Bangkok to Singapore - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 83

And then a glimmer. A port agent named Lucy tells me there's a freighter called the Kamakura leaving
for Fremantle on Sunday. That's the opposite coast of Australia from Brisbane, but we might make it work
if we can drive across the Outback at furious speeds. “I need to get on that ship,” I say into the phone,
trying not to let desperation creep into my voice. Lucy says she'll see what she can do.
Fifteen minutes later, she calls back. It turns out the Kamakura is owned by a Japanese firm—the Hachi-
uma Steamship Company, whose owners have been in the shipping business since 1878. Lucy tells me she
spoke to Hachiuma's head office in Kobe and explained the special nature of my request, but it didn't mat-
ter. Strict security rules: No civilian passengers. No exceptions.
More calls to port agents, more dead ends. Half the time I can barely understand them through their thick
Cantonese accents. I try phoning a few of the big shipping companies in Europe to see where it gets me.
But it gets me nowhere. The woman at Hapag-Lloyd cuts me off four words into my spiel. “We don't take
passengers,” she says, in a stern German accent. “We never take passengers.”
I've filled a sheet of paper to its edges with scribbled phone numbers, names of agents and freighters,
dates and destinations. I'm losing track of it all. “Alex in Port Kelang. Bunga Teratai —chemical tanker.” I
can't even remember why I wrote this down.
And then, another glimmer: A port agent—about the fifteenth I've called—tells me the freighter Cape
Preston is leaving from Singapore for Australia in two days. It's owned by Columbia Ship-management,
based in Cyprus.
Moments later, I'm on the phone long distance to Cyprus. A man named Mr. Borbe patiently listens to
my story. I'm at the end of my rope by now, and make an emotional final plea. A few seconds of silence,
and then Mr. Borbe says, with great solemnity: “I will try to do this for you.” He tells me he'll call back
after he's consulted other executives at the company.
I have an excellent feeling about this. There was a warmth that ran through the phone line between us.
Mr. Borbe understood me. And I think I like Cyprus. There's that Cypriot tennis player, Marcos Bagh-
datis—I've always liked his game. Lots of variation and flair. Yes, I think this is going to work.
But Mr. Borbe calls back an hour later with bad news. “I'm so sorry, Mr. Stevenson,” he says with deep
sympathy. “We can't be doing this.”
WE'VE now inquired about pretty much every single freighter in Singapore Harbor, with no luck. We've
also looked for cruise ships, public ferries, anything that might take us across the water. Nothing's panned
out.
Phileas Fogg dealt with problems like this by throwing money at them. When he's stuck in India, he buys
an elephant. Later, he buys a steamship. We lack the necessary scratch to purchase our own freighter, so
we'll need to get creative.
After posting the message “Need boat from Singapore to Australia, can anyone help?” on my Facebook
page, Rebecca and I take the Singapore metro to a stop by the water, near one of the swankier marinas. A
sign there says only members are allowed on the docks, but we hop the gate.
By now, there's no point in even looking at sailboats. They're too slow. At typical speeds of seven or
eight miles an hour, they couldn't possibly get us to Brisbane in time. Our only hope is to find someone
with a muscular cabin cruiser. A few large powerboats in the marina could do the job, but none of their
owners seem to be around.
We take a cable car to Sentosa, an island in Singapore Harbor that hosts a couple of posh yacht clubs.
We hop more gates, walk around more docks, but it's a lost cause. Even if we found a fast private boat, the
odds are slim that we could convince the owner to taxi us the two thousand miles to Australia, burning a