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Japan, Pre-Hornby, Work

Japan-7

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This is the closest photo I could find of a Norwegian coal transport. Minus the masts it resembles the Belnor.

I said before that the primary reason for a crew sailing on a coal carrier is to dock and undock the vessel. Almost all of the jobs for the day crew were essentially make-work. They wanted us to keep busy and, therefore, hopefully, out of trouble. Scrape rust, paint, scrape rust, paint, then scrape rust and paint again, this was our main job. The ship was only four years old; the carpenter told me that this was middle-aged and the only way for it to have a useful life it had to be protected from the rust all the time. I began learning how much I hate make-work: a lesson I’ve never really shaken all these years later.

When I resumed this story in 2005 I managed to find a pic of the Belnor on line. And, yes, the ship was scrapped when it turned the ripe old age of 8. Couldn’t find a picture this time. It was as if it hadn’t existed.

Once a week the crew would clean and polish the living area. This took a whole day and included mopping the floors, washing the walls and portholes, and finishing off by polishing everything that was brass. Only when comparing our vessel with the ships moored in Yokohama harbour did we realize that, as the hierarchy goes, this was an exceptionally functional and tidy ship. Part of the reason was, of course, the captain keeping a lid on the drinking.

Standard all over the world was the five and a half day work week. This was the norm those days I worked in the foundry and everybody was expected to head to work on Saturday for four hours. The same on ship. Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday belonged to you! We would read, write letters, and gather in the ship’s lounge where there was a fancy radio that would pull in stations from all over the Pacific. Ron and I could tune into Vancouver radio stations and get a little homesick. The second mate, who’s job it was, would dig into his supply of rented movies and every Sunday we would be treated to a full length feature on 16 millimeter (with sound and everything?)

The cook would outdo himself regularly for Sunday dinners. You can imagine how important good food became and we would salivate as we waited for what was usually some kind of meat extravaganza. Another daily treat was at 2:00; Teatime and the pastry cook would come up with enough great confections to make it one of the highlights of the day.

The day was purposely split into as many time consuming segments as possible and the meals plus teatime could last an hour or more. It was mandatory to have at least clean duds on for every meal. So, at the proper time, you would go to your cabin change out of your work gear, go to the dining room for the meal, then return to your cabin and change back into dirty clothes and go back to work. We would get up at six A.M. and do an hours work before changing for breakfast! Around 8 or 8:30 at night the workday would end and rest of the day was ours.

This was the day crews regime which Ron and I both belonged. Things were about to change as during our first week at sea Ron made an incredible mistake, which would change his status for the rest of the trip

to be continued…

Hornby Island BC

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The ship was Norwegian and the cook was Norwegian and the food was Norwegian. Do you know what Norwegian food is? Fish! That’s right, fish. You may remember how much I used to like fish. It didn’t really dawn on me until a few days into the menu that this was the base of every meal. Breakfast was something like fish cakes: lunch a kind of fish casserole and for supper, you guessed it, more fish. Oh, I ate it, never fear, but I can’t say that I ever really enjoyed the cuisine. It was healthy and certainly not fattening. (Upon my return I weighed 135 pounds, which, at my height was probably all muscle)

The ship was heavily laden and the first morning, although we were off the coast of Vancouver Island and into the Pacific, there was only the slightest perception of wave movement. I thought to myself “at least I don’t get seasick”. Haw-haw, the best was yet to come. There were three other crew members who had never been to sea. One was just another kid like us on an adventure like us. The other two were older, Hungarian refugees, new to Canada and beginning again. One of them turned out to be a typical statistic. In every crowd there are some people who don’t get seasick at all and there are some people who get really ill. At the first hint of wave action this poor fellow hit his bunk and didn’t come out until Japan two weeks away. He couldn’t work, couldn’t eat and when asked how he was he replied that he just wanted to die. In Japan he was taken off and flown home, never to sail again.

One more day, learning the ropes, so to speak, as we traveled up the West Coast of Vancouver Island. The ship followed a great circle route to Japan, which would bring us through the Bering Sea, and close to the Aleutian Islands. This was October, the days were dark and the weather was typical of the north in winter, heavily overcast with visibility quite low. After a while the coast disappeared into the dark gray surrounding and, except for a brief glimpse of the Aleutians, we didn’t sight land again until Japan.

I got seasick. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t feel like dying but I wasn’t a happy puppy. For one day my interest in anything was non-existent; couldn’t eat and didn’t want to work. Fortunately, that was my total experience with the affliction: even on the return trip I didn’t have a replay. Ron’s experience lasted a little longer but he came out just as I did and we both became working members of the crew

Japan, Pre-Hornby, Work

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On a coal carrier the crew has little do with loading and unloading except to open the hatches and, for the officers, oversee the operations. The coal is loaded with large chutes coming from structures like grain elevators. Railroad car after car is dumped at the terminus and returned to somewhere in Alberta, I imagine. So, on our first day of work we were allowed to watch as they buttoned down the last of five hatches, washed the deck and prepared to set sail.

Docking and undocking; that’s where the crew was needed most and since it was a coal ship it didn’t have a large crew compared with, say, a container ship of the same size. We were put to work. We had to haul the giant mooring lines on board and stow them below in what would probably be called the chain locker. These ropes had to be coiled perfectly in anticipation of docking: it wouldn’t do to have a tangled mess when the stevedores in Japan began pulling them to shore. It was a long grueling job, we were out of shape, and when finished the temptation was to go to bed. But, no way. We were under power and heading towards the first narrows on a beautiful fall evening

I’ve been under the Lion’s Gate Bridge before and many times since but this occasion was as unique as any thing I had done in my short life. The freighter steamed through the harbour as nightfall came. Ron and I leaned on the rail and watched the cars and buses going across the bridge. This was it! We were really going to sea! We watched the walkers on the sea wall watch us; some even waved. We went to our cabins tired and excited.

Morning came and with it whole new world.

to be continued…

Japan, Pre-Hornby

Japan-4

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Before the trip I had decided that I wasn’t into photography anymore and consequently didn’t bring a camera with me. What a mistake!. However, one of the people that Ron and I signed on with, another lowly decksgutte , did bring a little plastic camera. All of the pictures of the Belnor that I’m posting were shot with this camera.

This is the guy, I don’t remember his name but he was a newbie just like us.

Chaos greeted us. A little man with a red face was gesticulating and yelling in some foreign language at another taller man who had a case of beer tucked under his arm. Ron and I stood aghast as, in a final fit of rage, the little man grabbed the case of beer and threw it overboard! We thought there was going to be a major fight but the big man just walked away muttering oaths in what we learned later was Swedish.

The little man was our captain and the Swede was the Boson (sort of like the foreman in a normal world.) It turns out that this was what was called a “dry ship”, no booze on board. Most Seamen were heavy drinkers and they would stock up their cabins with enough booze to get them to the next port. This ship was a rarity in the seagoing world and the officers tried to make sure that the cabins were well searched and any booze found was held until port or, as in the case of the boson, tossed overboard. The ramifications of this policy were two sided and the dark side didn’t appear until we were well out to sea and the last of the hidden stock began running out.

The second mate signed us aboard and gave us our cabin numbers. We weren’t to be together! The policy was to put the new boys with experienced hands and I was to share a cabin with the ship’s carpenter. Ron went to a cabin with one of the regular deck hands. Of course, we both were forced to take the upper bunks; the lower and more desirable bunks were always allocated to men higher up on the totem pole (which in our case was just about everybody). Two men to a room, two bunks, one couch, one bureau, one tiny porthole which now looked into the dark gloomy world of Port Moody. Some of the crew had been on the Belnor for years and they had managed to claim single cabins for themselves alone. The cabins and hallways were sparkling clean and I was to learn how that came about pretty soon.

to be continued…