day! A quick four hours passed but I forgot how demanding running up and down the ship as my legs became sore and tired. Before long, we finished with our unloading of precious cargo and soon were departing the dock, bound for Louisiana!

Have a great weekend, folks!

At Sea
Lat. 27-36.0′N
Long. 083-24′W
Course 270

Tags: Chemical Explorer