Philadelphia to Antwerp - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 6

OUR route across the Atlantic will begin at 40 degrees north latitude, near the southern tip of New Jersey.
(Other places at this latitude: Portugal and Beijing.) We'll go pretty much on a straight diagonal northeast
to 51 degrees north, where we'll pass through the English Channel. (Other places at this latitude: Calgary
and Kazakhstan.)
The trip's first big visual waypoint comes fairly early into the passage, when the sea's color shifts from
a dull gray-green to an indulgent purple. Bits of sargasso float past—a clear signal that we've crossed into
the temperate currents of the Gulf Stream. The crew takes the opportunity to pump some warm ocean water
into the little swimming pool on the ship's rear deck. Rebecca tosses on her bathing suit and hops in for a
dip. The “pool” is more of a tub—just a bit larger than a Ping-Pong table—and watching Rebecca bounce
off its walls reminds me of a neurotic otter I once saw at an underfunded zoo, frantically darting back and
forth in his cramped aquatic habitat.
It's Sunday, which means it's the crew's day off. Several of the officers sunbathe. The chief electrician,
an older Polish fellow named Witold, takes a shirtless constitutional around the aft deck in his Birkenstock
sandals and black socks. He has a pooching potbelly, scraggly gray chest hair, and a pair of mirrored, wrap-
around sunglasses. As he passes my deck chair, he pauses to chitchat about the weather. He predicts it will
stay bright and clear for the entire trip. The Atlantic in summer is known for its calm, while the Atlantic in
winter is famously nasty. “Een Septyember,” Witold says with a guttural bark, “then mehbe storms start.”
There are twenty-three crew members in all, representing six nationalities. The captain is German, stone-
faced, and rarely seen. My understanding is that he doesn't have much to do on a daily basis—yet bears
total responsibility if anything should go wrong.
The three navigational officers are a German, a Romanian, and a Filipino. These are the guys who ac-
tually pilot the ship. The Filipino is Gregorio, whom we've already met. The Romanian has made it clear,
through an array of grunts and frowns, that he'd prefer not to meet us at all. The German guy, named Rikus,
seems friendly, and I figure he's my best hope at becoming chummy with a crew member.
The four engine room workers are a Russian, a Ukrainian, and two Poles. They stick together—their own
engineering-focused gang, separate from the navigational officers. Save for Witold, they appear to speak
limited English.
Finally, there are the fifteen deckhands. These guys have titles like “oiler” and “wiper,” and spend most
of their time hidden belowdecks. They are without exception Filipino, as are the deckhands on most con-
tainer ships at sea—regardless of the nationality of the captain or his officers. Like an Irish policeman or a
Jewish gemologist, it seems the Filipino deckhand has become an ethnic occupational stereotype. No one
I've asked can quite tell me why. Possible explanations: 1) Seafaring knowledge runs deep within the cul-
ture. 2) They work cheap.
MY self-assigned reading for this voyage is a book called The Box , which traces the history of container
shipping. Its author, Marc Levinson, argues that the container hasn't gotten its due as a crucial element in
globalization. I was intrigued by provocative blurbs on the topic's back cover claiming that “the modern
shipping container may be a close second to the Internet in the way it has changed our lives,” and that,
without containerization, “there would be no globalization, no Wal-Mart, maybe even no high-tech.”
Before containerization, loading a cargo freighter was like piecing together a chaotic, 3-D jigsaw puzzle.
Each item—a pile of lumber, a wheel of cheese, a batch of bicycles—had to be fit by hand into the ship's
hold. This work was done by a team of longshoremen (think Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront ), who
used hooks, pallets, pulleys, forklifts, and elbow grease to lift the cargo on board. Loading a ship could take
several days, and dockworkers were sometimes known to pilfer cargo as it waited on the pier.