A Slow Boat From China-Container ship travel

This is an adventure that George and I had in the summer of 2018.  I am posting it here because I have had a few people on the current cruise ask me about the trip we took via container ship.  I had written this only for my viewing pleasure, but ended up sending a copy of it to the shipping company that we traveled on.  The puzzle at the end is fully solvable if you dare.  The solution can be found in the PDF version.  I apologize for the lack of images. Blogger does not allow me to copy them into here. Edit: Problem solved. For a PDF version of this complete with photos, click here. 

Day 0 (Wednesday, 18 July 2018)

My whole life I’ve heard reference to a slow boat to China. I had never known where it came from, but that didn’t matter. About 4 months ago my lover and I looked into and decided to take container ship travel on our return to the US from Hong Kong. He played me the song for the first time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjKkdRwbAEs And thus we began our Slow Boat FROM China.

We began by contacting Maris on 9 January, and by 20 January we had booked and paid our passage. We were set to sail on 11 July. At this point, we began sending our household goods home in earnest. All on other slow boats from China.

We both got physicals and were cleared for travel. All we had left to do was wait. In the mean time, we continued to mail our worldly goods to our new home, and to prepare for our journey. We both have 10 year China visas, myself from living in HK for the past 25 years and George because of visits to me. On a trip to visit our new home in February, we went to a pharmacy and picked up enough Dramamine to knock out all men, women, and children on the ship. I made a practice pack of our clothes and other items and we were set to go.

Fast forward to 18 June, and we received an email postponing the departure date by one week. We were now leaving on 18 July! I knew this was coming. I had been tracking the ship and realized that it could not make Hong Kong on the date we were originally given. Our disappointment was immense.

I of course did what I do best, and began to make alternative plans. You see, we had rented rooms, a car, a truck, made travel plans from Oakland to Sonoma to San Diego to Houston to New Orleans to our home in Boca Raton. Our daughter’s flights were booked, our flat lease given up, our stay in the Peninsula Hotel booked. And all of it had to be unbooked. I got on to fixing those problems while George contacted the shipping company to change our disembarkation to LA. We realized that we could still make most of our dates so long as we got off the boat early and flew to Oakland. It’s fine. 5 days fewer of sailing, no visiting with friends, but the majority of our trip would go as planned.

This of course left us with an extra week to fill. We decided to send our daughter to family in Illinois as planned and to spend a week in Hainan Island, China. We flew off a few hours before she did and enjoyed a lovely holiday knowing she was safe with her grandfather while we swam in the South China Sea.

As required, we contacted the shipping company 1 week before departure and were told to call back when we returned to HK. Upon our return we immediately called again only to be told that the ship was delayed yet once more. But this time for only 1 day. This we could handle, and we booked another night in the Heritage Lodge where we were staying. This by the way is a real gem of a hotel/guest house. It was a former hospital turned into a cultural center and hotel. It is a beautiful little place out of the way but within a 10 minute walk from the Lai Chi Kok MTR station. It is nestled in the woods along Castle Peak Road built into the hillside. The roof is tin and when the rain from the inevitable typhoon came, the sound was magical. It sent me back to my childhood and the tin roof on the farmhouse I grew up in.

We used the extra day to do some last minute shopping and to grab a couple more movies to take along with us on the boat. I unpacked and repacked our suitcases and we just spent the final day in Hong Kong relaxing. There really is nothing else I want to do here. After 25 years, I’ve done enough! It is time to escape.

We have one final night here before the driver picks us up at 10 am and delivers us to the ship. I’d be fibbing if I were to say I wasn’t nervous. I am afraid of the water. I’m not a strong swimmer and I’m terrified of the typhoons. Add to that watching the Poseidon Adventure while we were on holiday and I don’t think it can get any worse. But I’ve done my homework. I’ve looked at videos of typhoons and ships on the Atlantic Ocean, investigated the ship we will be on and have come to the conclusion that it will be a smooth ride. I’m sure we will hit a storm or two, but we went through a typhoon on our Christmas cruise with 7-8 meter waves and I survived. A bit nauseous, but I survived. I’m guessing this will be no worse than that. So here is hoping I manage to get a full nights sleep and that my prediction of smooth sailing comes true.

I write this with the intention of keeping a memory book of our travels to our new home. Should I deem it good enough for others to read, I may pass it on or put it up on Amazon as a kindle book; who knows. For now, it is simply a daily diary that will be kept for the next 18 days—from our departing Hong Kong to our arrival in Los Angeles, California. So until tomorrow....I wish you a good night in the hopes that my excitement is contained enough for me to sleep.

Day 1 (Thursday, 19 July 2018) 22 19’N, 114 07’E (HONG KONG SAR, CHINA)

Well, here we are leaving day. As expected, I woke well before the alarm. The excitement was just too much for me. We checked the stock market, read the news, looked one last time at facebook and our favorite forums. After a shower, we had breakfast in the hotel room. You see, we both had money left on our transport cards and I didn’t feel like letting it sit in the hopes that the cards would still be valid in a year when we return so I bought milk, a banana, mango juice and one last can of Nescafe milk coffee. I knew I had granola bars in the hotel and so I made George a nice granola cereal bowl. Little did I know they were peanut butter granola bars, but hey, it was food. I had my usual glass of a chocolate shake and we were all set. After washing the breakfast dishes and my blender, I packed up the last few things that were left out. It’s 8:30 and we still have 1 1/2 hours before the driver comes to pick us up. Now we just wait.

The phones are charging (as if they will be useful to us in the next 18 days. I’m expecting we lose the use of them when we hit the Chanel outside of HK Island. The computers are fully charged and we are ready to leave.

9:30 am came and we were off. We decided to go to the reception early just so we would be ready when the driver came to pick us up. George grabbed the heavy suitcase and brought it to the front as I carried the lighter ones down the stairs. Our driver had arrived early! We were off!

Ok. I’ll be honest, after 24 + years in HK, the trip was rather non- dramatic. I’d traveled those roads many times before and was able to point out a number of geographical features to George. I showed him the bridge I ran across when I did the Standard Chartered Marathon, I showed him the way to get to the hospital or the house I used to own in Lai King. I showed him the road I ran through and was escorted out of— apparently you aren’t allowed to run in the container terminal. The driver was very nice and gave us the name of the bridges we passed and a general location. Within 10 minutes of leaving our hotel, we arrived at berth 8 of the Hong Kong International Terminal.

When we entered the shipping yard, we were asked to hand over our passports. After a quick run into a building, our driver returned them to us, put a yellow light on the roof of his car and drove us another block to the ship. He very kindly stopped so we could take a photo of the back of the ship with the name on it and the next thing we knew, we were dropped off at the ship. We were told the way to the entrance and the driver took off.

OMG! I looked up and saw the stairway to heaven, or hell for me. I had to climb. Not just a little bit, but a lot! I had to climb all the way to the top of the ship with the suitcases. My thought was immediately that I would never make it, but then I remembered how much we were looking forward to this and George’s age and his lack of future opportunity and I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other. George climbed to the top and dropped off one carry-on and his backpack. I followed with my purse, backpack and a duffel bag. I just kept telling myself to look at the silver plate behind the stairs, don’t look through them, don’t look around, and most importantly keep walking! 90 steps! 90! That is around 9 stories high if I think about the number of steps per story at CityU. I was almost to the top when George came back down. He wanted to help me by taking my purse and the duffel I was carrying. All I could do was shout at him to stop moving and let me carry on. You see, the steps shook. And that more than anything frightened me. And just as George grabbed my purse, a seaman passed him and grabbed my duffel and headed to the top. Like that, I was un-bagged and saw nothing to do but to carry on the last 20 or so steps. When I got to the top, I wanted to cry from relief. I made it! The next seaman we saw wanted our passports and a signature so he could sign us onto the ship.

Yet another took me to our cabin while George and the first guy went back down to get the rest of the luggage. This was not explained to us at all. Everything I read said there was a gangplank to cross. Not a thin ladder to climb burdened by heavy luggage. Note to self, distribute the weight better for disembarkation.

George came to the room with the rest of the bags, and I set straight to the task of unpacking. I realized how much crap I brought with us when I was doing so. Cables for our exchange puzzle, soap and shampoo to last 6 months, extra puzzles, a 2 month supply of Isagenix, enough saltines and ginger crackers to cure motion sickness for at least 10 people. 2 Bols houses that will have made their way around the world by the time they reach their final stop. Yes, just too much stuff that is not necessary. When we leave this ship, all the extras stay behind in the garbage can. I don’t plan on taking any more down those stairs than we need to. I’m already trying to decide which shirts will hit the rubbish bin and have nominated 3! I never realized before just how important weight is. I’ve learned a very valuable lesson and will never make this mistake again. Once all our clothes and food was unpacked, we put the suitcases into the closet, and I filled my water weights. I am very glad that I didn’t listen to George and bought a yoga mat for the journey. But I will get to that later.

Unpacking took us until noon and we headed down for lunch. We had a small table to ourselves and the rest of the crew sat at a large table. This meal one gentleman, the deck cadet, sat with us and told us a bit about himself. He has been working aboard ships for 13 months and that he is from Romania. He’s traveled to Erie, Pennsylvania for a month. Lunch was a nice chicken soup with bread, salad, and a seafood and pasta dish that was a tad bit on the spicy side but delicious all the same.

After lunch, we returned to our cabin for a bit of a relaxation; I texted goodbye to friends in HK; sent one last message to my daughter, and did some laundry. George laid back and played games. Around 2 I went for a wander and found the empty swimming pool and the 'gymnasium'. This was something I was looking forward to. I assumed that with seamen there would be a good gym. Boy was I wrong. The gym was nothing more than a table tennis table and a few rackets. Ah well, I brought my pocket gym with me (water weights, yoga bands, the folding yoga mat).

We met George, the captain, who told us we would be leaving port at 3. I kept one eye on the clock, and the other on the porthole. I wanted to be on deck when the ship took off. The rest of the time we spent watching the ship being loaded with cargo.

This was a fascinating operation. They didn’t just load one then the next, there seemed to be a randomness to it that I know full well is not at all random. I realize through teaching logistical engineering students that each container is loaded in a specific place for ease of removal at a later time. While we still had internet in Hong Kong, I looked up the size of the ship and the locking mechanism of the containers. We could see they have a hole in the top corners and that there is a hook-like thing on each of the bottom corners. These are locked into the container below it. The cranes were 6 deep from what we could see out the passengers lounge window and there were more on our side but I’m not sure of the number as our view is a wall of containers.

Loading lasted until around 3 pm as we were told to expect. I kept saying lets go upstairs and watch us leave but George was convinced that we were not moving. At 3:10, I ran to the other side of the ship and had tangible proof that the ship had moved. It was amazing, there was no feeling of movement and from our porthole window, we could not see any either. At this point, George conceded and we went to the bridge to watch Hong Kong disappear into the distance. It was rainy, which is fitting. A gloomy day to leave. As we left, the rains started to subside and the first view we had was of Central District being lit up by sunlight. It was amazing to watch the city shrink into the distance. I particularly enjoyed watching the boat pass under the Stone Cutters Island Bridge and to see the Lamma Power Station up close. Views I never thought I would ever have. It was strange watching my home for the past 25 years pass behind us. I did not cry, I was filled with happiness. I was ready to leave HK. I know I shall miss my friends but the world is

such a small place today with the use of the internet. Facebook and messengers will keep me in contact with them over the next year and in 2019 I will see them again when I return in August for IPP (International Puzzle Party).

We stayed on the bridge until the boat hit the open water, then we returned to the cabin. George was feeling a bit seasick! This was something I did not expect as he has been on many cruises and enjoys being on the water. I had taken a dramamine around 2 pm to prepare myself for the movement. To be honest, I’m glad I did because I did feel the motion of the boat. It wasn’t much, it was a rather strange sensation. Not a forward motion, not a rolling motion. Perhaps it was because of where I was seated on the boat. Maybe if I were in a different chair it would have felt different. My stomach kept moving a bit and I chalk it up to riding backwards in the ship. The desk I am at faces to the aft of the ship. I get sick in a car or on the train if I travel backwards. Why should the ship be any different.

We stayed in our cabin playing Eurorails until 6:15 when we went for dinner. Tonight we were told to sit in a room to the left of the officers mess. Very unfriendly, but we have our own company and enjoyed our conversation as always. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they aren’t used to having passengers and this is the first night we have met them. We were told there would be wine served with dinner, but there was none tonight. Apparently we are not allowed to drink while in Chinese waters. Strange, but there you have it. We must wait until we leave Xiamen port to have a glass of wine. Three days after leaving Hong Kong.

After dinner we returned to our cabin, finished our game of Eurorails (George won) and went to sleep as usual around 9 pm.

As I write this for myself only, I must ask any who read it to forgive me for my errors. The descriptions of the ship and her crew are my impressions only. I hope I do them justice. The locations posted here are at 8 am on the day in question. I do this for consistency and all are based on the ships log books. I am not going to be pretentious and give the decimals. For my purposes they are not necessary. The only reason I have listed the latitude and longitude is so that I can plot our trip on the map later. I have loaded this with photographs. They are all taken with my iPhone so they are not professional, but they are photos of images that captured my attention.

Day 2 (Friday, 20 July 2018)
22 34’N, 114 17’ E (YANTIAN, CHINA; PORT OF SHENZHEN SAR)

We woke at god knows what hour. We realized that the ship was moving very slowly through the Lamma channel and that it would dock sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Well it did. We woke to the banging of the containers on deck. We had obviously landed and they started to remove containers. I have no idea what time it was, but I also noticed that the ship has outside lights that are bright yellow. George woke around the same time and closed the curtains so we could continue to sleep for a while.

We both woke around 6:30 to the continuing sound of containers being removed. Breakfast was from 7 to 8 so we got up, did our exercises and headed downstairs to eat. George had a very nice looking breakfast of sunny-side-up eggs, bacon and toast while I had my morning shake. There was also apple juice, tea and water. Every day there is a menu placed on the counter so we can see what the meals will be. It’s not fancy food, but it is hearty and good tasting. When we finished, we returned to our room as we had a safety briefing scheduled for 8:30.

A few minutes later, Joel, the safety officer arrived and began to tell us about the ship. We were first given an introduction to the alarms that might be called. I had read through the booklet on the desk the night before so I was aware of these already. George had been on ships before so he also knew of then. We joked about having heard them before. And our guide now told us of times on other ships when he did hear them. Pirates and all! I’m glad we are not in that type of area. But he also reassured us that at full speed, pirate ships could not catch us. I was glad to hear this.

Our tour started with the muster area. We have been there already: the bridge. If something should happen, the captain will tell us where to go and assign a seaman to accompany us. While here we took the time to ask some questions. We were told that this ship has 2 cameras on the front that can be used remotely to guide the ship should it be necessary. We saw the radar, and checked the storm that is on the way in. The safety officer didn’t think it would be that bad, and said if it was, the boat would just roll a bit. We asked about the big P’s that are painted on the outside of the bridge, and they are indeed for helicopter landings of the port pilots.

We were taken to see the life rafts and their rescue boat. These are really neat, there is a special device on each lifeboat cable that is cut automatically if submerged in water. Now these are located on the A deck, so if something were to happen, and they were to become submerged, I think it would be too late. That deck is 9 stories up. I’m guessing the ship would be a goner at this point. But it was cool, we got to look inside the rescue boat. It holds 35 people, thankfully, this boat only has 31 on board. Joel explained how the arms work to lower the rescue boat. I really learned quite a lot on this "tour".

From here we were taken to see the swimming pool and told that we could use it at anytime we wanted once we were out to sea. All we needed to do was ask for it to be filled. They use seawater to fill it an I was told they filter out the fish. The citadel/gym was next on the tour and this was reassuring. It is filled with bedding, life vests, and food stuffs in the event of an emergency. We were told where to find life vests, where to find the hard hats, where to get the yellow vests if we want to go on deck. It was really quite overwhelming.

We were unable to see the engine room today as they were cleaning out the bilge, but told we could see it at a future date. This excites both George and me and we can’t wait to go see this thing. Joel told us it was a 'smaller' engine, but to move a ship this large it still has to be pretty big.

After everything was shown to us, we made our way back to our room to sign a bit more paperwork. We took the opportunity to ask about other passengers and were told that we were the first on this ship since it went into operation. How apropos that our maiden voyage on a containership is it’s maiden carriage of passengers. Or something like that. We gifted Joel with a fidget spinner 1x3x3 puzzle and thanked him for a nice tour. He told us the puzzle looked like a

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turtle and thanked us for the gift. During a later conversation with him he told us that he was still unable to solve it but would bring it to his children in the Philippines to solve.

We next went up to the bridge and spent the next hour watching the loading and unloading of cargo. It is a truly spectacular sight. I’ve seen

it from the hill when I lived above the container terminal in Hong Kong, but never up this close. It is astounding! With the precision needed to move those huge containers, those men must be great at the claw game. I also bet their necks hurt. They seem to have such looks of intense concentration on their faces. There was no one around and we had the bridge to ourselves. An eerie sensation and yet strangely calming. I’m sure we will see more of this again when the ship is docked.

The removal and filling of the container ship happens at the same time. We are watching no less than 8 cranes to the back of the ship and 3 to the front loading this mammoth vessel

that we are on. To the starboard side of the ship is the bay, and to the port side is the dock and what appears to be a never ending field of

containers. Each of those cranes is moving constantly for the entire time we are on the bridge. Some take containers off, and other put them on. Each crane seems to be responsible for one bay, but we also note that the cranes move side to side from time to time and take over the filling and unloading of yet another bay.

There seems to be a lower deck on this ship. The hold I believe it is called. This is covered by giant lids that are also removed using the crane. These are set on the ground and more containers are unloaded. I was curious how this really worked, and as we were not allowed out on deck, we crawled up on the window ledge and peered over the edge. I saw a non-stop circuit of trucks pulling up with containers on them. Each truck would be unloaded from one bay, and move forward to the next to be loaded again. From there it would move into that field of containers where I assume it is unloaded at one spot, moves forward to another to be loaded again and then back to the ship to repeat the process. Each of the ships bays has 3 trucks at its disposal. This is a true feat of engineering and precision. I’ve had many students over the years who studied logistics, and on this voyage, I’m glad I paid attention to some of what they were discussing. I have a feeling this is where the excitement is.

We looked at the time and decided we should go for lunch. Today it was a beet and beef soup with a garden salad, and a bean and sausage dish with boiled vegetables. The servings here are huge, understandably, it is a working ship and these men do a lot so they need the energy, but for two retired people who’s only exercise is morning calisthenics and typing, it’s simply too much. We told the messman to give us one serving for the two of us and that was just perfect. George liked it so much, he went into the kitchen and thanked the cook.

After lunch, we returned to our cabin for another game of Eurorails which I again lost, and took a nice afternoon nap. It is hard getting used to retirement. (NOT!) We woke around 4, finished the game, and watched a really stupid chick-flick on our computer. We could watch on the tv in the room next door, but it requires an HDMI cable and we don’t have one of those. (NB: I subsequently looked at the tv and discovered it will work using a usb. We shall try it on the night of day 3.)

When the movie was over we went down for a rather nice dinner of chicken cordon blue, which of course was simply extremely large even when we divided it in half. I left most of my dish behind, had some salad, and 1/2 of the desert. We will work out the portion size as we go along. Hopefully, they will not be too upset when I don’t finish all of the meals. I hate to waste it, but I also would hate to dedicate it to the porcelain god because I had over eaten.

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After dinner I once again wanted to return to the bridge to see how the loading was progressing. We were shocked to see a gaping hole where containers used to be. In the 1/2 a day since we had last been up there, 1/2 of the cargo was gone. I indulged in a bit of modern technology and made a live Facebook video and then used FaceTime to call my father and show him the loading of the containers. His reaction was not what I expected, he was shocked by the cleanliness of the ship and commented on almost nothing but this. I would have thought he would have been more interested in the goings on of the loading but that didn’t occur.

I spoke to the captain to see what time we would leave port. I wanted to take a dramamine to make sure I could combat the seasickness. He said, "Don’t worry about that. This is a big ship and we are going slow." He smiled and then said, "I’m a good captain."

Around 7:30 we returned to our cabin to watch the movie "Hurricane Heist"...What was I thinking! Again with the movies that will frighten me. I’m betting on day 3 we watch The Titanic. Around 9 pm we closed the windows and fell asleep to the not so gentle banging of the containers being moved around.

Day 3 (Saturday, 21 July 2018) SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

We are getting used to being on this ship. We woke early this morning to quiet. It was 5:19 when I awoke. We checked the stock market, emails, and the news then got up and did our morning calisthenics. We went to breakfast and then came back to the room to finish off the movie from last night. George went to the passenger recreation room and discovered something amazing. He rushed back and called me over. Half the ship was missing! The containers had disappeared over night.

We went up to the bridge to look around and get our bearings for the day. I enjoy looking out the window at the clear blue ocean. It was nice to see Shenzhen receding into the background. That part of my life is now officially over. It disappeared into the horizon and I was very, very glad to see it go.

While on the bridge, I checked the compass on my iPhone and discovered that it is just slightly off. Not enough to be a problem for my purposes, but I’m glad the ship isn’t being driven using it. I have a feeling those few degrees could mean missing the next port. Speaking of which, while on the bridge, I discovered that we should arrive at 9:15 this evening. We should be able to get off the ship at this next one. We had originally planned to stay on board for the entire trip and watch all the loading as it happened, but now we have changed our minds. We aren’t allowed on deck during the process, and want to watch a bit from the ground. We also have not been to this city so going to look around will be fun. I think we last maybe 1/2 a day.

I spoke to the officers on duty today and learned a bit about the workings of the ship. First, we are now traveling at 20 knots. I’m not sure what this is in mph and will have to look later. We can now feel the boat moving. Our heading is 105 degrees East, but we will take a turn a little later on to 75 degrees East. Arrival should be around 9 pm tonight with us docking at around 9:30. I was told there are two sets of navigational equipment which are set at a different depth level. What I mean by this is one is 100 NM out and the other is 250 NM out. I didn’t ask why this was done and should the next morning when I go up again and we are moving. (NB: it is standard practice and is done as a precaution) The ship uses 2 different satellites for positioning and there are 2 crew members on watch at all times. I guess this is either so if someone misses something the other will catch it, or to guard against sleep. It looks as though it could be difficult to stay awake. At least for me. The sea is rather mesmerizing. I asked a few questions and was given answers to all fo them. Of course I have many more, but I know these men are working and I don’t want to bother them too much.

I discovered that not only can the ship be guided in remotely, but it also drives itself. The ship is on 'autopilot' and the officers on watch simply push a button to change the direction of the ship. Much like the car we have purchased. The big difference being that the Tesla warns you if your hands are not on the wheel. The ship does not. There is a handle that increases and decreases

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the speed of the ship. This is an engineering marvel that we are living on. It was only built in 2017 and is modern in every sense of the word.

There are lots of routes drawn onto a main paper map that is held under plexiglass. This map has the North Pacific crossing on it as well as the depth of the ocean. I’m still not sure where we are crossing as all the routes go through the straight above Taiwan or between Japan and Korea. I will ask once we are on that leg of the journey. I saw that there were random numbers posted all around the map. As it turns out, this is the number of fathoms deep the ocean is at that point.

We checked the piracy report that came in (something in Bangladesh-nothing to worry about) and I took a look at the weather report. I was pleased to see that the storm I had been watching will make landfall far north of us. The report came in from the Japanese Meteorological Association. I’ve been watching these reports for the past 25 years. I like that I can understand the reports and know what is coming. For us, this is nothing for at least the next 2 days. I’m sure the storm front that is brewing to the south won’t come this far north. The monsoon winds that come from the mainland should push them further south.

After our walk on the bridge we returned to our cabin where George took a morning nap and I continued to work on these thoughts. After an hour and a half, George woke and we came up with an idea to go check out the movies in the crew and officers rooms. We had initially planned to purchase a couple of cases of beer for the crew, but were told once we got on that this is a dry ship. Well there went that idea so instead, we decided to go ashore and buy some hard drives to give the crew a copy of the movies we brought along. We started with a thumb drive with 3 movies on it and decided to go make sure it would work. While there, I discovered 2 drives. We checked out the size of them and realized that the movies we brought would fit on their drive. We took it back to our room to transfer movies over to only to realize that they may not like our movies. Back to searching for another idea.

As I was sitting typing, the captain came to the room to make sure all was ok for us. Of course it is! We knew what we got ourselves into when we signed up. We wanted 3 weeks at sea to enjoy this phase of our 6 month honeymoon. He was concerned about my sea sickness, whether we liked the food, our general pleasure with the ship so far. I assured him all was wonderful. We discussed the seating arrangements at dinner. He said he would have asked us to join him but as we are allowed alcohol at dinner and his crew is not it would not be fair. This makes sense. I have no problem with this once we are out to sea, but it seems strange that he would separate us on the days we are still unable to drink. But I guess it stops questions later on. I wrote some more and then we headed out down to the B deck for lunch.

I’d like to say we had a lot to do after lunch, but all that we did was return to our room and take a nap. The gentle motion of the boat knocked me right out. I slept for around 2 hours and when I finally came to, we decided to go into the recreation room and watch a movie. "Back to School" it was. We wanted to see if we could spot me acting as an extra. I was attending University of Madison when this was filmed and many of my fellow classmates and I were asked if we wanted to do a walk on spot in the film.

Sadly, we did not find me.

Dinner was again a hearty, simple affair. I rather like this food. It’s honest. No pretensions. You just taste the food. One thing I’ve noticed is that the officers always sit in the same seats at dinner. I would say it’s by seniority and am probably right. There is a smaller table for 2 in that room and the cadets sit at it. The chief officer sits to the left of the captain with the 2nd engineer sitting across from him. The chief engineer is next followed by the Electrical officer he sits next to the 4th engineer and across from him is the 3rd engineer who sits next to the refferman (yet another puzzle to work out this room). I can’t help but wonder if the Phillipino crew has this same seating set up or if they are more random in their choice of position. We were told they like different food and must have rice 3 times a day so even though there are 3 Phillipino officers, they prefer to eat with the local crew.

We went up on to the bridge again to say goodnight to the sea. While there, the 3rd officer on duty, Jesse, told us of all the ships that are around. He said it is not the fishing season so it is not busy. When I said it looked busy to me, he replied that the navigation screen was solid yellow

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when it was fishing season. He told me of a crash not too long ago and the death of 5 fishermen. He stated that the Malaysian Capitan was still in jail. They did not know for how long. He also said the fishing boats don’t follow the rules of the sea and that they do not speak any English so our ship has to maneuver through them.

And speaking of maneuvers. We saw a non-identified Chinese military vehicle to the port side. I was told they don’t have the radar devices so other ships cannot see them coming. They have to use the binoculars if they want to see those. I waited long enough for it to come closer so I could take a photo, then we went downstairs to our cabin. This encounter reminded me of a trip we took to Macau to see house of Dancing Waters. On our return, a Chinese navy vessel crossed very close to the bow of the ferry we were on. Thankfully the ferry captain was quick to turn the vessel to avoid a collision. This was terrifying though as I swear we were up on one pontoon. There was a lot of roll that day.

George and I started an "escape the book" before dinner and wanted to finish it. We did of course. 52 minutes. Not bad for our first one. I brought along 2 more so we will dole those out. Ration them if you will. At 9 pm we hit the harbor outside Xiamen. We should dock shortly after but George and I will not see it. We will be asleep by then. On day 4 we plan to go into port. We want to buy some gifts for the crew and another hard drive for us so we can copy the rest of the movies that they have on board ship. We have another long cruise coming up and want to be prepared for it. And I thought 2 TB would be plenty and never fill up. Boy was I wrong! In the end, we filled up the 2TB drive, put 500GB on my computer, another 140GB on yet another portable drive and 250GB on George’s computer. We have a lot of transferring to do when we finally get those bigger drives.

Day 4 (Sunday, 22 July 2018) 24 27’N, 114 17’E (XIAMEN)

We woke again to the sound of containers being loaded and unloaded. Periodically, the ship would shake as one is moved. Until today, I didn’t understand why. In the area of the ship below decks, there are guide rails to move the containers along. The man loading the container lines up the sides of the container with the guides and slides the container down into the hold. This of course makes a loud bang and depending on the force and speed that the container is entering, can shake the ship.

When we woke, we had a view outside both windows, not just the porthole! The ship had been emptied as we slept. The bay below us is

9 containers high! Those things are 9’6". That is deep. George mentioned that the view outside our window is as close as we would want to get as this operation is going on. I have to say, I agree with him. It doesn’t look like a safe place to stand. From our window we have a close up view of the loading procedure. This becomes more impressive as the days go on. This is our third port to watch the loading on and each time we notice something different. And today, it was

 

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the final understanding of just how big this ship is. They are now stacking the containers 10 high on the back deck.

We finished breakfast and as usual went up to the bridge to look out the window. I watched the unloading for a while. Checked the weather reports-yes, there is a typhoon north of us and another brewing to the south. I looked at our location and the map of the harbor. I have our bearings now and can see the town in the distance. We have decided to get off the ship in this port. I’ve filled in the departure cards and we are awaiting word that we can leave. Of course the crew are holding our passports so we cannot leave until we get those back. Funny thing about passports, I have my vaccination records with me and carried them along because that is my habit. George has never had the yellow card, or if he has, he has never carried it with him. The officer who collected the passports wanted my immunization card and was worried because George didn’t have his. Most American’s don’t travel overseas, and I would bet very few of those have the vaccination record. Mine was acquired when I went into the army and I’ve just updated it since as good practice. I realize I need another tetanus booster next year, and will need to get yellow fever vaccination before I leave for our trip to Brazil. This international immunization card is a handy thing to carry. I must remember to get one for our daughter. She is still young and this will come in handy for her as she gets older. Mine certainly has.

Recently I read an article that was debunking the myth that only 10% of Americans travel. It purported that between 35 and 43% of Americans have a passport. If this is true, then why the idea of only 10%? This comes down to international travel. Travel outside of Canada and Mexico- travel overseas where a passport is required. This author claimed that in 2013 only 9% of leisure travelers went overseas. When business travel is taken out of the equation it is only around 5% of Americans who travel overseas. When he took those people who have an annual income of 150K per year out of the mix (they often take 5 or more business trips over seas per year and at least that many leisure trips) it drops the total to 3.5% of overseas traveling Americans. I am glad we are a part of that group that travels. I have wanderlust as does George and as much as we want to settle down and make a home in Boca, I know we will still be world travelers simply because we love to visit friends and there are a number of Puzzle Parties we plan to go to. Our business traveling days are thankfully over-these accounted for 6 of our last 18 trips. And I have not counted in the numerous trips we took into China. Crossing the border is a weekend activity.
This was a 'bad’ year and a half for me. In previous years I was averaging 10 trips per year. I much prefer leisure travel.

When we were in the ships office earlier, I saw on the board that the expected departure time is 00:01 23/7/2018. This is good for me to know. Why? Simply because I will be long asleep when we take off and that will give my body a good 6 hours to get used to the motion of the ship in deeper waters.

So much for that idea. We are not allowed to leave the ship. The port officer didn’t leave any shore passes so there you go. We are stuck on board ship all day long. Ah well. We have plenty to do. But! I was told a visa for China was required. This means that anyone else traveling on this ship would be required to purchase a visa—which means, they would be throwing $1800 away if they are not allowed off ship. This is a grave injustice to me and I will contact the company once we get to Boca. Because we lived in Asia for so long, we both have 10 year visas, but for those passengers who don’t...Man! It’s a huge waste of money. And I must say, a bit of a disappointment to me as well. I have never been to Xiamen and was hoping to see a bit of the city. It is supposed to be beautiful. I guess I will have to add it to a future trip. Perhaps next year we can get off the boat on our way home.

We have had a very relaxing and wasted, yet productive day. We stayed in our cabin all afternoon doing nothing more than playing video games and transferring movies. You see, George loves to watch movies and I love to fall asleep durning movies. Before we left, I copied around 150 movies to a hard drive to take with us. We were flagging each movie as we watched it to make it easy on us. When George found the crews hard drive, he decided to copy their movies. He estimates that we copied over around 700 movies today. This should keep us going during our future cruises. We had both computers going working on transfers and cleanup to ensure the maximization of space. Sadly, my 2TB portable hard drive simply wasn’t up to the task and now

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we have movies on both George’s and my computers. This is not ideal and when we get to the States, I will be buying a large portable drive and transferring the movies to it.

We’ve been watching the cargo load, listening to the bangs, and feeling the ship move when some of the containers are put into place. I now understand why some of our furniture arrived in Boca scratched and damaged. These people are not gentle with the way they move those containers around. After a dinner of pizza, we went up to the bridge to watch a bit more of the loading. We finally got to see the 'floors' or 'roofs' being put into place. These covers to the hold are what makes the big banging noise we keep hearing! George wanted to see how they changed out the big grabber to a smaller one that was holding the plate cover. After watching it for a while, I realized that there is a telescope-like section to it and the arms are just extended to hold the containers, and pulled in to move the floors around. I know I’ve said it before, but this really is an incredible operation.

As we discussed this, George wanted to know about fully automated container terminals so we looked them up. There are a number around the world....I think I can envision another 'cruise' so we can see one of those in operation. I have been reading up on them, and most are located in China. My luck! I’m trying to leave here, not come back. After talking to crew members about this, we realize they are coming into play all over the world. Rotterdam has one and we plan to go back there in 2020. There is a hotel there we simply must stay in as it is where we became we as we are today. I see no issue with going to the container terminal and watching the automated system work. I wonder if it is just the cranes and gantry cranes that are automatic, or if the trucks are also automated.

I spoke to Dennis, the 2nd officer, for a while tonight. There are three depressions in the area. I wondered if we would go north of Taiwan and Japan. Hoping all the while I was talking to him that we wouldn’t. He relieved my fears by telling me we are actually going south of Taiwan, then returning to the route just south of Japan if the weather is favorable. From there, we head straight to LA. The ETA on the navigation equipment is 4 August. According to everything I saw on the god of all things; google, that is about right if we are traveling at an average speed of 20 knots. I can see this trip being a massive math problem for me. I’ll be calculating distance and speed every day. I’m hoping to get a latitude/longitude to nautical miles lesson at some point on this trip.

We go to bed watching new movies and dreaming of finally sailing away from China. I thought this day would never come. And finally, on the 23rd of July 2018 (8,829 days after I arrived in Hong Kong [21 May1994]) I am able to leave. I’d like to say we sailed off into the sunset, but instead, we snuck away like thieves in the night.

Day 5 (Monday, 23 July 2018) 22 33’N, 119 40’E (SEA OF TAIWAN)

I woke during the night to the shifting of the boat. We had been moving and I didn’t realize it until late in the evening. It is not as bad as I thought it would be. I expected tumultuous waves crashing around us. I did not expect this calm gentle rocking motion. I must say, I find it to my liking. It reminds me of being a child and falling asleep on the back seat of a moving car. There were a few lurches and I felt a bit of fear. I simply reached over and put my arm around George; my anchor. I immediately felt better and was able to sleep again.

We must have taken off around 1 am because I had an internet message come in at 12:54am. Funny how we tell the time of events these days. Internet messages rather than by the clock or from viewing the sun. We both slept very soundly and because today is a fasting day, we realized we could sleep to a normal hour for us. As it turned out, we were up by 7 anyway, and had finished morning exercises by 8. No breakfast for us today so we can take our time and just go slow as is our usual want.

We have a very busy day planned. I want to go to the gym to lift some weights and George needs to do some chin-ups as he hasn’t done any in a week. From there we will go on the bridge to find out where we are and to look at this vast ocean that surrounds us. I also want to see if I can count how many containers are surrounding us. Then I should like to go onto the deck. I’ve been

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inside this ship for 4 days now and have not felt the wind. It is time. After that, George will catalogue the movies we have, and I will work more on this attempt at writing before giving up on it and doing what I should be: working on my PhD. I hope to have at least 1 more article written before I get off this boat and the only way that will happen is if I buckle down and actually write. It’s not as easy as it sounds. But the only way to get that funny hat is to finish a few more papers.

Wow! All I have to say is wow! We just got a guided tour of the ship. I wanted to go on deck, but did not expect that. Andrei, the deck cadet gave us the grand tour. We were out there for about 1 1/2 hours. It is a huge ship! To say I was impressed would be an understatement.

We were shown the containers, the lashing bars, the
connectors, the walkways, the anchors, the docking area,
where the tugboats connect, the bosuns store, the ship’s
workshop, the air vents, an internal passage way. We saw it all.
Well, not really, but it was overwhelming. I’ve watched these
ships in the harbor for 14 years but never knew what they were like or how they worked. This has been a wonderful education for me.

We were told about the refrigerated containers. They have one person whose sole job is to check them twice a day. This person is called the refferman. We had a chuckle and explained to Andrei the cause of our amusement. He’d never heard this term before and logged it into his memory.

We asked about the bays and how deep they go. I was right, they are 9 containers deep. These are covered by a large metal slab that we watched going on the ship yesterday and another 10 containers can be stacked on top of those. The 20 foot containers go in first, followed by the 40 foot containers and the 45 foot containers are stacked on the highest levels. Prior to Xiamen, we had 45 foot containers stacked outside our window. We could tell because they were very close to us. At the last port they were replaced by 40 foot containers. This is much nicer for us. Not because we have a view-we don’t it is completely blocked, but because it lets in more sunlight.

There is one container onboard the ship that is for the ship itself. This is the electrical power supply for when it is docked in Xiamen and Los Angeles. The ship uses its own engines for power at the other ports of call. We also discovered that some of the containers have seals on them and others do not. Those without a seal are empty! They are used to balance out the weight of the cargo.

I also noticed that there are 4 different companies that certify the containers (at least on this ship). However, not all of the containers have a certification label on them. The containers seem to all be built in China, and some of them have a bamboo bottom. I’m guessing the others are all steal. There is a sign on them that says to be repaired using only corteen steel. I must remember to look this up when we hit land again. NB: the bamboo containers are made using bamboo instead of traditional wood. The wooden containers are not taken from sustainable forests and the bamboo is more economical and environmentally friendly as it only takes 7 years for the bamboo to grow.

There are 2 anchors on this ship and they are held by some massive chains. Every 27 links there is a red one that can be opened to release the anchor from the ship if necessary. Hopefully it will never be necessary to cut the ship lose. The anchor and the chain could be seen by looking down a massive tube that is on the deck. We were told the chain is stored below deck and later were able to go see the area in which it is held.

We were also shown the area that the tugs attach themselves to and the winches used to pull in the mooring lines. There are 6 on both the front and aft of the ship. There is also a raised platform on both sides that are used by one of the crew to guide the ship into the port. There is a rather large gear that needs to be engaged to pickup the ropes, and let me tell you, it is easy to engage it, but very difficult to disengage. We had a horrible time trying to pull it back.

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Andrei explained how the holds work, and the locking mechanisms of the containers. We were told of the computer generated plan for the loading of the ship. It was interesting to hear that if they don’t like the plan, the Capitan has the right to shift the cargo. This is done occasionally to balance the weight. He said it happens quite frequently. The containers are sorted not only by weight, but also by the port in which they will be offloaded. On this trip, The Thomas Jefferson stops in 6 ports before returning to China for the cycle to continue.

The holds are stacked 9 40 foot containers high, a 'lid’ is then put on and then there are as many as 9 more containers stacked on top of the lid. Inside the hold there are cell guides that the crane operator lines the container up to and drops it into the hold. In total this ship holds 14400TEU’s. Another thing I shall have to look up when I get the chance. There are 4 main types of dry containers and one type of refrigerated container. The dry containers can be 20’ (20x8x8.6), 40’ (40x8x8.6) low, 40’ (40x8x9.6) high, and 45' (45x8x9.6) high. This allows the customer

and the ship to stack the containers in the most economical way possible. Each container holds, 33.2 CU.M, 67.8 CU.M, 76.4 CU.M. and 86.0 CU.M respectively.

The containers above the hold cover are connected using twist locks that can be either automatically locked, or locked after placement by a stevedore. The stevedores also add the lashing bars to the containers. These are done in a cross configuration. They are lashed down up until the second level above the deck. The rest of the containers use the twist locks to hold them in place. Surprisingly, the containers are not butted one next to the other. There seems to be a few inches between each container and every so often, there appears to be as much as 1 foot between them. This is done to ensure there is room for them to shift if the seas are rough. Many a morning we have woken up to the sound of the containers banging against each other.

All refrigerated containers are on the deck. There are large power connectors for them to hook up to. The voltage for these is 440. Again, this is higher than domestic usage, and most industrial usage. The ship can hold up to 1500 refrigerated containers at a time. That is a lot of food moving around.

We were also told our ship can hold dangerous materials. This could be anything from liquid fuel, to weapons, to nuclear waste. I’d rather not know what is in those containers.

When we were below deck, we were shown the bosun store at the front of the ship where rope and chains are stored. There is also a small workshop here. We got to look into the opening for the propeller area but did not venture down there. It is 4 stories down via a long ladder. Going down I’m sure would be no problem, but coming back up we were told is very difficult. No, for me going down would be a problem. I felt fear just looking into the area.

Later in the day, we heard the alarm ring and went running up to the bridge; our muster station. When we got there the Capitan told us "It’s just a fire alarm." I’m glad he was calm about it, my heart was racing. We shall consider that a practice drill in case anything should happen.

 

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All in all, this was a wonderful day. We both enjoyed seeing the workings of the ship on deck. As per our usual routine, after dinner we checked the location and looked out at the water on the bridge. Bed time is early for us as we are still on Hong Kong time and 9 pm saw us off to the land of winkin’, blinkin’, and nod.

Day 6 (Tuesday, 24

July 2018)
27 12’N, 126 29’E (PACIFIC OCEAN)

We broke our fast at 7 when we
went for breakfast after our
normal morning exercise. This
week’s fast was greatly needed
after all the food we have been
eating. Thankfully we were not
drinking any alcohol or the
damage would have been worse.
We know that we shall gain a bit of weight onboard ship, and look forward to life in our new home where we can set up our own routines

and eat more sensibly. Very sweetly there was apple pie on the table for us this morning. I had a bite. I also had a glass of apple juice and a few taste of the muesli

that George was eating. I’m not sure which of the three was the culprit, but I experienced a reaction to one of them. First my arms started to itch then they turned red and blotchy. I mentioned it to George, but disregarded it just as quickly. After brushing our teeth, I looked in the mirror and saw that my face too was bright red. I was having a major sinus reaction to something I had eaten. I immediately took a Benedryl and within an hour the coloration went away. Sadly, so did I. I’m afraid the pills knock me out cold. I napped for an hour or so, then got up and played yet another game of Eurorails. My frustration at learning yet another rule that hadn’t been mentioned previously, and that would have helped me in the last 3 games finally forced my hand.

I told George to write up the rules or I would no longer play with him. I find it very frustrating to learn the rules 'as they come up'. This is not my way of playing any game. As usual, he won and we went for lunch. At noon, the officer announced over the PA system that the clocks would advance one hour today. This is to become a daily announcement until the 2nd of August when we will be on PST.

Today’s lunch was wonderful in that there was back bacon in the soup and wine on the table. We each had 2 glasses with our meal. I finally told Jheal (the messman) that I would only like soup and salad for lunch. This is much more to my liking. A lighter lunch. George had a wonderful Hawaiian beef dish that I learned to cook almost 30 years ago (and have since forgotten, but the flavor memory is still there). After lunch we were invited to a Barbecue on the C deck tonight at 6:30. I guess that is dinner then. This should be interesting. I’m glad

we will finally get the opportunity to meet the crew. I’ve felt odd not meeting them before this. Those we have met are very friendly though.

Our afternoon was spent in the room. I was recovering from having to take a Benedryl in the morning. Those things knock me right out. The good news is, we have narrowed it down to either the muesli or the apple juice. I can stay away from both. George typed up the rules to Eurorails for me and we played another game when I woke up.

At 5:06pm, I watched time pass. The clock moved forward an hour. Then another hour! Then it moved back an hour and forward 10 minutes, then back 9 minutes. It was neat to see. George told me the clocks in his elementary school did that with day light savings time. I had never seen it before. But I suppose that is fair. He had

  

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never seen the sliding 3 month calendar before, and I had one in the office when I was in the Army. I had noticed a table for the time-change on the bridge earlier, but it didn’t really phase me at the time. This is the reason we chose a slow ship home. Each day we lose an hour until we reach port. This month has 2 Sundays in a row for us as well. And it is no wonder I was confused

with the arrival dates. I am so very glad we did not book more hotels than we had. I would have had a real mess to sort out.

We watched a bit of a movie until 6:30 then we went to C-deck for the BBQ. The crew was waiting for the Capitan to come down. Something about a lack of communication-not a good thing on a ship. They must have gotten it sorted because he showed up around 7. Before that, George and I had brought along some puzzles to the Officers recreation room and passed them around: a 3 piece burr OCC, a 2 piece centrifugal force disassembly puzzle, and a 2 piece pyramid assembly puzzle. We both commented on the fact that even though these men are very smart, they could not work out these puzzles. To help with the OCC, I went back to the room and got a ring that was a gift from Vessa Timonen. I showed them how it worked without disassembling the ring, and let them try some more. Eventually, one of the younger officers managed to solve it. The centrifugal force puzzle proved easy for them to shake open, so I showed them the spinning method of opening it. The 2 piece pyramid was helped along by George. This one they seemed to enjoy

once they saw the solution. At some point I went back to the room and got my bag of rings. I passed out 3 of them for solving-each only had 2 pieces. One of the officers managed one ring, and handed the others back. Puzzles are not for everyone, but that’s ok. We enjoyed showing them what we do, and gladly passed the puzzles along to them.

The BBQ looked to me to be an oil drum, and from the looks of it, it had been used before. It seemed to have a place on it for a spit and I wondered if they had roasted a pig on here.
We had pork belly, beef, salmon, chicken, sausages, shrimp, and mussels. It was a veritable feast. Instead of water tonight, there was Coke 0 and Sprite passed out as well. When we went outside, there were already some of the crew out there putting the meat on the grill. I put on food for George and I and started to talk to the men. It is interesting meeting new people and this was no exception. At first they seemed shy, but less so after a few minutes had passed and it was a rather pleasant evening. We returned to the mess to eat and we were once again separated and sitting at our own table. After our meal, we returned to the officers recreation room to say goodnight and were asked to stay and talk. With the time change, it was now 10pm, and even though I wasn’t tired, I knew George was, so we declined. When he moved to Hong Kong to be with me we made a vow to each other that we would go to bed together every night. So far we have done this. I don’t plan to change it any time soon.

Before heading back to the cabin, we went out on the deck again and looked at the stars and the moon. It was such a beautiful sight for a girl who has been stuck in a large city filled with light pollution. I haven’t seen stars in at least 20 years. George pointed out Mars and Venus, I located Betelgeuse and Orion. The moon was almost full and we have both agreed that in 2 days time we will go out again to see the blood moon. I’m not sure what time that will be because I have it in my calendar to be seen at HK time. I guess I’ll have to do a bit of math.

Because of the BBQ and watching the stars and finishing a movie, we didn’t get to bed until well after 11. Once again, we fell asleep to the gentle rocking of the ship. I could get used to this.

 

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Day 7 (Wednesday, 25 July 2018) 32 04’N, 134 05’E (PACIFIC OCEAN)

I set the alarm for 6 am and when it went off, George growled at me and told me to shut it off. He decided he didn’t want breakfast and would rather sleep in. I realize this is a good thing and wanted to suggest it earlier, but didn’t because I know he likes his breakfast. Every other evening now we will be gaining an hour until we land in LA. On Sunday, Day 11, we lose a full day. While I’ve crossed the international dateline many times over the years, I never really found it to be problematic. This time, it was. I forgot about it when planning this trip. I booked our truck, and our hotel for the 6th, not realizing that we are actually getting into LA on the 4th. This is a blessing. When the ship got delayed, I was worried that we wouldn’t make those reservations and that we would be stuck losing the room and the truck. George has reassured me that it doesn’t matter and that we will simply have to pay an extra day for the truck. I can’t even explain it in writing it is too confusing for me. To put it simply, I messed up but we will be fine.

More importantly, one reason we chose this method of transportation was because it would save us from having jet lag. This is very hard on George, and increasingly harder on me. By going slowly, it is making things much easier on us all around. This however is problematic because on those days when we gain an hour, we lose an hour sleep. Not a problem. We are gaining weight and now breakfast is off the menu and we are making up that hour of sleep. Besides, I have my bran and they have provided us with fresh fruit and this is plenty for us to eat in the morning.

Today Jheal came to our room to change the bedding and towels. Joel came to check the flotation suits and to remind us to put our shower heads out. I’m guessing this is for a cleaning. We are waiting to get close enough to Japan to pick up a signal so we can contact our decorator to make some changes to the garage extension. This is the one thing that I am frustrated by: the lack of internet. I know if we don’t pick up a signal we can always use the ships computer to send an email, but in this case it would be easier to send a pdf of what we want done.

We went up to the bridge around 9:30 to look out and check the weather and location. We are off the coast of Japan headed towards the North East. The weather is beautiful. A bit foggy, but clear seas with very little wave movement. There are no boats on radar. We have this vast ocean to ourselves for now. There is a storm brewing to the south of us and I asked if we would be going above it, näive woman that I am. I was told no, we go below it. And when I think of it, it makes perfect sense. Traveling to the north of the storm would be foolish. It could speed up and we would be stuck. I know that they will not purposefully head into a storm but I also realize Mother Nature can toss one out at any time without warning. I expect that this calmness we are feeling now will not last the entire journey so I shall enjoy it while I can. I hope that I will have no use of the dramamine that I brought along. It keeps. I can use it on a subsequent trip. Who knows, perhaps we will travel back this way next August when we go to IPP in Japan. I had planned on taking a

cruise ship over, maybe we can take another container back when we return from Hong Kong.

This afternoon we wish to go to the Engine Room. I am very excited to see what it looks like. This will be a highlight for both of us. We even have a puzzle for the chief engineer. It is called 'combustion engine' or 'piston' depending on which site shows it. It is a caged burr with 4 internal pieces. A rather old design, but a classic and when I was running around finding puzzles to give away, I picked this one up specifically because of its name.

Now it is time for an escape the book. Less than 1 hour of course. But this one is odd. Not highly recommended. We brute forced the puzzles, or maybe we solved them as the book tells you to, then we used the actual puzzle to verify the results. Daft.

Around 2 we went up to the bridge again to see if we might be able to see the engines today. Success! We raced down to the ships office to meet with a cadet who took us to the engine room.

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Engine Room—This place is beyond words. We were told that it works just like a car engine but on a larger scale. Massive is the word he should have used. It is massive. The crankshaft alone is 4 meters in diameter. But I get ahead of myself.

To begin with, we went to the ships office and were handed helmets and ear protection. We were told the engine gets very loud. We were then met by Alexandru, the cadet, who brought us down to the engine room. This was a walk down the passage of the ship heading aft. We must have been on the starboard side because we opened a door on the right

and walked into the workshop area. Here we looked at a lathe, drill press, and buffer that made George’s equipment look like children's toys. We also saw a welding area and an area for storage as well as some work desks and a general shop type area. At this time no one was working, but you could tell at least in the welding area that they had been recently.

From here we walked into the control room where we saw all the
computer equipment that is used to run the ship. I jokingly said I
wouldn’t push any buttons, but was told it was ok. I couldn’t harm
the ship in any way. It was being run from the bridge. That kind of
takes the fun out of being naughty. At the same time he told us
there are 3 areas on board that can steer the ship. One below deck
near the engines, one in the control room where we now stand and
one on the bridge which I have watched many times. The engine
can turn over and start from dead cold within a minute! That is
impressive. I remember my car in Wisconsin taking much longer than that when in winter. He also told us that the engines are very rarely turned off.

Ilie, the chief engineer, came down now and took over our tour. We really have been treated very well on this ship and in part because of this we plan to take a container again next year upon our return to the US after the Japan IPP and our mandatory 2 week imprisonment in Hong Kong.

In this room the chief told us about the electrical voltage and showed us all of the transformers. The electricity going into them is
6600 volts. This is beyond

my comprehension. I was trying to determine the difference in voltage. I know that HK is 220~240, and was told that some of the factories I saw in China were probably around 400~440 volts. I shall have to ask Gene about the voltage on the high wires

when we return to Boca. This is powerful stuff. No wonder George said don’t touch any wires. I wouldn’t survive if I were to get zapped. I’m sure it would be like something out of a cartoon and I would be reduced to dust within seconds.

When we left the engine control room we were first shown the boiler. This makes steam for the engines. All of the oil and water needs to be heated to run the engine. There are at least 3 different types of oil or lubricant that we were told about and all of these need to be warmed to work. The engine oil is thick and sluggish and runs at 3.1 (I’m a bit confused by this, but I believe it is the amount of particles it puts into the air.) This number changes as the ship gets closer to shore. So In LA, when we are 2 days out, we switch to 1.x and then to .4 when we are within 2 miles of the city. To me it doesn’t matter if it is open ocean, or near land, the pollutant level should be as low as possible, but then maybe Trump is right and global warming doesn’t exist.

  

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From here, we went down to the bottom layers of the ship. This section was divided into three parts. From top to bottom it was 72 steps. Getting into the ship was 90 so we were pretty deep into the bowels of the ship. The first thing we saw were the generators. These are HUGE! They are as large as a good sized caravan. There are 4 of these. 2 on each side of the ship. They are used in case something happens to the main engine. We were told they only run the essential equipment. The generator we have for our home in Boca is only 5000 watts. I thought this was large and was disappointed to learn that IT would only run essential parts of the house. What is essential on a ship?

From the generators we saw the desalinization tanks. The ship produces its own water. This was something I didn’t expect. Until now, we have been drinking bottled water at dinner and in the room. This unexpected news made me happy. I now know I can drink the water from the tap.
The fresh water is used to cool the engines as well. There are a number of cooling tanks on board that cool down the engines as the oil gets very hot. I believe the oil got as high as 130 degrees Centigrade. The lubricating oil also needs heating to move through the engine and this all is cyclical. The fresh water is needed to maintain the equipment as sea water would ruin the pipes. I’ve experienced this with the flush water in Hong Kong. The toilet tank equipment had to be

repaired at least once a year because the sea water is too corrosive.

On to the engine itself. This one is huge! It covers 2 floors. There are 10 pistons and each one is the size of a normal American washing machine. They are connected to a camshaft and have a 4 meter diameter fly wheel in the front. That is connected to the propeller which moves the boat forward. The engine has large doors on one side so the engineers can see into the engine to fix any necessary repairs, and the opposite side has blast doors attached in case of an explosion. It runs at 50,000 horsepower (to put this in perspective, our Tesla is 600 horsepower). This is one beast of an engine! The flywheel has a number of holes in it that correspond to the pistons up and down movement. This is to stop the vibration. We were told we don’t want vibration on the ship. The other thing that really impressed me was the temperature here. The air was at 40 Centigrade, and the equipment was registering

98!

All equipment on the ship is duplicated 3 or 4 times for safety sake. If one goes out, the ship still goes on.

The final thing we learned of today was the pilot entry system. There are two methods for a pilot to get on board the ship. The first is to pull up alongside the ship, open a door just above sea level and climb a very long ladder up into the ship. I believe this to be at least a 4 story climb. The other way is to drop down a rope onto the bridge itself via helicopter. This way is only used during inclement weather though. Either way, I would not like to be a harbor pilot. It was an exhilarating day. I am so pleased that we could see the inner workings of this ship.

That evening George had his first taste of Nutella. I can’t believe he is 73 and has never tried it before. He enjoyed the crapes, Nutella and jam. This will be an easy desert for me to copy. We are finding it more difficult to sleep at 9 and have shifted our bedtime to 10 pm. Ship-lag has set in. I can only hope we adjust quickly when we hit California. And even then we are not back to normal. We have 3 more time zones to go through before we arrive home.

Day 8 (Thursday 26 July 2018) 35 27’N, 142 40’E (PACIFIC OCEAN)

 

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Sea sick. Ok, it’s probably my own fault for having an extra glass of wine at dinner. But then, it could have been because of the more heavy rocking of the ship. There was a typhoon that was passing to the starboard side of us today and it caused a number of large waves to rock the boat. I looked out the window when I woke and saw white caps on the waves and knew we were in for a bit of motion. Add to that the alcohol the night before and Mother Nature was teaching me a lesson.

My day started out with a Dramamine after exercises. I had my usual breakfast drink, and was feeling rather poorly when we went up to the bridge to look around. We are on course, and progressing at 20 knots per hour as expected. I asked about the storm again and was shown that it is dissipating, but still out there. I felt nauseous and mentioned it to George. One of the crew told me to go lay down and I would feel better. I took his advice and left.

I returned to the cabin, puked and crawled back into bed. I did not move until lunch time. At noon we went down to B deck to have lunch and I wisely chose to only have soup and bread. I had about an inch of wine in my glass, but did not like it. The soup as always was delicious and the bread is freshly baked so you just can’t go wrong with that. Or can you? One of the officers commented on winter coming as I was dressed in my track suit. I really was cold all the way through and this helped. When we were in the engine room we were asked if our ac was on and we replied in the negative. But now it is just too cold for us.

After finishing lunch, we went up to the bridge to look around, and saw a lot of rolling waves and even more heavy black clouds. A storm is in the air. As I felt nauseous, we returned to our cabin. I took yet another dramamine and we watched 2 movies. It’s funny, when you don’t feel well, you have no idea what you are watching and this was true here.

I’m sure I napped for a while that day as well, but to be honest I was fighting hard to keep my stomach in my stomach. We went to dinner and I was feeling a bit less queasy so I had more soup and bread, and this time a glass of wine. We ate quickly and headed up to the bridge to take one last look around before retiring for the evening. Tonight the sky was beautifully clear. George turned me to the aft of the ship and asked me where we had been. Looking up at the sky you could see a cloud of smoke that blended in with the clouds stretching back to the horizon. To the port side of the ship the sun was setting on the water. This was the most romantic moment we have had on this ship. George held me in his arms and we watched the sunset. This was profoundly pleasurable for me: it was the first sunset I have ever watched, it was over a barren ocean, and I was in my lover’s arms. It doesn’t get any better than this. We returned to our cabin for yet another movie before falling asleep to the not so gentle rolling motion of the ship. A prayer from my lips to God’s ears that tomorrow would have smoother seas.

Day 9 (Friday, 27 July 2018) 39 15’N, 150 45’E (PACIFIC OCEAN)

I wish I had something to report but I don’t. It was more of the same. I spent today on the sofa or in bed with a wonky tummy. Thankfully I did not get sick but I chalk that up to taking a stronger pill for the motion sickness. Dramamine seems to do nothing at all. We watched a thousand movies and did nothing else.

The typhoon has passed in front of us and we are catching the outer bands of it. Visibility is 0 as there is heavy fog, the waves are rolling and every now and again we can hear the wind howling and the containers bumping into each other. I don’t like this noise, and yet, I feel strangely safe in this big ship. There is no feeling of lack of control, or that I’m floating on an insignificant space. This is truly a wonderful feeling for me. I have no other words. I find myself repeating the same words of awe again and again, but awe is what I feel here. I don’t think my vocabulary is expansive enough to express my feelings, nor is my writing poetic enough.

We had hoped to see the steering room today, but there was some engine problem and the crew was working to fix it. This left us with a free day to spend enjoying our own company.

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Day 10 (Saturday, 28 July 2018) 42 37’N, 160 55’E (PACIFIC OCEAN)

I woke feeling right as rain. Well almost. I was still a bit queasy, but pushed past it and did my exercises. We went down to the gym to lift some weights and for George to do his chin-ups before heading to the bridge for our usual morning look. Today we hoped to see the steering and were not disappointed.

This time the second
engineer, Claudiu, showed us
around. This room is huge! It even has a basketball court on it. I shot a few balls in, and then we went on and continued our tour. The rudder we were told is at least10 meters tall. I can’t even imagine the size of that. The rudder is turned via electricity, but it can also be pushed manually. You would have to be one very strong man to do that, and on this ship, I’ve only seen 2 that I can imagine would be able to move the thing. It is connected to a set of 4 engine looking things that move it around. I really didn’t understand this part of the ship. In the front of it is a small indicator that moves port to starboard so you can see the direction of movement. It is the same indication that is shown on the bridge. This is yet another example of the ship having backups for everything.

We learned that we were below sea level at this point, and again I felt strangely safe. We were shown a storage container for repair material and told that this is

there in case the boat springs a leak. There is some type of fast drying cement that can be used to patch holes quickly. I believe this is the same type that idiot in the UK used when he cemented his head inside a microwave oven. We also learn that this ship has a double hull. I’m assuming this is yet another safety precaution.

George played a bit of basketball with the third officer and our tour of steerage had come to an end. We were told there wasn’t much to see, and there wasn’t but what we saw was very impressive. I couldn’t help but think of passengers traveling to start a new life in a different country. Many of my relatives immigrated from Italy and Russia to the United States in steerage. If it was anything like this, it would have been quite comfortable I’d expect, but I have a feeling it was more along the lines of the depiction in the movie Titanic. We wore ear protection while we were in the engine room, but not in here. It wasn’t loud enough to need it all of the time, so I confess to removing mine when our guide was talking. I can’t imagine how loud an older ship would have been. "There but by the grace of god go I": one of George’s favorite expressions. In this case, I believe it to be very true. I am fortunate in the time that I was born; no steerage class today thank god!

After our tour of the steerage, we returned to the control room before heading upstairs. Here we saw one of the oilers, Josue, working the lathe. He was using teflon to create some sort of coupling for the electrical equipment. Is teflon non-conductive? George again was impressed by the size of the machines and the quality of the man’s work. We spoke for a while to the chief engineer about some technicality of the engine George forgot, and then asked about scuba divers and dry dock. The ships he told us, are getting bigger and bigger and the crew keep getting smaller. There is no time for maintenance during the time they are on shore. They put the ship into dry dock once every 5 years or so for major repairs, but the rest must be carried out by the crew as they sail or when they are in ports in Asia. We were told the captain gets leave every 3 months and is on a 1 year contract, the majority of the officers are on 4 month contracts when they go home for a while but then take another contract. The Philippine crew are on 9 month contracts, go home for a month or two then start again. It’s a long hard life if you ask me. Out of curiosity, I searched average salary before we left. It ranges anywhere from US$450 to US$3500 a month. This is shocking to me. My domestic helper worked for us for 2 days a week and made more than this. Granted, we paid well, but even a full-time regular domestic in HK makes US$450

 

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a month. George reminded me that they have food and shelter paid for. He’s right, but I’m still shocked by the low salary even though I realize that it must be quite high for their home countries. Yet again I am glad I was born where and when I was.

Lunch today was very funny. I don’t remember the main course, but there was fish soup and papaya. Having lived in Hong Kong for 25 years, I was attuned to many of their customs. This is one of them and it made me laugh. When a woman is pregnant, she is served this dish. I described this oddity to George and reassured him I wasn’t pregnant. When I asked Jheal if it was the same in the Philippines, he confirmed it and at the same time reassured us that no one on the ship was pregnant. After lunch, George talked to the officer in charge of the slop chest and put in an order for a bunch of chocolate and some nuts. We wanted to give a gift to the officers and crew who have taken such good care of us on this ship. He said he would deliver it later in the day. That evening after dinner, we waited until all of the lower ranking officers were gone and gave the Capitan a gift of a bottle of wine that we brought with us. It is a good Zinfandel and it seemed appropriate considering that we are returning to wine country. We didn’t want the bottle to travel around the world with us. The wine we are having for dinner each night is palatable and we thought the gifting of our bottle would be appropriate.

We all retired to the officer’s recreation room (pictured above) as we had brought along another gift of a few more puzzles. This time it was a ghost cube (an incredibly difficult Rubik’s type cube) and a classic 4 piece T. Andrei told us that all gifts had been delivered to the two different recreation rooms. They opened up the nuts, and began playing with the T puzzle. George was dying to tell them the solution but I had promised that we wouldn’t disclose this until the last day of the voyage. We did give a hint about having 8 right angles
though. The next day we were told the chief engineer solved
the puzzle. We are starting to wonder about this...he solves all
of them before any of the crew. I wonder if they are kowtowing,
or if he is just that clever.

When we were talking, the crew asked us why we decided to travel this way. It’s slow, not busy like a cruise ship. They just couldn’t understand our desire to be away from people. I guess they haven’t lived for 25 years in an over-crowded city. We explained that George only had a few more trips left in him until they would not let him take the ship. This is because there are no doctors on board. The captain laughed and started pointing out different crew members. He said "We are all doctors. We can’t do brain surgery but we can do everything else." I’m actually glad to hear this. Not that we would need doctors, we are both very healthy but it is reassuring to know they have the facilities in case of need. We did see the ship’s hospital on our safety briefing day so I knew they had one. At the time I thought it would only be used for quarantine, but then with each crew member having a room, that doesn’t make sense either.

I watched the captain and the third engineer play a game of backgammon. This is one I have never learned but hope to in the future. Perhaps I can take lessons in that when we take the

 

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bridge lessons. Later George played the third engineer. I’m not sure who won. We also left them with a Chinese game: Field Chess. We hope they enjoy the game as much as we did. Around 10 pm we returned to our room for one last movie before turning in for the night.

Day 11 (Sunday, 29 July 2018) 44 51N, 171 29’E (PACIFIC OCEAN)

Today was a lazy day for us. We spent it in our own company. One of the joys of our relationship is that we find being together quite pleasant. We have not been married long, but we have loved each other for many years. This trip has been a time for us to be alone and just enjoy. This was what I would call a honeymoon day. We lazed in bed until it was time for lunch, after lunch we returned to the cabin and crawled back in bed for a bit of an afternoon respite. We played Eurorails again and watched movies. In short, we did nothing.

After dinner, we went to the crews recreation room (as pictured below). We delivered some puzzles and some ginger candy that I brought with me. We had planned to spend some time with them showing them the puzzles and talking, but the room was just too heavy with the smell of smoke. Having only quit smoking 1 1/2 years ago, I did not complain when George said we had to leave. This is an addiction I wish on no one. It takes a long time to quit, and when you do, there comes a time occasionally when the smell of a cigarette draws you in. It is an evil vice that I am glad I’ve gotten rid of.

While the officers also smoke in their recreation room, the difference is they have a door going out onto a small deck overlooking the rescue boat. They keep this door open when the weather is good and it helps to ventilate the room. We also noticed that while we are in the room, if they want to smoke they go out onto that deck rather than smoking in the room. Yet another kind gesture that they have shown us. Sadly, the crew recreation room does not have this. The smell of the smoke lingers in the room. It’s a shame, the men seemed very friendly and we would have loved to stay and talk but simply could not.

We returned to the bridge and stepped outside on the bridge deck. It was windy and cold. 10.8 C. I haven’t felt that biting cold in a long time. Not since our trip to Finland 2 years ago. Needless to say, we did not stay out there long.

The clocks were set back yet another hour and we are ready for bed.

Day 12 (Sunday, 29 July 2018)
46 05’N, 177 20’W (PACIFIC OCEAN, CROSSED INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE AROUND 3 AM)

Yes, you read that right. We have now gone past the International Date Line. We’ve lost a day, but gained another hour. Today is a day for me to write. We are close to Alaska and the outside temperature is 11.8C. I’ve been told that the water and air temperature are almost the same.

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This day was spent doing nothing except transferring movies from the Officers hard drive to our own. We will need this in the future; it will be used both at home and on trips, and also as a means for me to get my sister-in-law to like me and not call me a whore. The woman has made a character judgement without ever having met me. "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone..." I hear she loves movies and this may ingratiate me to her.

We did nothing more than play 2 levels of an iPhone escape game. Silly Rox forgot to activate the code so we could not play levels 2 through 5. Because of my lack of forethought and anything interesting happening today, I shall write about our surroundings.

The cabin we are in is very large. We believe it to be around 255 square feet. It is around 17’X15’. There are 2 (HK) double beds, a sofa, coffee table, 2 chairs and a desk. There is more than ample space for storage of our clothes and suitcases. The room even has a refrigerator in it. The pillows leave a lot to be desired but they are adequate and I brought along my travel pillow and one that I slept with every night in HK. This worked well for us. The room is cool enough and has never been too hot. There is a private bathroom complete with shower and medicine cabinet. Every drawer has safety locks and the magnets holding the swinging doors shut are incredibly strong. Around the room there are a few bungee chords. We’ve decided these are to hold the furniture in place during bad weather. The cabinets all have a bar crossing the openings to each shelf. These can be removed and are here to ensure the contents don’t fall out. This place is well thought out. Yet another mistake I have made is to not bring along the correct number of adaptor plugs. Coming from HK, we use a G 3 bar standard plug. The US is a 2 prong flat plug as is China. Europe is the 2 pin round which I should have known, but it got past me. The shipping company is French! I brought along only 2 of the round pin adaptors, but lucked out when I pulled out my kettle. I had one of those universal travel plugs attached to it and we have been using that to charge phones and boil water. It doesn’t quite stay in place, but we rigged up a balance using the containers that hold my seas sickness tablets and other medicines. Once a week Jheal comes in and changes the bedding, vacuums the floor, and does a general cleaning of the bathroom.

Across the hall from us there is a recreation room for the passengers which has 2 sofas, a large sink, TV and refrigerator (see above). There is also a smaller seating area for us to use. We haven’t spent much time in there as we are quite comfortable here watching movies and playing games. The room measures 221 square feet. Seeing as we are the only passengers on this ship we have a good sized HK flat to ourselves.

This floor has 2 large passenger cabins and one small one. There is also a room for the pilot on here as well. This doesn’t make sense to me as the pilot is usually only on board ship for a few hours but I guess during bad weather it could be longer. NB: The chief engineer reminded me that this is a Panamax ship. There are 2 pilots onboard when crossing the Panama and Suez canals. I just keep learning.

Every morning I mention going to check emails and then to the bridge. There is an administrative office that I have been going to for this. It has a number of computers in it as well as a large conference desk. The ship also has a library that we can use but I didn’t really see any books in it that would be of interest to us - there were only ship’s manuals in there. Only a computer to check the news on.

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There are a number of laundries that we have access to and these are well equipped. Washer, dryer, ironing board. They even provide soap and fabric softener. As I said earlier, there is a gym for our use and we have really just been given run of the ship. All we need to do is warn them if we go onto the deck. It is a safety issue just in case something were to happen. This is a well appointed ship. The room is much better and larger than those on a cruise ship.

This day we spoke a bit to Ionut, the Electrical Officer. He told us there is no intranet in the ship, only internet connections. This surprised us as we expected otherwise. It makes sense though, only 3 TV’s so there is no need to stream movies.

Being a linguist my entire career, I noticed that there is no code switching with these officers. They only speak English or Romanian. This is an oddity for me coming from HK where this happens all of the time. George and I also realized that this language seems to be a meeting point between Russian and Italian. Perhaps for our next trip we can learn a bit of the language while eavesdropping.

Day 13 (Monday, 30 July 2018)
46 11N, 116 03’W (PACIFIC OCEAN)
Fast day 1. We want to stay away from food, so we are also staying away from the crew. We don’t want to go anywhere near the smell of food. It will cause me to cave in and eat something. 


Today we woke up to rocky seas. I feel every movement of the boat but George feels nothing. He finds it soothing. I’ll not let the mild queasiness cause me to stop enjoying myself. I took 2 Dramamine, did my exercises, answered email, checked the limited news and went to the bridge. After I cleaned up the movie drive and got to work on this opus. It will be a day of resting, writing, and watching movies. I finally beat George at a game of Eurorails. Not by much, only one move but a win is a win as he says.

The highlight of the day was to do a load of laundry. We lead such an exciting and full life on this ship. I am looking ahead and see we only have 5 more days in this floating home of ours. I am very glad that we took this mode of transport home. It has been an experience I will never forget and one I hope to repeat.

Day 14 (Tuesday, 31 July 2018) 45 10N, 154 44W (PACIFIC OCEAN)

Fast day 2. Ok. I should explain this. 3 months ago, I decided to go on this diet. Part of it includes fasting one day a week and once a month fasting for 2 days in a row. We have decided that every Monday will be a fasting day and the first Monday of the month will be a 48 hour fast. My main goal is to lose that extra weight I’ve put on over the last year, but I also know it is very good for your body. It’s like a kickstart to the system. We are now 2 1/2 hours away from eating dinner. If you haven’t fasted like this you will need understand how wonderful that first meal is, or how your

body just adapts and forgets it is hungry. Of course drinking water is allowed, and I probably go through 2 liters a day when doing this.

Because we are on a long fast, we skipped lunch today and played Eurorails instead. But to start our day we did our usual exercises in the room (I carry my 'gym’ with me) and then headed down to the 2nd level to lift weights and do chin-ups. I was disappointed when I went to the passenger gym and saw nothing but a table-tennis table. When we got the safety orientation, we were shown the gym the crew put together. They have managed very well and have a very usable gym. There is a bicycle, a treadmill, weight bench, chin-up bar, 2 punching bags, a climbing/stretching wall, and a weight machine. Every morning we go down there to do the work out we have become accustomed to. It is good to stick to routine and it will ease our return to Boca and using our own gym.

 

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I’ve not mentioned this before, but on the way to the gym we pass by the sewage treatment plant and the provision refrigeration plant. There are 3 large machines in a very open area that we walk past every morning.

After our morning exercise, we
returned to the administrative office
to check email and then went up on
the bridge to see where we are. We checked the maps, the speed and the ETA for LA. There are no storms and the sea is like glass. The waves are so small you can hardly see them. The second officer

commented on the heat in the room and opened the door. We stepped outside and I checked the temperature: 17.8C. It has warmed up since yesterday. There

were fog warnings for the area but we see none of it yet.

From here we returned to the cabin, played a few computer games and took a nap. We thought we had beaten jet-lag by traveling this way, but have now discovered ship-lag. Last night George slept for 4 hours and I for 6. He took a 2 hour nap and I only 1. The rest was needed. Upon waking, I read for a while as I didn’t want to wake him. We then played our usual Eurorails game and of course he won again. He set about watching a movie and I sat down to write some more.

At 3:50 we went to the Galley to see how things work there. We were delayed a bit because of a minor emergency. George lost a contact lens and we spent 20 minutes looking for it to no avail. Luckily he had the spares with him and problem solved. It’s a shame that our daughter isn’t with us. I know she would love this part of the ship.

We went down and were quickly invited into the kitchen. Jheal was washing pans and preparing what looked to be a salad for tonight’s dinner. The kitchen is, of course, industrial sized, but much larger than I thought we would find on a cargo ship. We entered through the crew dining room and the first thing we noticed was the amount of spices and sauces on the dining tables. As we have not eaten over here yet, I can’t help but wonder if they are assigned seats as well.

The room is an elongated rectangle situated between the officers mess and the crews mess. When you enter, there is a rather large double sink and a dishwasher as expected. Seeing that brought back some unwanted memories of my teenage years. There are 6 burners on the stove, a grill, a large water boiler, a deep fryer, 2 ovens, an industrial mixer, coffee pot, and juicer. The work space would have been envious were I still living in Hong Kong. There were countless pots and pans, dishes and cups were all aligned in an orderly fashion. The utensils were all hanging above either of the two sinks. I was surprised to see that one of the sinks had windows above it; like a touch of home. There were no gingham curtains though. Of course the room had 2 refrigerators in it as well.

  

We asked to go to the provisions storage area and this too was fascinating. There we saw dry goods, canned goods, and bottled goods all stacked on shelves. There was enough water there

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to last me a few years at least. I was surprised to see that the rice of all things, was inside a locked cage.

We were both very interested in seeing the refrigeration storage and the freezers. Jesse (the cook) took us right in and answered all of our questions. The first room we came to held the fish and the bread. The next held all the meat for the voyage, and the final was for fresh fruit and vegetables. The first 2 rooms were -15 degrees C and the 3rd was at 6 degrees C. The corridor between the rooms was cooled to 8 degrees C. We were told that there is enough meat and frozen fish to last for 3 months. Just in case something happens. This is good to know, but I think we will be ok as we are now only 3 1/2 days from landing in LA. The vegetable room had a cage inside it with a lock on. Jesse said that coming into LA he has to lock up all fruit and vegetables with seeds in them. This is to fit with FDA regulations I would guess. I found it funny that there was also butter in this cage but didn’t ask. I guess it’s the same as the rice. Just a place to store it.

As we were leaving, I took a photo of all the spicy sauces they had. I counted 5. Thai, Philippino, Chinese, Mexican and one I didn’t recognize. Hmm. I wish I had known this before. I would have had spicy sauce with some of my meals. That is one thing I miss from HK. The spicy sauce that is readily available. We shall have to remedy this when we get to Boca. I also noticed 4 boxes of Garden brand saltines on the top shelf. I had to laugh at myself. I brought 40 individual packs of crackers on board to help combat seasickness. I also brought along 6 bags of ginger candy. I ended up giving 20 of the crackers and 5 bags of the candy away. I didn’t need as much as I expected to. But better to give it away than to throw it in the bin as was planned (we are slowly making those suitcases lighter).

Jesse told us that he just used his imagination to make meals. Some he looked up on the internet but that was all. I think his imagination has been fantastic. The food we have been served has been beyond our expectations. He also told us that he had just finished inventory last night and that he makes sure everything is used within 1 month of the expiry date. This is a well thought out routine.

We left around half an hour later as we know they had to cook dinner for us. We greatly appreciated the individualized tour. This crew is really going out of their way to take care of us and make sure we have enjoyed the trip.

For the record, dinner this evening was the best we’ve had in a month.

Day 15 (Wednesday, 1 August 2018) 43 12N, 144 27’W (PACIFIC OCEAN)

We woke late today. George was up at 8:30 and I at 11:00. Couldn’t sleep last night so we spent the wee hours talking about our past lives and events that took place before we met and making dreams for the future. While George slept I gazed out and tried to catch glimpses of the stars. I said there was too much light pollution. I looked out the window to see if I could find the source of the light and was shocked to see it was the moon. I don’t think I have ever seen it shine so brightly. It was truly a wonder to see.

I was doing my morning exercises when the captain called to find out where we wanted to be dropped in LA. We wrote down the address, I dressed and took it up to him. It is set. When we arrive in port, there will be a car waiting for us to take us to the enterprise rent-a-car and we will be on our way to San Francisco. This is much more than we expected. We guessed we would have to find our way to the port entry and from there we would make our way to the rental car agency. Now all I need to do is wait for a signal, call, and book a car.

After lunch, we headed up to the bridge to make our daily look around. I checked the temperature today. 22 C. The sun is shining in the sky and the clouds are soft and puffy. It is beautiful weather with a nice fresh breeze. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. This is a fantastic way to travel. The sea today is calm and still. It is like glass with tiny ripples going through it. The movement of the ship is almost non-existent. Everywhere I look I see a flat vast of ocean. There must be 20 shades of blues and grays and whites. The clouds are reflecting off the

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water. We look back and see where we have been but there are no waves being kicked up by us. Only a trail of a darker colored glass. Every now and again the front of the ship makes waves but for the most part we are still. I looked at the equipment and we are alone in the world. The closest ship is a Maersk vessel that is 33.7 NM away. There is no internet, there is no phone service. We are in a world of our own.

We were on our way to our cabin and George decided to ask if there are any chairs on the ship that we can bring to the bridge and use tomorrow. We were assured that there would be something for us there after lunch. It should be a pleasurable way to spend the afternoon. Sitting on deck watching the sea and reading a book. I look forward to that. For now, we sit in the cabin, I typing and George watching movies.

Today we have also laid out our plans for our trip to IPP in Japan next year. We shall fly to Seattle, take a repositioning cruise with the kid to Tokyo, travel by train to the IPP location and then on to Osaka. There we will fly to HK, spend my obligatory 2 weeks and if need be, some time in China. We will then take another container ship back to Oakland, pick up a U-haul truck and head into wine country where we shall fill the container with wine before driving back to our home in Florida. We expect this trip to last around 2 1/2 to 3 months. It is not only a perfect way to travel, but it is also a wonderful way to obtain the wine we like to drink and restock our cellar. We have a trip to HK every 3 years that we must take because of my residency so as long as they will have us we will ride home in this fashion. If there are no lounge chairs, we shall buy some in HK before getting on the boat and just donate them when we leave. It is a dream right now, but one that is very possible.

I spent the day writing this short story of mine while George napped and watched movies. We went on the bridge again tonight after dinner and felt the air. It is wonderful. I look forward to sitting out there tomorrow. Bug is fine, she’s packing our container full of all the boxes we sent to my dad tomorrow for shipment to Florida. The sun was still high in the sky and won’t set for another 2 hours at least. I’ve told George that we will sleep when we are tired but that I will go to the bridge tonight when I wake. I want to see the stars. He will sleep on dreaming of me and our future.

And now it is Eurorails time...

Day 16 (Thursday, 2 August 2018) 40 21’N, 134 55’W (PACIFIC OCEAN)

As always we woke to do our exercises. Today when we went to the bridge we found the chairs we requested waiting for us. It is only 17 C out right now. I hope it warms up a bit, but I see the sky is darker and am not expecting much. We were told that the fuel will change from High sulfur content to low sulfur content at around 3 am. We are so close to shore now I can feel it. The anxiousness to begin the final phase of our 6 month honeymoon and trip home is increasing by the minute. I find it hard not to repack the suitcases in anticipation of our departure. I’m going to try and get everything into 3 cases instead of 4. It’s a lot of climbing for George to do if I can’t.

So today after lunch, weather permitting we sit on deck, read a book and enjoy the sunshine. For now, its time for a card game.

We went up on deck and today it is only 19C. The day is overcast and not as beautiful as yesterday. We shall play a game of Hand and Foot after lunch and then I plan to go up and sit out come hell or high water—here’s hoping we encounter neither. While there I checked the weather and our ETA for LA. We are still on track to arrive in the wee hours of the 4th. The weather is cloudy but clear for the next 24 hours. Hurricane Hector is heading towards Miami and we think we should worry, but it will be long gone by the time we arrive. Our new home has withstood 30 some years of hurricanes. It will survive this one.

We went up on deck. The sun was high in the sky, there were 2 wooden chairs waiting there for us. We started out near the pilot landing area on the starboard side of the bridge deck but quickly moved to a secluded corner alongside the bridge. The wind was not as strong there and we could still enjoy the sun. I sat and read for around an hour, with my feet propped on the rails. I

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was watching the water and realized that apart from 27 crew members, we are the only people within 62 NM. This has got to be one of the best sunning spots in the world. I was enjoying Dan Brown’s Origin but wanted a more comfortable position. I put my pillow on the deck, propped my elbows up on it and continued to read while laying on the warm deck. After a spell, the light from the sun made it difficult to see the words and I started to look out over the ocean. I felt one with the sea. The horizon was to my right and through the illusion of perspective, was directly across from me. I could reach out and touch it if I chose to do so. I could see the waves rippling below me. Every now and again I could see the reflection of the sun bouncing off them. It was as though someone had taken a faint white flashlight and skipped the beam across the water. The shades of blue that surrounded me were only broken by the intrusion of my occasional view of the ship itself. This was too fine an opportunity to waste and I rolled onto my back put my sunglasses on, pulled up my shirt and took a long overdue afternoon nap in the sun.

1/2 an hour later I was rudely awaken by George who thought I would burn. I appreciate his concern, but wish he would have gently rolled me over instead. And yes, he was right. As I sit here typing I see that my right arm has that familiar red glow about it. I’m sure it will hurt a bit tomorrow. I think I shall go up again tomorrow afternoon to enjoy this solitude once more. This day reminded me of our afternoon swims last February when we went to visit our home in Boca. We stripped off every afternoon at 3, swam a few laps in the pool then lay on the warm deck tiles to dry off. I can’t strip off here, but I can enjoy the warmth all the same.

While George napped, I packed up my big suitcase and carry-on. I’m trying to make all of our stuff fit into 3 cases. This way when we get to IPP we will have an empty suitcase to put the puzzles into. 80 new puzzles takes a lot of room. When George lifted my large case he found it to be too heavy. I realized that the weight was from my jewelry so I took the case out and put it into my backpack. I think that will be easier to carry down those 90 stairs than a heavy suitcase will be. It’s too bad the ship doesn’t have a block and tackle mechanism that we could use to lower the suitcases. When we get to Sonoma or somewhere else along the way, I will once again have to repack everything so I have use of my backpack. I look around and see there is still much to pack tomorrow, but it should all fit within my duffel bag, our backpacks and George’s large suitcase. These are the thoughts that bother me. Packing should not be a bother but it is.

After dinner we returned to the bridge for one last look around. We checked on the hurricane heading towards Boca Raton, discovered that we should be able to see the US around 10 pm tomorrow evening and just had a very nice chat with Joel. He is quite the traveler with many experiences under his belt. I shall miss our conversations.

Day 17 (Friday, 3 August 2018) 36 57’N, 126 31’W (PACIFIC OCEAN)

I woke to the sound of Jheal knocking on the door wanting to collect the garbage. It must have been between 9:30 and 10:00. I slept late today as we stayed up last night reading. I finished Origin around 2:30 and then we talked about the next leg of our trip for a while. It was a restless sleep for me. Partially because of the waves moving about and partially because I am excited about reaching port. I am eager to disembark and start this next phase of our lives. Add to that the upcoming IPP and I am ready to swim to shore.

George had not slept at all and decided that he wanted to take a nap. He told me to go about my usual business: exercise, email, bridge; without him and to not wake him for lunch. While saddened by the prospect of doing all of this alone, I realized that he stayed up all night reading the book and needed rest. After finishing my exercise, I put in a load of laundry and went to the bridge for a look around. While there, they announced the start of some fire alarm and general alarm testing. I knew that would be the end of George’s nap. I stepped out on the bridge deck to check the temperature (18C) and to look at the waves. While there, the ship’s horn sounded and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It is incredibly loud when you are standing under it.

Today I noticed a few things. First, our home in Boca is going to get slammed by the hurricane Hector. Second, we slowed down to 18.5 Knots. Third, the ship’s arrival monitor has now changed from an ETA for LA to an ETA for fuel changes and bouys. I did not expect this but we shall be at the point of calling the pilot at 11 am.

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I returned to the cabin to find George awake as expected. I made him do his exercises and we headed to lunch. The captain told us we will be picked up by the driver at 5pm at the gantry. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed. This means we eat lunch on the ship and spend the better part of the day waiting. We were looking forward to an early disembarkation so we could get headed north and arrive in SF at a reasonable hour. Now we shall arrive around midnight. George will have to drive until we want dinner and I shall continue on until we can drive no more. This is not ideal but it will have to suffice.

Now I spend my time packing. I have all but our essentials packed up now. I wait for the laundry to finish and continue writing these thoughts of mine. I’ve a plan to write a puzzle to give to the crew this evening and will work on it while my lover sleeps soundly.

At 3:30 we went up to the bridge deck to lay in the sun. I really enjoy the heat on my body. Sadly George got hot and I forgot to put on sunscreen so we only stayed about 1/2 an hour today. It is a very warm sun. We tried to spot land but none is to be seen. We are still 390 NM from LA so I wouldn’t have expected to see any. George verified the lack of land by looking through the binoculars. I continued to work on my puzzle and will attach it and a solution at the end of this chapter. We have begun a new book: The President is Missing. It is refreshing for me to see a man read. This is not something I have encountered much of in the past 25 years. I also enjoy discussing the books as we go. We have a wonderful time together. I just wish he liked the warmth as much as I do.

Around 5 pm I began to feel nauseous again. I feel the ship rocking. When we were on deck, there were many whitecaps on the water and I was afraid this would happen. Hopefully it will not last long. George sleeps on. Poor dear did not sleep last night.

When he woke, he set about solving my puzzle. This is the first logic puzzle I have ever written so I will be super excited if it works. I would like to give it to the officers this evening.

I was disappointed, George came up with a different solution from mine. We had to change one rule and add another. He also suggested I add the age per person as of the date on the puzzle. This will help them to better fit each one into the table.

I’ve nothing to do this evening. I can read a book, play another game or some solitaire while George tries to solve my puzzle. I hope this time he can come up with the intended solution. Perhaps we can give this to them at breakfast.

I look forward to getting into port tomorrow. It will be later than we wanted, but fine just the same. We talked through our trip tomorrow evening during dinner. We will be fine. Drive the interstate and come what may. This is the spontaneity I crave.

I am able to pick up Google maps again and my compass is once again working. The maps are just a tiny bit off. It shows us inland rather than on the ocean but I have a general idea of my position within the state. I have turned on the sound on my iPhone as I know the Chinese government will text me the nearest embassy address when we get a cell tower signal. (I don’t need you anymore and honestly never did; but thank you for making sure how to contact help via the HKSAR government. I’ll stick with Uncle Sam thank you!) George and I will both jump to grab the phone. We’ve done well these past 2 weeks, but email! Internet! Stocks! FaceBook! We are wired and tuned in and coming back to civilization.

I plan to be on deck at 10 tonight. Joel said we should be able to see the California lights by then. We are on the wrong side of the ship to see the coastline coming in to view. I’ll just have to wing it and hope I arrive in time to see the US.

Looking at my countdown calendar I see we have 2 more weeks until we are home. This is a fully packed 2 weeks. Collecting George’s puzzles from his ex-wife’s home, a 'coming out' of our puzzle chest and visit to the manufacturers workshop, 3 wonderful days of IPP filled with friends and puzzling, a visit to George’s college room-mate’s, a factory tour in New Orleans, and one heck of a lot of driving. I am so eager to be HOME. We have never lived here but it is home.

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7555 MANDARIN DRIVE

No, we are not here yet but I thought I would tell you a bit about
our new home. We bought it sight-unseen at 2 am HK time one
November morning. I had a problem with insomnia and George
was asleep. I emailed him the link to the listing and went to bed.
When he woke, he looked at it and called the real-estate agent
and bought the house. We visited in February, enlisted the aid of
an interior decorator and returned to HK. (While in the US we
also got married. Valentine’s Day to be exact-completely spur-
of-the-moment but that is a tale for another write-up.) We gave her our ideas of what we wanted, told her we would be sending some furniture home, and gave her free rein. You see, we have no idea what we are returning home to. All we know is we have a VW beetle in the garage, some furniture, an expensive decorating bill, and 10,000 square feet to look forward to. (Lord knows we will need it to store both of our puzzle collections.) We have a pool, out-door kitchen, spa, wet and dry saunas, jacuzzi, gym, 4 car garage, and workshop. I can’t imagine a better place to live.

Since we are both puzzlers, we plan to make this home of ours into a puzzle museum. Each room bar our bedroom, the kitchen and dining room have a puzzle related theme. We have 3 spare rooms for guests but even those are puzzle themed. We also enjoy golf and being on the 6th green allows us to satisfy our desire to play daily. We bought a gem in the rough and are eager to see what our decorator has done with it.

Day 18 (Saturday, 4 August 2018)
(PORT OF LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA-DISEMBARKATION DAY)

Midnight. We woke and I looked out the window. Stars! I couldn’t believe how many I saw. We went up onto the bridge and stepped outside to look at them. There are millions. This is really the first night we saw them so clearly. It is a wonder. We are out here in this vast ocean and are so fortunate to be able to see this sight.

For a fleeting 2 minutes we had internet. I checked email and some came in but when you have 2 weeks worth to download it takes a long time. I also checked in with my daughter and she is just fine. I miss her and will be glad to see her in 2 weeks time as well. And then we lost the signal. I guess we caught a stray beam of service going through. We are now in the Santa Cruz Chanel and are traveling at 11.5 KN. It will be quite some time yet before we land and a while before I get cell service again. That blip was a tease. We are eager to see what is going on with the house and to catch up on the news. There will be time for that tomorrow. For now I should try to sleep again.

Sleep did not come. I spent the next 4 hours attempting to get an internet signal. It kept coming in and out and was incredibly hard to check anything. We managed some emails and to check the stock market and that was all. At 10:30 I woke from a dead sleep and did the usual morning exercises. It is time to finish packing and say our good-byes to the crew.

I have been looking forward to this day for the past 25 years but did not realize the extent of that statement until recently. It is real. I have left Hong Kong and am about to embark on the greatest journey of my life. The one I’ve always dreamed of. A husband who loves me, a house I adore, a life in the warmth of the Florida sun. No more cold mornings or blistering cold monsoon winds.
No more arguing or yelling for no reason. No more students or pointless meetings. I move on to waking up to exercise in my own gym, golf every day, a 3 pm swim followed by drying off on the warm cement of the deck. This journey across the Pacific Ocean was exactly what I needed to begin my new life. I’m glad I was able to participate in the trip. To meet so many friendly seamen. To see a beauty of the world I did not know existed. I have truly been given a gift with this trip. One I will not soon forget. Most people only dream of this experience, I lived it. No, I correct myself. Most people don’t realize this exists. Most of my friends and family don’t think of life without anyone around. They shudder at the thought of being disconnected. I thrived. "My bags are packed and I’m ready to go."* I await the captain or an officer telling me it is ok for us to disembark.

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I have loved this journey across the sea and only regret not getting to know all of the crew. I have enjoyed the tours around the ship and the nightly conversations with Joel on the bridge. Talking to the officers and all the smiling faces. It has been a truly wonderful experience. I must thank all of the crew of the CMA CGM Thomas Jefferson for giving us this once in a life time experience. As I cannot leave until 5 tonight, I sit here remembering all that has past, every moment on deck, all of the interactions with the crew. I have had a truly magnificent time on board. I can make a sailing like this again but I am sure I’ll never repeat one as nice as this. I thank every one of the crew for making this trip what it was.

*Leaving on a Jet Plane by Peter Paul and Mary

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A Dinner Puzzle

After watching the interaction between the Romanian crew at meal times, a representative from CMA CGM has implemented a new seating plan effective immediately. He has decided that there should only be 1 table in the officers mess rather than 2. To foster more communication and a sense of equality among all seamen he has included the following

rules. It is your job to determine who sits where.

1. 2 people born in the same year cannot be next to each other.

2. The chief officer and chief engineer are facing each other.

3. 2 People of the same age cannot be close*.

4. 2 people who were born in the same city cannot be close.

5. 2 people born in the same month cannot be close.

6. The cadets cannot be close.

7. The captain, chief officer, and chief engineer cannot cannot be

   close.

8. The captain must face the fore of the ship.

9. The electrician faces the captain and sits on the starboard side.

   *close is defined as next to each other (including at the corner of the table

   and on the same side of the table.

RANK JOB DOB AGE as of BIRTHPLACE 4/8/18

 

RANK/JOB/DOB/AGE as of 4/8/18/BIRTHPLACE

1	CAPTAIN	19/5/76	42	BRASOV
2	CHIEF OFFICER	4/7/80	38	CONSTANTA
3	CHIEF ENGINEER	23/8/67	50	PRIBOIENI
4	2ND ENGINEER	16/1/86	32	CONSTANTA
5	3RD ENGINEER	3/7/91	27	CONSTANTA
6	4TH ENGINEER	28/12/90	27	TULCEA
7	ELECTRICAN	22/5/78	40	CONSTANTA
8	REEFERMAN	12/6/91	27	FETESTI
9	DECK CADET	3/7/90	28	BOLINTIN- VALE
10	ENGINE CADET	26/11/89	28	FETESTI

There is only one solution to this puzzle.

Produced by Roxanne Miller during a crossing with some incredible seamen. August, 2018 Test solved by George Miller.


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