New York to Houston ... the long way - part forty-six

I took about 2,000 pictures and kept 1,183 for editing. You are doubtless grateful I haven't used them all. Forgive my self-indulgence, but there are still a few shots to put on record.

It is, of course, the crew, not the ship, I most remember. Here are just a few.

Third Mate Frederick Villanueva.

Oiler Ernesto Sicatin.

Bosun Chris Ramos.

Third Mate (there are always two) Gilbert Garduque, Able Seaman Oliver Legal and 'the cadet'. Properly pronouncing the delightful Hrvoje Musulin's name was impossible; everyone just calls him 'Herky'.

Poor old Herky pauses in front of the bridge on yet another dogsbody task.

Don't worry about Herky. With a master's degree and sea experience as an officer, he is likely to have a lucrative career in some form of shoreside maritime management. This voyage has taught him the perils of an entire career at sea.

Deck Fitter Domingo Garfin under the anchor chain. To see him, go to the barbecue in part thirty-nine. I just like the shot.

My hand on one of the links for perspective.

'Manny' Uytoco on the prowl for lose container lashings.

Second Engineer Bruno Tomic lectures on preventing oil and chemical spills. I will miss our ongoing joke about talking to the elevator (you had to be there).

Beyond the helmsman is Captain 'Boni', Captain Bonifacio Miramontes, responsible for Amber and cargo, together worth hundreds of millions, and twenty-four souls. This was taken in the Arabian Sea when facing a possible pirate attack.

Here he is in less troubled circumstances. I am grateful to have sailed with 'Boni' in command.

Few have the time or, likely, inclination for such a voyage. It was, as have been all my freighter trips, an education. The sea is unforgiving and we should be grateful for those who man all the anonymous, battered, essential ships about which most of us never think.

One last picture (an envoi of kinds). Able Seaman Elmer Sedicol, with whom I passed many pleasant hours on Amber's bridge, and the CMA CGM house flag.

New York to Houston ... the long way - part forty-five

Oil rigs and fishing boats as we head for Galveston and the Houston Channel. There’ve been a lot of fishing boats on this voyage. Presumably we don't have to worry about these.

The pilot boat makes a brave show.

Past a wreck from the 1930s and some happy feathered moochers.

Amber approaches the turning basin for the Houston terminal near where a tanker collided with a container ship about a week ago. Slices of Americana to starboard.

The Houston pilot - Mark - points out local landmarks and tells me St. Louis won the World Series.

Mark and the captain discuss our cargo, all those full containers from China and South Korea. Amber will be leaving most in Houston and then loading fifteen hundred empty 40-foot containers for the Far East.

After berthing, Mark kindly presents me with a Houston Pilots pocket knife, which is, other than memories and photos, my one souvenir of the trip. I open it up. Sure enough, the knife’s made in China.

Sixty-three days since departing Newark, which we left four days late because of Hurricane Irene. However, Amber's made up the time and is on schedule. The ship has taken me 23,932.1 nautical miles (27,540.6 miles or 44,322.3 kilometres).

Two hours later, I have a last glimpse of Amber. She may not be a thing of beauty but is a respectable, hardworking, blue-collar kind of a ship.

Well maintained, she might have a life of twenty-five years. But, at the end, there will be no mourning for Amber. Like an old pickup, she will be scrapped - they like to call it recycling nowadays - probably on the China coast, not far from where she was born. There will be no reunions of her officers and crew, no fond group memories of Amber's quirks and rollicking times ashore. Amber will have done her job and then be forgotten.

"Every ship is a romantic object, except the one you sail in,—embark, and the romance quits your vessel, and hangs on every other sail in the horizon." (‘Experience,’ Essays, Second Series Ralph Waldo Emerson 1844)

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There is a final posting - part forty-six.

New York to Houston ... the long way - part forty-four

My near circumnavigation - one time zone short - ends tomorrow. The Gulf of Mexico is providing a rocky farewell. Amber shudders as she ploughs into the waves. Trying to keep steady and camera focused, a shot so far back from the bow is difficult. Tons of exploding water mean, even high on the wing, I feel a slight spray. To port, a tanker gives an idea of conditions.

Later, things improve and I take a final walk on the main deck.

I'm suffering a touch of 'Channel Fever', a term once used by British seamen returning home after months, even years, away. Packing, final meals (Jayson touchingly insists he'll miss me), swapping of email addresses, preparations for the misery of air travel.

In the later days of sail, circumnavigating (with time in ports) took about a year under the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. Suez and Panama, and steam propulsion, greatly improved times. Circumnavigation was reduced to about a hundred days at the start of the 20th century and sixty on fast ships after the Great War. Amber, economizing on fuel, normally takes seventy-six from New York to New York.

The first passenger cruise to almost circle the world was Hamburg America Line’s Cleveland in 1909. The nearly four month voyage, from New York via Suez to San Francisco, cost up to $650. Advertisements promoted a ship “with elevator, grill room, gymnasium, deck swimming pool … princely traveling in balmy climates. Entertainment, lectures, card parties and chaperonage for ladies.”

Cunard’s Laconia left New York in 1922 on the first complete world cruise and, bar wartime, shipping companies have never looked back. I checked some around the world brochure (as opposed to actual) prices for next January. These are Canadian dollars per person in the least expensive, double inside cabin: $23,621 on Holland America's Amsterdam and $24,907 on Cunard's Queen Mary 2. That’s before drinks, laundry, tours in port, tips and so on. By comparison, Amber is bargain basement.

The freighter option isn't new. People used cargo vessels for personal travel long before there were ships specifically for passengers. After the Apostle Paul invoked his right to appeal to Caesar, he journeyed on trading ships, a voyage interrupted by shipwreck.

In the 1930s, the Barber Line freighter Greystoke Castle could take you from New York to New York for $550 on a circumnavigation of about 135 days. By the Second World War, freighter holidays had become quite popular as a cheap, informal alternative to pricey, stuffy passenger liners. But, faster and less expensive airline travel did in the liners, and cargo ships, too, carried fewer passengers.

Watching a freighter on the Thames in the 1970s, I vaguely wondered about working a passage to some exotic destination. The different flags and distant ports of registry could arouse a yearning in even the most practical individual. I know one person, then a university student, who worked his way across the Atlantic in the Sixties.

A few (very few by comparison with the world's merchant fleet) cargo ships still carry passengers. One goes - as you have read in this blog - for the voyage, not for extended stays and rip-roaring nights in out-of-the-way ports of youthful imagination.

Amber has no stabilizers and in the North Pacific rolled like a pig - for days. Her comforts are basic. But, unlike Queen Mary, you can wander onto Amber's bridge anytime or into the officers' pantry to make yourself toast. And, alone at the bow, you can remove your hardhat and watch for flotsam and flying fish.