CHARLOTTE PHILLIPS / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN
The freighter Trade Bravery, 680 feet long, stretches along the pier in Long Beach, Calif.
Freighter crew pampers
its unexpected passengerI am gazing out a porthole from the owner's cabin on the fifth deck of Trade Bravery, my freighter home for the next several weeks, watching with fascination as giant mechanical devices pick up containers as if they were matchboxes and swing them onto the ship with speed and precision, stacking them in neat layered rows.
The owner's cabin was not on my list of possibilities, and I could be booted out at any moment. But I was not on anyone's list -- not on security's list at the entrance to the Hanjin Terminal at Pier T, and not on the freighter's list as a passenger. In trying to figure out what to do with me, amid the flurry of more pressing matters demanding his attention, the chief officer, Steffen Mydlak, put me in here.
Instead of the single cabin with bed, desk and chair that I expected, I am in a suite, with teak paneling covering the walls and cabinets. The day room's table is bolted down and surrounded by a built-in semicircular sofa and two chairs, which are attached to the table with a fabric belt. A swivel chair is attached the same way to the built-in desk. Cabinets with keys in the locks run from the desk around toward the door. The last one contains a small fridge. The floor is carpeted. Air-conditioning vents hum overhead. Four healthy plants rest in a corner planter box beneath a skylight. Sun is streaming in through three large portholes. Out of habit, I water the plants.
Over a threshold and behind a door are twin beds, separated by a night stand and a porthole. Closet doors have keys, as do the drawers under the beds. Inside the drawers are life vests and an emergency knotted rope, with instructions that in case of fire, you are to attach it to the porthole and lower yourself to the deck. Yeah, right. All I can think of is "splat," the sound I would make hitting the deck.
CHARLOTTE PHILLIPS / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN
Charlotte Phillips' fifth-floor porthole affords her a good view of the cargo stacked up for the voyage.
Over another threshold and behind a door is the bathroom, with shower, toilet, lavatory and mirror. I am pretty blown away by the whole thing.
I left the Queen Mary early this morning, figuring it was in the harbor and the freighter was in the harbor, so how long could it take to zip over? But the Long Beach, Calif., harbor is a vast and intricate network. Even with a helpful cabdriver who knew exactly how to get here, it was a $13 cab ride, comprising many twists and turns.
The taxi ride was the easy part. The security officer at the gate looked at me, my passport and my boarding papers. He checked his list. My name wasn't on it. He told us to wait. He checked again. He finally decided the cabdriver should take me to Hanjin Terminal and let them figure out what to do with me.
But no one there had any idea what to do, either. I showed them my passport, papers and map, with "Hanjin Terminal, Berth 138" highlighted in yellow. I kept mentioning "Trade Bravery." People kept passing my dilemma off to the next person as I sat on the floor, waiting.
FINALLY, A MAN with a Japanese accent told me my freighter was one of many out there, but Hanjin wasn't handling it and I shouldn't be there. I apologized for the bother and told him that if he pointed me in the right direction, I would find the ship on my own. Then he decided to help me. He rushed through doors with my suitcase as I scurried behind. He parked me out back and told me to watch for a shuttle-type thing. He said, "You'll know it when you see it; it has a lot of seats."
CHARLOTTE PHILLIPS / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN
Containers on the freighter Trade Bravery are stacked in neat rows for the trip across the Pacific.
When such a vehicle came along, I ran to stop it, flailing my arms. The driver was eager to get me to my ship. We manipulated the busy docks until I yelled, "There's Trade Bravery." He let me out alongside the ship and told me to head to the gangplank.
I looked at the steep, greasy, swaying stairs and saw that each step was curved in a way that a false step could plunge my foot through the ample space between steps. As I was mulling over getting up the stairs, and the impossible task of transporting my suitcase, a young crewman came to my rescue. He threw my suitcase onto his shoulder and was out of sight before I was a third of the way up.
Suddenly he reappeared with two men. One began wiping black grease from my hands with a rag while the other, who I soon learned was the chief, looked at me in puzzlement. After going through my papers and asking me a slew of questions amid constant interruptions, he decided that I indeed seemed to be a passenger, even though no one had informed the ship of my existence. He showed me the officer's mess room on the poop deck and told me to be there at noon, then brought me to the owner's cabin.
A night earlier, as I strolled the decks of Queen Mary, I thought of all the rich and famous people who had done the same beginning in 1936, when the ship was a regal ocean liner instead of a dockside hotel. The receptionist was gracious. She upgraded my $99 twin room to a king stateroom.
The restoration work aboard the Queen Mary is remarkable. In the bathroom, beside old-fashioned knobs above the tub, the four choices read, "hot salt, "cold salt," "hot fresh" and "cold fresh." I wondered why anyone would choose to bathe in cold salt water. Next to the toilet were two call buttons: a green button to summon a "stewardess" and a red button for the "steward."
With comparisons to Titanic unavoidable, Queen Mary people like to point out that the ship is larger and heavier. And this fact caught my attention: Its 3,249 passengers and crew had lifeboats that accommodated 3,266, while Titanic's 3,054 had lifeboats for just 1,178. All hail the Queen.
This great ship deserves more words, but this time, it was just a stop en route to my long-awaited freighter adventure.
FRIENDS WHO THOUGHT I'd get seasick, even though I assured them I've never been seasick, will have to admit I'm right. I haven't had the slightest touch of queasiness since eyeing the gangplank.
Wait. I guess I have to mention that we haven't gone anywhere yet. One week since leaving Honolulu, I'm still in the harbor, waiting for the crew to finish loading the freighter.
We will leave Long Beach in two days at 5 a.m. or so for Oakland, where we will spend a few hours picking up more cargo before crossing the Pacific to China and South Korea.
Charlotte Phillips, a copy editor with the Star-Bulletin since 1996, is fulfilling a lifelong desire to travel via freighter.
