Journey's start

I was in a kind of fog as my parents drove me around the Oakland port area, we were surrounded and dwarfed by tractor trailers and Semi's as they ferried shipping containers to and fro as we looked for the proper entrance to the berth I was to depart from. All the planning, packing, last minute work related drama, cleaning, more packing, storage, moving and other loose ends I was looking forward to the isolation to come. After some confused u-turns and false entrances we finally located what appeared to be the correct location, a nondescript security gate with a one way carousel of steel bars like you’d see at a large stadium. A hulking but friendly guard asked me if I was crew, answering that I was a passenger on the Senator, he helped me load my stuff into a funky shuttle bus and drove me out past towering rows of containers to the ship. A long line of trucks were waiting to be off-loaded, the giant gantry cranes in constant motion as the containers were lifted from them one by one. In a synchronized dance, a truck would drive up as the Portainer lowered it’s spreader and engaged the twistlocks into the four corners of the container. The slender knuckles engaged to these elongated steel ovals are all that supports the entire weight as it is pulled roughly free from the truck bed, is then lifted a few feet off the truck and special connecting modules are placed by hand in the bottom four corners where the container was previously attached to the truck. The attachments are a spring loaded fitting with two short release pulls that are oriented towards the edge of the container. The crane then rapidly lifts the container up overhead and the truck pulls away as the next takes it’s place. The container is slotted in to the ships hold, it’s location pre determined by weight and type, and the spring loaded fittings positively engage it to the container below, often providing the only physical attachment to the ship.

I was left at the bottom of a towering gang plank running along side the ship, as giant containers moved rapidly and unnervingly overhead, I noticed it was suspended over the crevasse between the ship and the quay without actually being fixed to it (to discourage rats I assume.) It was constructed of strangely curved aluminum steps, shaped like little airfoils, the steps presented an awkward but somewhat horizontal surface regardless of the angle of the ramp. A large man, appearing to originate from somewhere in the South Pacific, came down and pantomimed brusquely that he wanted to bring the hand-truck with my boxes up. I motioned to disassemble it, but he shook his head no and proceeded to lift the entire 120 or more pounds of it via the handle. Fearing that my belongings were about to end up at the bottom of Alameda harbor, I grabbed the back side and attempted to steady it while trying to keep myself balanced and maintain my footing on the precarious and now heavily bouncing gangplank. As I climbed bent over and trying not to stumble off the side, I could feel my laptop bag slipping slowly off my shoulder as it worked its way down my body until finally hobbling me about the knees. I finally shouted for him to stop his headlong rush up the plank and relocated the shoulder strap around my neck, before again struggling to keep my feet on rather than in-between the corrugated rungs, finally making it to the safety of the lower deck. The other bags were easier to lug aboard, and grabbing another deck hand we proceeded to transport my luggage up the six flights of stairs to where my cabin awaited. The three of us clambered up the steps like Elephants on parade, each of us lifting the bottom of the package borne by the person in front. We fastened the luggage to the wall of my suite, using the bungie cords provided for this purpose, and without taking any time to explore my apparently vast accommodations, I rushed below decks to ask the captain if I could disembark and come back closer to departure.

Having received permission to come back later, I walked back out to where my parents had been patently waiting for me in case I was able to return. We went back to the house where I did some high speed hardware swaps and set Fred up with my `too big for Japan’ workstation. I configured my TiVo and got it connected to the internet, set up some uninterruptible power supplies on key pieces of hardware, and sent Fred off to get a good bottle of Scotch for the Captain. Various problems were experienced and overcome, although we were able to get everything basically functional in time to for me to get back to the ship.

By now the trucks had all come and gone, the shuttle was no where to be seen and the storage yards I walked through on my way to the ship were silent and deserted. The once bee hive of activity, laid upon this vast featureless expanse of concrete, was now some post apocalyptic wasteland of inscrutable human design, the towering blocks of faceless containers casting long shadows and reflecting distant noises, or tethered by long umbilical cords to fenced off substations, humming in their endless task of keeping their contents a steady 32 degrees. I once again arrived at the ship, only an occasional sign of movement across her vast flanks, and only impeded with a few consumables, found the way aboard far less challenging.

Faced with the many introductions to the officers, I had to repress the overwhelming desire to involuntarily salute everyone. I’m not sure what it is, or if it is just me, but the subconscious desire to conform to one’s own expectations sometimes gets the better of us. Fortunately I managed to avoid emulating their clipped German accents as well, although no doubt had I stayed longer it was only a matter of time before I spewed something along the lines of “Das boot vas covard vit schneeflocken.”
The tugs finally came and we cast off and headed out of the estuary. I wasn’t sure if my parents were going to wait around for the boat to leave, as because of security conditions they would have to watch me depart from the little park located at the point of the docks. I searched for some sign that they were there, the car parked in the lot, or them standing by the shoreline, but I didn’t see any sign of them. The Alameda ferries that I commuted on to work every day made their presence known, and I felt the small sadness that one feels when their dream is made reality and no longer has the purity of one’s imagination. I was no longer on that little boat on my way home looking up at this great ship setting forth across the ocean, I was here, out in the cold wind, facing that uncertainty that was so easy to disregard from down there ensconced in the comfort of a warm chair and the more pressing thoughts of what to have for dinner.

From quite a distance, over the rumble of the tugs and the shuddering of the great engine eight stories below me, I heard the familiar voice of my mom calling out. Having spotted me from the viewing platform, and hidden in the shadows of twilight, Fred joined in, the two of them wishing me a good journey. I waved as best I could in their general direction, hoping they could see me, as I was up on the flying bridge rather than the first deck as I had told them I would be. Then we were out in the bay, with the sun setting through the clouds silhouetting the fair city of San Francisco in such a way as to make it easy to forget all her shortcomings and just revel in her.

I stayed above decks as long as I could stand, the cold and wind biting through my thin jacket. From the window in my stateroom I watched as we passed the Marin headlands, the lighthouses flashing their warnings and goodbyes. I wanted to capture what it looked like, but there was no camera ever built that could render what I was seeing. The ocean and the sky, an infinite number of shades between dull blue and slate gray, I’ve no idea why it was so beautiful, but mother nature’s an artist rarely limited by the pallet given her. Even when I watched the sun setting from the shores of my island weeks before, I had to shake my head at the ridiculousness of the gradient presented to my eyes, who else could pull off an electric blue sky fading to nuclear tangerine orange, who else would have such audacity? Now playing subtle tricks with a tiny band of wavelengths, I’m once again left helpless to grasp what she’s playing at.

On this freighter there are four passenger slots typically available, but the captain reserved one of these for his wife of 38 years and all but one of the other passengers had departed in Oakland. At dinner I met the other passenger on board, he was an older fellow, obviously ex-military, thin, wiry and said "about" in the way only a Canadian can. He spoke quickly and with virtually no inflection, peering at you with piercing blue eyes only as long as necessary to make his point. He had the air of a man used to power and respect but conscious of being outside his sphere of influence, and going so far out of his way to be deferential as to make his discomfort in doing so all the more obvious. The captain was boyish and full of enthusiasm, he joyfully rattled off the statistics of the giant Pana-Max freighter he piloted, clucked and teased his subordinates as he tucked away at his food. His thick German accent becoming less and less of a problem as I adapted to his cadence, his wife happily made expressive reactions to compensate for her lack of English.

I returned to my cabin and read, while the massive engine slowly accelerated through the half-speed we were limited to near the shore to the cruising speed on the open ocean. Each firing of a massive cylinder transmitted throughout the ship as if we were being hammered like a nail through the water. The pulse of energy twisting the massive shaft to the prop, where the water was torn and sheared, forced to the point of cavitation to propel the great beast forward, only to rush back towards the breach to be cloven by the next great stroke. Exhausted and determined to wake early for breakfast I extinguished the light and fell to a fitful sleep.