The Ship Inspecton Years

It had become clear during the time spent auditing that audits were destined to become more and more important as companies sold their ships to avoid oil spill liability claims.  Texaco had used me on several occasions in the early 1990's to do some inspections on 3rd party ships.  After the US fleet was sold in 1995, Texaco continued to use me, and other former employees, more and more for these inspections.  In 1999, Texaco sent me to Hemel Hempstead, UK, outside of London, to be their representative in helping develop the initial OCIMF (Oil Companies International Marine Forum) vetting inspection format.  I was kept gainfully busy through 2002 when Chevron merged with Texaco, inspecting ships in ports stretching from Come By Chance, Newfoundland to St Eustatius to Corinto, Nicaragua.  Additionally, a group of former Texaco Port Engineers formed a company called Marine Management Inc which primarily inspected ships bound for Nigeria.  I also gained approval from 6 different Flag States to carry out inspections on their behalf.  It was a busy time.

One of my more memorable inspections was in Newfoundland.  I flew to St. John's the day after Thanksgiving.  Being late November, it had already snowed there so I decided to wear appropriate clothing which included jeans and a plaid, flannel shirt.  Upon checking in to the airport hotel, I was surprised to see throngs of people wearing tuxedos and fancy evening gowns.  I received more than a few dirty looks.  I asked the registration gal what the occasion was and she said it was a Christmas party.  I thought it was a bit early for a Christmas party but was informed that Newfoundlanders used any excuse they could to party.

The ship inspection also had its moments.  The ship had encountered very heavy weather on its voyage from Europe and had lost an anchor enroute.  Additionally, part of the IG line and many handrails had been swept away.  There was no way the ship could pass inspection.  The attending superintendent didn't want to hear that and begged me to ignore the many defects found.  Sorry buddy, can't do that.  He clearly knew the damage that had occurred during the voyage and should have cancelled the inspection but failed to do so.

After Texaco vetting had been taken over by Chevron, I became a gypsy vetting inspector, carrying out inspections for the likes of Shell, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, and Stat Oil.  Eventually the travel started to wear on me so I decided to shift my business from vetting inspections to Flag State inspections which required far less travel.  I quickly learned that not all Flag States are created equal, some being very reputable, others not-so-much.  Eventually I settled on providing inspections only for LISCR, the Liberian Registry, which I found to be well-operated.  Their safety department took their role seriously and strove for industry improvement.  LISCR made sure their inspectors were highly trained and held courses in ISPS, ISM, and Maritime Labor.  I became a lead auditor in all these fields and was able to issue vessel certification in same.

I thoroughly enjoyed my years carrying out inspections for LISCR. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and Covid-19 saw to that.  Being of a high-risk age for the virus, I officially ended my ship inspection business in the fall of 2020, more than 57 years since I made my first sea-going trip on the Trinidad Corporation's SS Houston in 1963.  It was a very good ride with great friendships and wonderful memories made over that time.  I'll miss it for sure.

The Audit Team Years

In the fall of 1992, I was offered a position on Texaco's Audit Team.  There were two Audit Teams in all, each team consisting of a Capt and a Chief Engineer.  The assignment required teams to ride and complete operational reports on various ships in the fleet, including internationally-flagged vessels.  Prior to heading out for the first assignment, we attended a week-long environmental auditing course in Cambridge, MA.

I was lucky enough to be partnered with Mike McCarthy who had previous Audit Team experience.  Our first assignment was the Star Louisiana which we joined in Port Suez at the southern boundary of the Suez Canal.  The trip over was interesting, not being used to long international flights.  The first hop was from Newark, NJ to London Heathrow.  Since there was a long layover until my next flight, I was given a free hotel room nearby.  The next morning, I met up with Mike at Heathrow and we flew to Cairo, landing at night.  We were met and escorted to a fancy downtown hotel where I was able to buy a few postcards to send home.  There was no time to explore the city since we departed for Port Suez by car service first thing the next morning.  It was about a three hours drive much of it through desert areas which were strewn with white plastic shopping bags along the roadside.  This was before these types of shopping bags were being widely used in America.  I now see that the ecologic mess witnessed along the desolate Egyptian roads as a foreshadowing as to why plastic bags are finally being phased out here in the US.

The most important thing I learned during the trip to join the Louisiana was to keep a bunch of $1 bills available.  In both Cairo and Port Suez, Mike and I were bombarded by street urchins looking for handouts.  Mike had singles but I had none and wound up parting with a $20 just to get them to leave me alone.

We joined the Louisiana by launch as she cleared the canal.  Our first port was to be Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.  The officers on board were Italian; the ratings were Filipino.  I quickly learned that Filipino cooks can make very good Italian food, especially Focaccia bread.  I witnessed a humorous occurrence while approaching Yanbu.  A Saudi Arabian harbor pilot and his apprentice had just boarded.  When the pilots arrived on the bridge, the captain asked if they would like coffee.  The pilot requested cappuccino.  There was a cappuccino maker on the bridge so the pilot got his wish.  He then proceeded to tell his apprentice that Italians make lousy cappuccino and refused to drink his.  Clearly he was just trying to be a hard ass.  I mean, who in their right minds tells Italians they can't make good cappuccino.

Nobody was allowed ashore in Yanbu which was just as well.  There didn't appear to be much around.  After departing, we continued southbound in the Red Sea.  One of the items we checked for in our audit was passage planning.  I had a good look at the charts and noticed an area circled and marked "fishing grounds" off the coast of Oman.  I teasingly asked the captain if this was part of the passage plan.  Several days later, I was to find out that indeed it was part of the plan.   I awoke early one morning to the sensation that the ship was stopped.  I thought perhaps there were engine problems.  I went up to the bridge and found nobody there which was very strange.  I went out on the bridge wing and heard noise on the fantail.  Looking down, I noticed a dozen or so crew members fishing.  Sure enough, we had arrived at the fishing grounds marked on the navigation chart.  I went down to join the action and was handed a fishing line.  The crew were hauling in large fish two at a time.  I caught my share as well.  Apparently, several trips prior, the ship had developed engine problems in this very spot and had to stop.   While repairs were being made, the some of the crew started fishing and hit the jackpot.  Since that trip, the ship stopped to fish in the same spot every time it was on that route.  Enough fish were caught that they were able to cancel a good portion of their grocery order in the next port.

Mike and I completed our audit and disembarked by launch off of Fujairah.  We took a car service to Dubai where we spent a couple of days before flying back to Port Arthur via Bahrain, Amsterdam and Houston.

After we had given our audit report to the powers that be, I was told that I was needed back in the fleet for one rotation to fill in on the Massachusetts, which I did.

My next audit assignment was on the Star Baltic along with Butch Callaway as the Engine Auditor.   Similar to the Louisiana, the Baltic was manned by Italian officers and Filipino ratings.  As happenstance would have it, the second mate on the Baltic was the same guy that had been on the Louisiana.  We joined the Baltic in San Juan and rode the ship to Guayanilla and then on to Curacao where we disembarked.  In my post-Texaco years while carrying out a ship inspection in Texas City, I noticed the Baltic at a nearby dock and was able to go aboard and see a few friends I had made during the audit.

The next audit assignment almost turned disastrous right from the get-go.  I first flew to Boston where I met up with Mike McCarthy.  From there we took a small plane to Quebec City.  We were  the only two passengers yet somehow they managed to misplace my luggage which I had carried with me from the first flight.  We joined the Star Ohio in St. Romuald, just across the river from Quebec City.  I put the ship's agent on the lookout for my luggage since the ship was due to sail the next day.  It looked like I was going to have to spend the month aboard wearing borrowed boiler suits.  Luckily my luggage was found and brought out to the ship by a launch after we had sailed from the dock.

The Star Ohio was a new VLCC manned by Italian officers and Filipino ratings.  Our quarters were top notch.  Our load port was to be Arzew, Algeria, where there had been a recent terrorist attack on a ship loading there.  After docking, we raised up the gangway and kept it raised the whole time we were alongside, much to the displeasure of the port officials.  During the night, Mike and I split security watches on the navigation bridge to help ensure nobody snuck onboard.  We were glad when we sailed.  It was a two week voyage back to St. Romuald where we disembarked.  This was the last foreign flag ship we were to audit.  The next few were American flag ships.

My next audit was a solo job.  It was on the integrated tug barge unit Victory - Texas.  The voyage was from Baytown, TX to Port Everglades, FL.  I shared a stateroom with the Chief Mate.  I had never sailed on a tug barge unit before and was pleasantly surprised how well she rode.  The weather being good helped.

The next two audits were on west coast on the Star Rhode Island and Star Massachusetts, two of my former ships.  It was good to see some familiar faces.

Upon completion of the audit, it was announced that Texaco Marine was disbanding its marine operations, turning them over to Northern Marine Management.  The remaining ships in the US Fleet, Star Georgia and Star Rhode Island were sold to Keystone Shipping.  Star Massachusetts was sold for scrap.

My last official work day with Texaco was June 30, 1995.

My next assignment was as Captain on the Mississippi, relieving my good friend JPK in Wilmintgon, NC.  The Misssissippi, originally a T-2 named South Mountain, was built in 1944, renamed Mississippi in 1950 and Texaco Mississippi in 1959.  She was jumboized in 1964 in Newport News and later renamed Star Mississippi in 1990.  She was the last remaining Texaco T-2 and was sold and scrapped in 1992.  She was primarily a lube oil ship and was of riveted construction.  Because of her lube oil cargo history, her steel hull remained in excellent condition but unfortunately some of her rivets had begun to weep and, riveting being a lost art, there was no effective way to remedy this problem.  Her time was soon to be up.  As happenstance would have it, many of the officers onboard had recently attended the same Quality training course in Portland, ME as I had, which made for good communications and a very smooth running operation.  Ports called at during that work cycle included Port Arthur, Port Neches, Baytown, Texas City, Houston, New York and San Juan.

San Juan was always an interesting port to enter.  With all due respect to the harbor pilots there, it had been my experience that some of the pilots had become spoiled by working ships that repeatedly called there.  The pilot boarding station there is supposed to be one mile offshore but pilots would often wait and board while the ship was entering the harbor.  I had once witnessed a pilot when first boarding having to shout "hard left, half ahead" from the main deck to the bridge in order to keep the ship from running aground.  I wasn't about to let that happen to me as Master so I had a minor stand-off with our pilot when we first arrived.  He wouldn't come out to the pilot station and I wouldn't come in closer to shore.  We compromised and I picked him up a half mile out and all went well.
 
On one of the trips we got orders to load in Houston at the Lyondell berth.  I had never been to that terminal and it started out as a contentious stay.  After docking, the ship was so positioned that we could not use the long ship's gangway.  We carried a shorter gangway just for instances like this and we rigged the short gangway on the foredeck.  The terminal representative refused to come up the gangway saying it was a barge gangway, not a ship's gangway, which was of course absurd.  Even after showing him the gangway specs sheet and approval document, he wouldn't come aboard.  There was a shore gangway laying on the dock so I asked if we could use it instead.  He then told me we'd have to rent it from him for $200.  So this whole gangway charade was a scam to get us to pay him to use the shore gangway.  This probably worked on foreign flagged ships and I didn't expect it to work with American ships but when I called the office to report the incident, surprisingly they told me to go ahead and pay the guy which I did.

One northbound voyage was eventful.  My standard routine after dinner was to hang out in my cabin for a bit while a few of the Mates went up to the bridge for coffee.  I liked them to have time for themselves without me hanging around.  Anyway, my phone rang and I expected it to be the Mate on watch letting me know there was fresh coffee made.  Much to my surprise, he asked me if I wanted to do a rescue at sea.  He was fairly nonchalant so I really thought this was just an invite for coffee.   When I got to the bridge, he pointed over the side and lo and behold we were passing a guy floating in a large life ring.  At the time we were approximately 20 miles northeast of Miami.  I immediately put the engines on stand by, phoned the engine room to have them ready to maneuver, and called the USCG for their assistance.  We proceeded to make a Williamson Turn, required in man overboard situations, and maneuvered close by the man the life ring.  I had the deck crew put a pilot ladder over the side and shouted through a bullhorn to get him to paddle or swim over to the ladder so he could climb aboard.  He kept shouting "tiburon" which meant "shark" in Spanish and was scared to swim to the ship.  He stayed in the life ring until the Coast Guard arrived in a boat some 45 minutes later.  They took him aboard their cutter.  They reported to me that the man was a Cuban refugee and had been in the life ring for 4 days.  I'm convinced that had not our Second Mate (Rick C) stood such a diligent watch and with night time fast approaching, this man would have drifted out of the shipping lanes and never been rescued.

 August 1992 Rescue of Cuban Refugee

During this same northbound voyage, my father-in-law passed away.  The family wanted his ashes spread at sea.  That voyage we called at New York, first anchoring in the harbor off Staten Island while we waited for a berth in Perth Amboy.  I wanted Sugar to come aboard at the anchorage so she could make the four hour shift to the dock, as she had never made a trip on board before.  She didn't want to risk climbing the pilot ladder especially with her father's ashes and so she waited to come aboard until we docked.  I spread my father-in-law's ashes at sea two days later on the southbound voyage.

Also on the southbound ship we received word that the ship had been sold.  We knew this was coming but still it was very disheartening to hear.  There would be one more voyage and then the ship would sail for Alang, India to be scrapped.  As a tribute to some of our previously scrapped ships, and to lighten the mood onboard, I allowed the crew to stencil an irreverent call sign graveyard on the bridge wing.

I was due for paid leave and my good friend Capt Bruce Calhoun relieved me in Port Neches, TX.  I was told he also rescued a Cuban refugee during the following voyage.  One rescue is a very rare occurrence.  Two rescues on consecutive voyages is unheard of.  The Mississippi definitely went out in a blaze of glory.

I joined the Connecticut in Tacoma, WA on March 2, 1989 as a supernumerary.  The ship was on the Valdez run at the time. Although nothing had been said by the office, Capt. Usher advised me that he would be retiring after this trip and that I would sail as Mate for this work cycle and then be his permanent replacement when his next work cycle was to start.  It was not to be.  Just 3 weeks later, on March 24th, the Exxon Valdez grounded on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound.  That not only altered my status, but changed the whole industry as well.

We had sailed from Valdez exactly 24 hours before the Exxon Valdez and thus encountered almost identical conditions when passing by the Columbia Glacier.  I was on the bridge at the time and due to the many small bergs that had drifted into the narrows, we had to pull out of the channel to go around them.  The difference between us and the Exxon Valdez was that when we cleared the bergs, we steered back into the channel and proceeded without incident.  The next day, we heard the news on the radio about the Exxon Valdez grounding..

After discharging, we returned to Valdez for our next load to find that the terminal was now only working one ship a day so we had to anchor and wait our turn.  I had never been ashore in Valdez but this trip I took the opportunity to do so.  Valdez was a small town and the busiest store was the one that sold T shirts.  There was literally a line out the door of people wanting to buy Exxon Valdez oil spill memorabilia.  The majority of these folks were Exxon employees sent there to help deal with and mitigate the situation.  The lady sales clerk routinely asked each customer where he was from.  As happenstance would have it, the gentleman in front of me told her he was from New Jersey.  A light bulb went off in my head.  My daughter had told me that one of her high school classmate's father worked for Exxon in the Marine Dept.  I wondered if the guy in front of me in the checkout line could be him.  I took a chance and asked him if he lived in a yellow colonial house on Sanford Ave.  He gave me an incredulous look and asked me how I knew that.  I told him that his daughter and mine were good friends and that I had dropped my daughter off at his house numerous times.  Talk about a small world.

I went on vacation the second week in April in Anacortes, WA.  My wife and I had scheduled a Club Med trip to Guadeloupe which we barely made due the slow down in Valdez.  I wore one of my Exxon Valdez oil spill T shirts to lunch there one day and had an egg thrown at me for wearing it.

I rejoined the Connecticut in Anacortes in early July.  After two voyages we were scheduled for drydock at Swan Island in Portland, OR.  We stayed there three weeks before it was time for me to go on paid leave again.  In those days, our contracts had been renegotiated and we were working 2 months on, 2 months off.  Upon returning to work again in November, I was pleasantly surprised to learn the ship had been chartered by BHP for the Hawaii run.  I rejoined in Honolulu.  The Hawaii run was a triangular-shaped one from Long Beach, the SF Bay area and Hawaii.  Every 2nd or 3rd trip to Hawaii, we would dock in downtown Honolulu for part discharge.  It was convenient to everything Honolulu had to offer including Hilo Hatties where I always managed to buy another Hawaiian shirt.  At Barbers Point, off the southwest end of Oahu, we would fully discharge and then backload for California.  The round trip usually lasted around 3 weeks.  I happened to be Master when Texaco, clearly as a reaction to the Exxon Valdez incident, decided to rename their ships, changing the Texaco name to Star so we became the Star Connecticut.  I had the Texaco Connecticut name boards put ashore for storage in Long Beach in care of Costello Ship Supply, our ship chandlers.  Lord knows what happened to them. The Hawaii charter lasted until November 6, 1990 when misfortune caused the vessel to ground while unmooring from Barber's Point, HI.  I was home on paid leave at the time.

The Connecticut was in the process of being sold to Coastal when the grounding occurred so I was going to wind up on another ship even if the grounding hadn't happened.  That next ship turned out to be the Star Massachusetts, my old home in the mid-70's.  I joined her in a familiar spot, Swan Island Shipyard in Portland.  The shipyard screwed up some specs there.  Since the ship would be carrying MTBE and Ethanol cargoes, special gaskets and valve packing were required.  The shipyard used the wrong valve packing material so when we tried to discharge our first cargo, the tank valves started to leak badly and we couldn't fully strip the tanks, even internally.  I sent our spare tank valves ashore for repacking and then started replacing valves each trip as more valves were repacked.  It was a pain in the neck process but we were able to stay fully operational.

The one incident I clearly recall happened the first week in December 1990.  We had orders to load at Cherry Point, WA, a port in northern Washington not far from the Canadian border.  Hurricane force winds delayed our docking and we had to anchor until the weather subsided.  We needed to use both anchors.  When I went to the bridge to relieve the 2nd Mate at 0345 the next morning, upon checking our position I immediately noticed we were dragging anchor and heading directly for a shoal.  I called the Captain (Louis G.), had the deck gang roused and headed to the bow.  It was still blowing 80 knots and the temperatures were below freezing.  One could only stay on the bow for around 15 minutes so the 2nd Mate and I alternated with the deck crew in heaving up the anchors.  It was a very slow process, made slower by the fact that the ship had swung and the anchors crossed.  Luckily, the anchors eventually cleared each other and we were able to get them home safely and maneuver away from the shoals.  We wound up slow steaming back and forth in the Strait of Georgia until the weather subsided and we were able to dock.

I only made one work cycle on the Star Massachusetts before being reassigned to the Star Montana, one of my favorite ships.  I stayed assigned to the Montana for a year and was pleased to be reunited with Captains Healey and Calhoun.  The Montana was rumored to be the next ship scrapped which upset Capt Healey.  He did everything in his power to get the ship in spit-spot condition to give the Company second thoughts about scrapping such a well-maintained ship.  One of the projects he wanted done was scaling and repainting the forward pumproom.  This pumproom was only used for bunker fuel transfer and had been neglected for years.  Being such a confined space, the noise that reverberated from the pneumatic scaling hammers was deafening.  We wound up painting it with left over boot-topping paint which was bright red in color.  It was something to see.  Unfortunately, it didn't save the ship but did enable the deck gang to make a lot of overtime.

Captain Healey retired off the Montana and was replaced by Capt Chester, another old friend and shipmate from the Minnesota and Connecticut days.  During one interesting stretch, Capt Porter filled in.  We had orders to load in the LA area and head back east, discharging in Guatemala, El Salvador and Panama along the way.  One grade of cargo we carried on that voyage was dirty diesel, and it clearly was off-test from the start.  During the loading, the off-test diesel was blended with clean diesel.  The ship was given several 55 gallon drums of chemicals to dump in the cargo tanks just prior to arrival in San Jose, Guatemala.  The chemicals were intended to mask the impurities in the diesel cargo during sampling and apparently the process worked because the cargo was accepted.  San Jose was an offshore mooring similar to those I had called at while assigned to the Minnesota so the entire discharge process went smoothly.

From San Jose, it was only a few hours run to Acajutla, El Salvador.  The terminal in Acajutla was open to the sea and there was a significant surge at the dock.  We deployed plenty of extra mooring ropes and managed to discharge and then depart without incident.  From Acajutla, we went to La Union, a small port on the border with Honduras.  Upon arriving at the pilot station, the pilot embarked from a dugout canoe.  That shows you how much of a backwater port La Union was.  We docked alongside a warehouse.  I had gone ashore in San Jose and Acajutla to buy souvenir T-shirts but there was nowhere to go in La Union.  After departing La Union, it was on to Cristobal, Panama where I went on paid leave.  The only thing of note here was that I got to take the train across the isthmus.  There wasn't as much to see as expected, the views if the Canal often being obscured by jungle.  I had to spend the night in old Panama City before catching my flight the next day.  The hotel tried to rip me off.  The next morning when I went to check out and sign for the bill, my dinner bill included 8 beers and several glasses of wine.  I had ordered 2 beers with dinner and don't drink wine at all so I put up a stink and refused to sign.  The tab was being paid for by the shipping agency and I'm sure they just paid it as presented; there was probably a kick-back involved.

My last go 'round on the "Queen of the Fleet" was from February until April 1992.  She was scrapped shortly thereafter.

The Mighty Minnie

On Sept 7, 1985 I joined the Minnesota in Long Beach.  Originally named Churubusco when built in 1943, she was renamed Minnesota in 1950 and jumboized to her current configuration in 1964.  She was bound for Gaviota, a port I wasn't familiar with.  It turned that out Gaviota was an offshore mooring in the Santa Barbara Channel, one of many offshore moorings that were part of the Minnie's bread and butter west coast runs. Other moorings we often called at were El Segundo, Port Hueneme and Estero Bay. California offshore moorings were new to me so on first Gaviota trip, I had to stand back and watch the bosun and deck gang do their magic hoisting and connecting the submarine hose.  The routine turned out to not be difficult but you always had to keep safety in mind.  Although I filled in as Master on the Rhode Island at one point, the Minnesota was to be my steady ship until Dec 29, 1988.  Ninety percent of our runs were from Long Beach to Estero Bay.  It was a 15 hour run each way and we usually spent around 15 hours loading San Ardo Crude at the mooring.  That put us in Long Beach at least once a week.  Long Beach certainly had changed since my days there on the Meadowbrook in 1965.  The infamous Pike had been replaced by urban sprawl.  At least the Twin Wheels stayed the same.  The steaks there were good and the beer cold and you could walk there in 15 minutes if you snuck through the fence and took the shortcut through the Weyerhauser terminal.

Estero Bay was a scenic port with Morro Rock being located not far from the mooring site.  Wildlife was plentiful.  It was not uncommon for a whale to come alongside and scratch against the ship, probably shedding barnacles or some other unwanted marine growth.   One time, while heaving up the anchor, a mutant starfish attached itself to the anchor chain.   It was about 6 inches in diameter and had 17 stubby arms.  It was so unusual looking that we stopped heaving and even the captain came up to the bow to see it.  Ramsay, our Jamaican born bosun, decided it was edible and bit off one of its arms.  It turned out not to be edible after all and he wound up spitting it out.

Another time, a small owl decided to hang out in the starboard hawsepipe.  When it came time to unmoor, he would ride up the chain until he was on deck then hop over the side, get back on the chain and ride it up through the hawsepipe again.  Much to our amusement, he did this several times over, treating it like a thrill ride.

In December of 1986, the Minnie was sent to the Hyundai Mipo shipyard in Ulsan, Korea for drydocking. I joined the ship there.a couple of days before Christmas.  At that time, there was only one Coast Guard inspector assigned to Korea.  He came aboard and announced that he was going on vacation until after New Years and that the shipyard was to do no work in the cargo tanks until he returned and had inspected the tanks himself.  It is normal for the USCG to inspect tanks and then write up repair requirements.  It became a problem because the shipyard personnel didn't understand.  As it happens, the Minnesota was the first American flagged ship to ever come to Mipo shipyard.  We were also the first steam ship to call there was well.  The shipyard superintendent assigned to us was the only attendee who spoke English and his English was very limited.  All communications with the work gangs had to go through him.  He didn't understand why I wouldn't let the workers start repairs in the tanks.  For the first week, he came to me every morning wanting to start welding in the tanks.  I finally gave in.  I decided to let them work in only one tank, #1 center.  And I told him that the USCG inspector would be angry and didn't know what actions he'd take.  So a bevy of welders went into #1 center and patch welded the many pits on the bottom.  When the USCG inspector returned from vacation, I explained the situation.  He took one look at the #1 center repairs and immediately said "Replace the bottom."  The shipyard superintendent was furious but had no grounds to stand on since he'd been warned on what might happen.

 Mighty Minnie in Hyundai Mipo drydock Jan 1987

      Mipo Shipyard Jan 1987                                                                Weight testing boom at Mipo 

We stayed in the yard for a month.  When it came time to sail, the Texaco repair rep advised us to return to California using the southernmost route we could to avoid bad weather.  He knew that the ship had sustained multiple tank fractures on the trans-Pacific voyage to the shipyard and didn't want a repeat of this on the way back.  But wouldn't you know, we received orders to proceed to Nikiski, Alaska to load for Portland, Oregon.  The marine office wouldn't listen to the advice of the repair rep.  There was a charter available in Nikiski and so Nikiski it was.  The captain even told the office that we didn't have the required amount of spare mooring ropes for the Nikiski tidal range (we did) in an effort to get the orders changed but the office countered that they would rent them and they'd be waiting for us on the dock.

The North pacific is not the place to be in February.  We were lucky enough to stay between storms on the voyage to Alaska but still managed to take our fair share of seas on deck.  The foredeck steam pipeline being exposed to the weather turned orange and bled rust all over the main deck.  We had no steam line paint on board so the captain suggested we coat the pipeline with bunker fuel as had been done in the "old days."   I was very hesitant to do this and put it off for a few days until I was "reminded" to get it done.  So I had the deck crew slosh bunker fuel on the pipeline as directed and it actually looked good for a couple of days, until a storm caught up with us and we started taking seas on deck again.  The bunker fuel on the pipelines hadn't set up and was easily washed off by the seas, streaking the already orange-stained deck black.  We did not have any degreaser on board, being that it had not been available in Ulsan.  It turned out to not be available in Nikiski either.  The foredeck of the Minnie looked awful.  It was embarrassing to see such a clean ship with rust and fuel streaked all over the deck.

The loading in Nikiski was slow.  Due to the high temperature of the cargo and the cold outside temperature, strict loading restrictions were required and followed.  On the loaded voyage to Portland, we encountered a fierce storm causing the ship to roll significantly.  A loud banging ensued coming from the starboard side almost directly under the midships house.  It was obvious that something in the tanks had carried away.  We thought it might be a ladder.  When the storm subsided, I was able to go out on deck and ullage the tanks in question, 2C and 2S.  2S had been topped off at 4'6" and 2C had been slightly slack upon completion of loading.  When I took the ullages, they were both the same level which meant it was a bulkhead that had caused the banging, not a loose ladder.

We were lucky enough to have good weather for the remainder of the voyage to Portland.  After discharging the cargo, we proceeded to anchor to wash all the tanks and go right into the Swan Island shipyard there.  When we were able to actually enter 2C tank, we found that the longitudinal bulkhead between 2C and 2S had carried away from the underside of the deck and a vertical crack had made its way 20' down the bulkhead, allowing the section to swing like a barn door.  We stayed in the yard for five days while they repaired the bulkhead and welded up a few tank fractures that had developed during the voyage.

So, did the company save money by sending the ship to a foreign yard for repairs?  Probably not in this case since whatever money was saved in the shipyard in Korea was probably spent in the shipyard in Portland.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the Minnie and was sad to learn that she was being scrapped.  I was fortunate enough to sail with some really good seafarers there including Ramsay, Robbie, Red, Domingo (Baby needs new shoes), Hans (Kai Wo), Ali and Tony the Pumpman.  She was scrapped in Bangkok in 1989.

The Early 80's - The Texaco California/Texaco Florida Years

KCVE, the Texaco California, - what a great ship.  I always felt a kinship to the California, having sailed on her when she was first re-built in 1973.  The crew had changed over the years and if I were to handpick a crew to sail with, I couldn't have chosen better.  Captains Albert Watts and Bruce Calhoun, Mates Dave Ward and Bob Oehrlein, Dick Halluska (my relief), and a myriad of excellent 3rd Mates including Joe Harrington.  Engineers included Jim Harley, Billy Tindel, Mickey Kelleher, Steve Berry and Marc Thurrell. This was a first class group.

Sea fog experienced just before snowstorm - northbound off Jacksonville, FL

On the bridge of the Callifornia - 1982

Shipping was slow during the early 80's.  One of our mantras was  "Stay alive 'til '85" when shipping was forecast to pick up (it didn't).  We often steamed at economy speed because there were no orders for the next trip.  Anchoring to await cargo was the norm.  We would anchor off of Port Everglades or Sabine Pass or both.  One of the longest voyages of my seagoing career was between the Delaware River and Port Arthur - around 30 days between ports - due to the time spent at anchor.  The good thing about anchoring at Port Everglades was that the pilot boat always brought out the newspaper.   One bright, moonlit night during the midnight to 0400 watch, I noticed a sailboat stopped nearby with a dinghy alongside.  A man in the sailboat was passing items to a man in the dinghy.  I thought it might be a drug transaction so I called Capt. Watts.  Shortly thereafter, the sailboat made a mayday call on the VHF.  Then the man in the sailboat climbed into the dinghy and began rowing away.  Meanwhile, the now empty sailboat drifted right alongside the ship and started to sink.  I turned on our spotlight and shone it down as we watched the sailboat disappear into the deep.  We hailed the men in the dinghy but they had no desire to be helped.  I think they were very surprised that we had witnessed the scuttling of their sailboat.  The USCG came out shortly thereafter and took the men aboard.  I was certain that there would be some kind of investigation but we never heard a word.  I guess the insurance company just paid up.

Familiar Smokestacks at Port Everglades Power Plant (now gone)

 Another good reason to anchor off Port Everglades was the fishing.  I went so far as to buy a boat rod ahead of time, knowing it would be put to good use, and it was.  My prize catch was a barracuda.

One night around 0300 while slow steaming toward Pascagoula, MS, I heard a faint distress call on the VHF.  There was a sailboat with children on board sinking.  Their position was near our course line about 2 hours away. I could see the lights of other ships in the area but no one else responded to the call.  I had learned many years before from Capt. Healey on the Connecticut that you respond at all costs.  In that instance, we responded to a distress call when we were 70 miles away and in the fog.  When that boat was saved, we were only 1 mile from the site.  This instance on the California was a no-brainer.  I called Capt. Calhoun and we headed  toward the scene, arriving at daybreak.  We were in radio contact with the USCG who had sent a helicopter which also arrived at daybreak.  The helicopter lowered a portable pump to the boat which was still afloat but riding low in the water.  The portable pump would not start.  With the USCG's permission, we lowered the port lifeboat and I motored over to the sailboat.  There was a family of 4 on board.  They had been up all night bailing water.  We took them in tow, brought them alongside, lowered one of our portable pumps and pumped her out.  A Coast Guard cutter arrived on scene just as we finished.  They went on board and found a hole in the hull with a rag half stuck in it.  Apparently, the owners had just bought the boat and wanted a fathometer installed.  The boatyard drilled a hole too large for the transducer, stuffed a rag in it, then drilled a smaller hole.  The first hole was never repaired and the boat sailed, an accident waiting to happen.  The USCG took the boat in tow and headed back to Pascagoula.  We docked the next day.  There was a brief article in the paper about the rescue, with the Coast Guard taking all the credit.  The Texaco California was not mentioned in the article.

Towing sinking sailboat alongside where we pumped her out and plugged the leak

C/E Jim Harley presenting Capt Watts with a retirement gift

During my time on the California, I exercised every day to build up strength in my lower back.  It worked.  I was able to start sailing Chief Mate again and had no problem physically handling the job.  I was transferred to the Florida and sailed 2nd Mate and then Chief Mate there.  Martino Pirone, Ed Lyons and Reggie Surette were the Captains during my time onboard.  Capt. Pirone was a character.  The voyages at the time were US Gulf to Chiriqui Grande, Panama.  Our charter required us to maintain an overall speed of 15.5 knots for the voyage which was nearly impossible.  I was directed to keep a second set of charts showing us taking a longer route to Panama than we actually sailed.  One voyage, the charterers came aboard, checked the charts and didn't pick up on the discrepancy.  Another of Capt. Pirone's idiosyncrasies were the notes he would leave for me on his door with instructions for the midnight watch.  These notes usually had nothing to do with the voyage and were often brain teasers.  At the least they were entertaining.

Chiriqui Grande was an interesting port.  A pipeline had been built from the west coast Panamanian port of Puerto Armuelles across the isthmus to Chiriqui Grande to cut down the transit time of ships providing Alaskan Crude to Gulf Coast ports.  On passing through the Bocas del Toro into Chiriqui Grande, the bay opened up providing more than ample space for tankers to load from a submarine pipeline.  The village there appeared small, not much more than a fishing village.  Local fisherman in wooden skiffs used to sell large langousta to the ships for $2 a piece.  Inflation caught on fast.  A few trips later, the fishermen had aluminum skiffs with fancy outboard motors and the price of langousta had doubled.  It was still worth the inflated price.  There was a running competition between the Chief Mates Jack Briggs and Jay Kelly to see who could load the ship the fastest. 6 1/2 hours was an average loading time.  A new record was set almost every voyage.

The Florida was due for shipyarding.  Texaco had recently started using foreign shipyards to cut down on repair costs.  The Florida was sent to the Hitachi Zozen shipyard in Jurong, Singapore.  I was on leave during the trip over and was scheduled to rejoin in Singapore.  I decided to seize the opportunity and leave a few days early so I could visit Hong Kong on the way.  I pre-booked a room for 2 nights in the New World Hotel in Kowloon.  On the flight over, I had to change planes in San Francisco.  Who do I run into there but Manny Altmann, the Port Engineer who was handling our shipyarding.  He was going over early to meet with shipyard personnel before the ship arrived.  Manny told me the ship had been delayed by several days, gave me his hotel information in Singapore and told me to call him when I arrived.  I was unable to sleep on the flight to Hong Kong and checked in to the hotel exhausted.  I slept from noon til 8 the next morning.  I signed up for a full-day bus tour of Hong Kong.  The tour highlights included a stop at the Tiger Balm Gardens, a sampan ride through the fishing village of Aberdeen and a tram trip to the top of Victoria Peak. I  was disappointed to see the huge change in the number of fishing boats in Aberdeen.  In what was surely called progress, many boat people were forcefully relocated to ugly apartment buildings on shore.  The second day in Hong Kong I took a bus tour to Lok-Ma-Chau in the New Territories.

View from Lok Ma Chau

All this turned out to be was a view from a hill across a river of a city in Communist China.  Having an extra day due to the ship being delayed, I decided to spend one more night in HK.  I changed my air ticket then went to the hotel reservation desk to book another night.  They told me they were full up.  I tried several hotels within walking distance and there was not a room to be had.  I had noticed the Mariners Club across the street from my original hotel.  Although I was a seaman, I had never stayed at a seaman's club but now I had no choice.  The place was clean, had plenty of rooms, even had a restaurant and bowling alley and cost only $14 a night, a steal in HK.

On arriving in Singapore, I booked a downtown room from an airport kiosk.  The hotel turned out to be less-than-desireable.  I called Manny Altmann who advised he had a room already booked in my name at the Cockpit Hotel.  I checked out of the first place, having stayed less than an hour.  They didn't charge me because the Cockpit Hotel had the same ownership.  Manny told me the ship had been further delayed so I had two days to explore Singapore and explore I did.  The first day, I walked all over the city.  My first impression was how hot it was.  I stopped every 20 minutes or so for an iced tea.  There were McDonalds all over the city and I must have been in every one.  That night I took a tri-shaw tour that took me through the various ethnic neighborhoods.

The driver must have been 90 years old and was fearless, bicycling in and out of traffic comfortably.  The tour wound up at the Raffles Hotel where I partook of the famous Singapore Sling libation at the Long Bar.  The Singapore Sling turned out to be not much more than a ladies drink.  The Tiger Beer was better.

 

Harking back to my cadet days in the Far East, where pirated records were sold everywhere, pirated cassette tapes were now the hot item.  I loaded up on them.  My wife had given me a list as well so I spent the few days before the ship arrived shopping.

The ship finally arrived offshore.  Manny and I took a 4 hour launch ride to join.  Some final tank cleaning was in progress and I went right to work mucking tanks.  We spent 2 days finishing up the tank cleaning operations before proceeding to Jurong Hitachi Zozen shipyard.  It was already hot and the work onboard only made it worse.  I sweated through my work clothes continuously and took 5 showers day, in the morning, at morning coffee time, at lunch, at afternoon coffee time and before supper, to try to stay cool.  The shipyard was a 30 minute cab ride from downtown Singapore so I was glad to have done my most of my sightseeing ahead of time.  If you wanted to take public transportation, you could but it meant changing buses at the Jurong terminal and took close to an hour what with all the stops.  The few times I went into town, I hitched a ride with the USCG inspector.

Jurong Bus Interchange

The ship stayed in the yard about a month.  On sailing, we headed to Valdez to load for Tacoma.  During the voyage, the Chief Mate lost a family member so I relieved him in Valdez.  Being the first load for us in Valdez, I thought it prudent to have as many hands on deck as possible when topping off.  I didn't break the other mates' loading times but that was not my intent.  The main thing was that it was done methodically and without incident.

The first loaded trip out of Valdez was an eye-opener.  We encountered a horrific storm in the Gulf of Alaska and repeatedly took green water over the bow.  I was called at 2200 that night to go up on the bow with the Chief Engineer and Bosun to secure the hatch cover to the forward rope locker which had broken loose and was sliding around the focsle head.  The captain changed course to put the seas on the quarter and the three of us went forward and secured the hatch cover.  Even with the course change, seas were still breaking on deck and we had to be really careful to avoid being washed overboard.  Back on course again and with an open hatch on the focsle, the captain slowed the ship down to avoid taking further water over the bow.  The next morning, the storm subsided as quickly as it had occurred and the rest of the voyage was uneventful.

Our discharge port was Tacoma.  Reggie Surrette rejoined as Master.  He misunderstood the voluminous ballast instructions for Prince William Sound and told me to only take ballast in the dedicated ballast tanks.  This was barely enough ballast to maneuver in inland waters and certainly not enough to transit the Gulf of Alaska.  I told him about the storm we had encountered on the trip down and he finally agreed to let me take full ballast.  I made one more trip on the Florida then went on vacation.  I rejoined the Florida in August and made another round trip from Tacoma to Valdez before being transferred to the Texaco Minnesota which was to become my home for the next 3 1/2 years.

Texaco Late 70's

In April 1977, I was assigned as 2nd Mate on the California.  A month on the California was followed by 3 months on he Connecticut, the first 2 months as Chief Mate, the last as 2nd Mate.  Maurice Eaton was the skipper on the Connecticut for the first few of voyages while Capt. Healey was on paid leave.  We made 3 consecutive trips to the Caribbean, 2 to Trinidad and one to La Estacada, Venezuela.  La Estacada was a submarine mooring in the port of Maracaibo.  During our stay there, armed troops patrolled our deck.  It was a bit unnerving.  It didn't deter the two cadets from one of the state maritime colleges from taking a launch ashore and stealing some jewelry, as was reported to me by the 3rd Mate who witnessed the shoplifting incident.  One of the cadets was a girl who distracted the shop keeper with her low cut blouse while the other cadet filched the jewelry.  It was an incredibly stupid act since they would have still been in jail there had they been caught.  

Texaco Connecticut

The discharge port for the Venezuelan cargo, Lago Media Crude, was Portland Pipeline, ME.  From there it was back to Trinidad to offload Light Arabian Crude from the Texaco Ireland, a VLCC, my first lightering experience.  Our discharge port was Delaware City.  The parade of new ports continued as we next loaded at Garyville, LA for Piney Point, MD.  From Piney Point we drove to Baltimore, about 3 hours away, with Capt. Healey, who had just rejoined.  On the way back to the ship we stopped for dinner and I had my first taste of Maryland crab cakes - quite good.  I stayed on the Connecticut until the end of August and then went on paid leave for 2 months.

Lightering from Texaco Ireland

My next stint was on 3 vessels, the Texaco Maryland, Texaco Montana and Texaco Wisconsin.   The first 2 voyages were normal US Gulf to USNH.   The next 2 months were spent in the Northeast, loading in Delaware City for points North.  I really liked the run.  We were extremely busy but got frequent breaks because we had a relief Mate in most ports.  My wife would bring the kids down to Delaware City, and I could get home from Bayonne.   We even made a trip into Newington (Portsmouth), NH near where my parents lived so I got to see them.  They called it a "happening" when any ship came into Portsmouth.   Our voyage there turned in to a real happening.  There is a strong current that flows through Portsmouth Harbor.  Ships must dock on slack water.  Because we were fully loaded, we had to dock on high water slack.  We arrived off Portsmouth several hours early and had to anchor to await the tide.  Usually anchoring a ship is not problematic.  Not so that day.  I was stationed on the bow with the bosun and AB.  It is easy to tell when it's time to drop the anchor.  One looks over the side at the propeller wash and when it reaches the midships house, you know that the ship is stopped and beginning to make sternway.  The captain called on the walkie-talkie to let go the port anchor.  I had been checking the propeller wash and saw none so I did not release the anchor brake. After a minute of seeing no action from me on the bow, the captain radioed back to let go the anchor.  I responded that we seemed to still have headway.  He said to drop anchor anyway which I then did.  As soon as the anchor hit the bottom it took a strong lead aft.  We tried putting on the brake but couldn't fight the pull on the chain.  The anchor ran out 10 shots and hesitated momentarily.  I quickly ran over and threw down the riding pawl.  I thought the pawl was going to be ripped from the deck.  The chain jumped wildly but the anchor finally held and the strain eased up.   Turns out the captain had the ship half ahead instead of half astern when he told me to let go, and that's only half the story.  When it came time to heave up and pick up the harbor pilot, the captain failed to allow extra time to heave in the extra shots of chain we had out.  We were late to the pilot station and by the time we had arrived at the dock, the tide was already starting to ebb.  We put out every line we had but couldn't hold the ship alongside.  As soon as the tide had dropped enough that we touched bottom, the ship slid sideways 30 feet off the dock.  We had to use 5 tug boats to hold us there until the next flood tide raised us off the bottom and back alongside.  The most embarrassing thing for me was that my parent's next door neighbor was himself a ship's captain with Moore McCormack lines.  He went out in his boat to watch us anchor and later told me, good-naturedly, that it was the worse display of seamanship he'd ever seen.   We had to replace the windlass brake assembly at no small cost. I had hoped to be able to spend more time with my parents but it turned in to a short visit.  I did have time to buy the ship a good-sized Christmas tree which we mounted on the foremast and sailed around with for the next month.

Texaco Maryland - Call sign KADG

Several other incidents of note occurred during my time on the Maryland.  On one trip from Delaware City north, we encountered a full gale.  The ship rolled heavily in 20 foot seas.  As we neared the Nantucket Lightship, we received a call from the USCG asking us to stop alongside the lightship and pick up a crewman who's wife was about to give birth.  On a calm day, this could have been accomplished by ship to ship launch but there was no way this was going to happen in a full gale.  We were surprised by the request and had to decline.

Another trip into Boston we had a split discharge.  We first docked at the White Fuel terminal.  Port relief was provided.  The 2nd Mate, having the afternoon watch off, went to the horse track and won big.  He celebrated by having a lobster dinner and way too much to drink.  When it came time for us to shift over to the Chelsea terminal, the 2nd Mate wouldn't get out of bed.  No way, shape or form was he going to get up for the shift and he didn't care.  The captain decided to take matters into his own hands.  He went in to the 2nd Mate's room, grabbed him by the arm and tried to pull him out of bed.  The 2nd Mate grabbed on to the bed frame and resisted.  It was a stalemate.  When the captain threatened to fire him, the 2nd Mate replied that if he was fired, he'd tell the company that the ship had touched bottom coming down the Delaware River last trip and the captain hadn't reported it.  On hearing this, the captain let go of the 2nd Mate's arm and left the room.  The 2nd Mate stayed in bed for the shift and the subject never came up again.  Although the actions of the captain and 2nd Mate were totally unprofessional, in the heat of the moment this was one of the most hilarious scenes I have ever witnessed on a ship.

The next trip into Chelsea, we had an engine crewman go into diabetic shock.  He had been ashore drinking then came back and took a nap before going on watch.  When he was called for his watch, he couldn't be woken up.  The Captain was called and I responded with him.  We called for an ambulance.  When the medics arrived, they used what I thought was an unusual method to wake him.  They said they had to cause him pain so they grabbed his leg and squeezed as tightly as they could.  It worked.  He woke up and was hospitalized overnight, returning to the ship the next day fit for duty.

When the Maryland was due to head back to the US Gulf, I was transferred to the Montana which was replacing the Maryland on the Delaware City run.  This was great because I was so familiar with the run.  Capt. Stan Brownley was the skipper.  He did most of the piloting himself and I learned a lot observing him.  Unfortunately, after 2 weeks on the Montana, the regular Chief Mate rejoined.  He had been on sick leave.  This Mate, CG, was the southern gentleman I had mentioned in an earlier assignment on the Montana, who did not have the best grasp of the cargo system.  I knew he'd have difficulty on the Delaware City run because of the short turnarounds.  I called the Port Arthur office multiple times to try to explain that the Mate would not be able to handle this assignment because of his age.  The assignment clerk, LP, was sure I was calling because I didn't want to go down to 2nd Mate on the Wisconsin, where she was assigning me for the next month.  Not so.  The captain and chief engineer begged me to keep calling and I did one last time, again in vain.  I'm sure LP wishes she had listened to me because a week later, CG died aboard the Montana in Delaware City.  As I had tried to tell her, the job had been too much for him.

I joined the Wisconsin in Baytown, TX.  Our first voyage was to Boston and Philadelphia.  For the rest of my assignment, we stayed in the northeast, carrying #6 Fuel.  It was a nasty winter.  I remember being anchored in New York Harbor, in a blizzard, watching cars trying to unsuccessfully navigate the hilly streets of Staten Island.  Meanwhile, our decks were dry as a bone what with the heated cargo.  We made one trip up the Hudson River to Rensallaer.  There must have been three feet of snow on the ground there.  I remember Dick Halluska, the 3rd Mate who was in great shape, come out on deck after watch and point to a water tower high on a far hill.  "I'm going to run up there" he said and sure enough off he went through the snowdrifts and was successful in his run.

The next 2 trips were in to the United Illuminating power plant in Bridgeport, CT.  I had spent a year of college there but never got the chance to go ashore due to the blizzard weather.  I clearly remember standing watch in pelting snow conditions and icicles forming on my beard.

The storms that winter were extremely severe, with one storm causing the sinking of the Interport Pilot boat off New York, with loss of life involved.  We were anchored off of Boston at the time and I remember thinking that the anchor chain was going to part because of the large swells that kept jerking us around the anchorage.

I was able to do a lot of studying during my time on the Wisconsin.  During my next paid leave, I earned my Master's license.

Texaco Rhode Island

My next ship was the Texaco Rhode Island, relieving Andy Chester as Chief Mate in Houston.  Bill (Willy) Cubbage was the Master.  Our first few voyages were to Tampa and Port Everglades.  On one of the trips to Tampa, Capt. Cubbage, who lived in Big Pine Key, FL had his wife drive up.  It was a weekend and he wanted a good stay in port so he told me he had heard that we were going to load a full load of Jet Fuel the next voyage and instructed me to wash and fresh water rinse all the tanks after we had finished discharging.  When in port over a weekend, union rules dictated that if the ship was going to sail before Monday morning at 8AM, that the sailing board had to be posted soon after docking.  Capt. Cubbage had no intention of sailing before Monday and told me not to post the board.  We wound up staying alongside an extra full day after completing discharge just so Capt. Willy could have time ashore.  The dock was furious because we were holding up a barge that was waiting for the berth.  Meanwhile, I got all 27 tanks washed and rinsed. We wound up loading only 6 tanks with Jet Fuel the next trip.

On the next trip into Port Everglades, a man from the Texaco Industrial Hygene Dept. showed up and took air samples around the deck during the cargo operations.  I asked him what he was sampling for but he wouldn't answer.  It was quite strange.  We all believed he was sampling for benzene and this belief was borne out when Texaco instituted a respiratory protection policy several years later.

The rest of the summer on the Rhode Island, we made trips to USNH (US North of Hatteras) ports.    Kaare Hegna relieved Bill Cubbage as Master.  I had never met Capt. Hegna before but I had heard what a well-liked man he was.  Unfortunately, Capt. Hegna had recently had a hip replaced and was still in considerable pain.  He resorted to taking strong pain killers, slept alot during the day and several times was not able to be woken up to come to the bridge when picking up the harbor pilots on arrival in port.  It was good experience for me to maneuver the ship on arrival but it was not as it should have been.  It happened two ports in a row and in both instances the pilots wanted to know where the captain was.  I went on paid leave shortly thereafter, passing on this information to my relief.  I later found out that Capt. Hegna retired soon thereafter due to his painful condition.

I'm going to jump ahead here although I do want to mention one incident along the way.  I was on the bow of the Maryland docking at the Loup.  While heaving up the mooring lines. a cottonmouth moccasin wrapped itself around one of the lines and was heaved up onto the focslehead deck.  Luckily one of the seamen saw the snake coming.  As soon as the snake landed on deck, it tried to strike the closest man.  He was prepared and belted the snake with a stopper line and beat it to death.  I could never have imagined that one day we'd have to fight snakes while docking a ship.

A disc condition in my back called spondylolisthesis that I had been dealing with for a while became worse during my next paid leave.  I tried to continue sailing as Chief Mate but found it physically difficult to work 16 hours days while taking muscle relaxers.   I requested and was granted a temporary assignment in the Bayonne Marine office.  There were some really good employees there: Dick Mikolon, Tom Summers, Jack Trainor, Buzz Whiting, Maureen Moy, Fred Johnson, Janice, John Boyle, and Tom Bicknell to name a few.  I worked on all sorts of different projects from drawing pipeline diagrams for the inland barge units, to helping Fred with small fleet shipyard repairs, to going on the road to supervise "squeeze dry" operations in which ships going off charter were required to strip and restrip all the cargo from their tanks.  John Boyle nicknamed me "Capt. Squeeze" at the time.  Most of the squeeze dry work was local but I did get to do one job in Halifax, the first time I had visited the beautiful province of Nova Scotia where my parents had been stationed in WWII.  After my assignment in the Bayonne office came to an end and not wanting to rely on medicine to mask my disc problem, as I had witnessed Capt. Hegna try unsuccessfully to do, I decided I would be better served by voluntarily going back to sea as 2nd Mate so I wouldn't need meds to function. Luckily, I was assigned to the Texaco California with a crew that was as outstanding as any ship in the fleet.