Sunday, November 17, 2013

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.





Saturday, August 24, 2013

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.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Texaco Mid-70's

 My time aboard the Texaco New York gave me enough sea time to sit for my 2nd Mate's license which I did during the following vacation.  There was little difference between raising one's license and taking the original license.  It was a similar written exam, broken into sections, and took a good week to complete.  I do remember one Rules of the Road question in particular - you see a white light, what is it?  There are a ton of possibilities as to what this could be.  I asked the exam proctor what they were looking for - International Rules, Inland Rules etc... but he would not divulge anything.  He just said to write what it could be.  I filled an entire exam booklet, which I think was 16 pages, with just this one answer.  Talk about a time-consuming question.  Anyway, I passed the exam.

Texaco California entering Corpus Christi - this picture makes her look like a rust-bucket.  She most definitely was not.

At this time, Texaco was in the process of jumboizing several of the Florida class ships.  They were being turned into 42,000 DWT stemliners.  I was assigned as 2nd Mate to the Texaco California at Maryland Drydock in Baltimore.  Because the ship was not yet habitable, the five of us crew present stayed in the Holiday Inn just across the street from the Baltimore Civic Center where the NBA and AHL teams played.  Leo Brennan was the skipper.  Leo had driven his Cadillac to Baltimore and every night he drove us to a different restaurant.  We dined well.  There was no work on weekends and I was lucky enough to meet a port engineer who commuted to the neighboring town where I lived.  He would take me home Friday afternoons and pick me up early Monday mornings which turned out great since my wife was very pregnant at the time.  When the ship's conversion was completed, the ship was fully crewed and I was bumped back to 3rd Mate.  For the next 2 months, we shuttled between Port Arthur and USNH.  The only thing of note during that time was passing close by a collision. Two ships had been passing off of Cape Hatteras when one lost its steering and veered directly into the other.  Luckily the weather was flat calm.  The ships were still stuck together when we passed a day later.

Five days after going on vacation, my daughter was born !!!  My wife couldn't have timed it better.

Texaco Montana
I joined the Montana later that summer.  This was my first repeat ship. Virgil Foreman, the Chief Engineer at the time, gave me the nickname "Low Lead" which was fitting since we carried low lead gasoline in the days before lead free became the standard.  I was Second Mate for most of the assignment.  Ed Kitchens was the Master and Walter Lomax the Mate.  We made several trips from the Gulf to USNH and then loaded lube oils for an intercoastal voyage to the West Coast.  On the Pacific leg from Panama to Long Beach, I encountered my first Tehauntepecer, a strong wind that frequently blows across the narrowest part of Central Mexico from the Yucutan to the Pacific. We discharged at Long Beach and Seattle, then shifted up to Ferndale, WA (near the Canadian border) and  back loaded for Oakland.  On the return trip, we stopped in the Gatun Lake (Panama Canal) and loaded fresh water for Trinidad.  There was a drought in the area and the refinery needed fresh water to operate.  After discharging the fresh water, we proceeded to San Nicolas, Aruba to load Gas Oil for Tiverton and Providence.  I always enjoyed sailing on the Montana and this time was no different.  Good ship - good crew. 

Texaco North Dakota
On October 3, 1973, the Texaco North Dakota suffered a pumproom explosion.  I was on vacation at the time and received a call to go to Mobile, Alabama to stand security watches on the ship while the crew attended USCG hearings.  I stood the 2000 to 0800 deck watch.  Capt. Eddy George stood the 0800 to 2000 watch.  We stayed in a fly-by-night motel in downtown Mobile and took cabs back and forth to Alabama Drydock.  This was not a pleasant assignment.  The ship was like a morgue.  There was no power onboard and only a few shore-provided lights had been strung.  Luckily my assignment there lasted only one week.  I was able to go home and finish out my vacation.
Texaco Kansas
My next assignment was 2nd Mate on the Texaco Kansas, another T-2.  The Kansas was drug store.  Her primary cargoes were asphalt and lube oils.  Texaco liked to keep one Northern mate assigned to the Kansas so that the 2 Southern mates could get time at home while in the ship was in Port Neches and Port Arthur.  That meant some long hours for me in Texas but if scheduled right, it wasn't so bad.  The ship always went to Port Neches first to load asphalt and road oil.  That took around 16 hours.  We would then shift down to Texas Island and the port relief mate would take over for the next 16 hours.  I would relieve him for the next 8 hours until the other mates came back.  So I was owed a lot of watches every trip.  I rarely stood an afternoon watch in the discharge ports.  We'd usually hit Miami, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk.  I got to know those cities well during my time on the Kansas.  The other mates during my time onboard were Dick Nally, Oren Crocker and Simos Georgandis.  Capt. Borgerson was the Master. I used to get a kick out of Dick.  He lived near Port Neches and owned a houseboat.  Every trip he'd cruise by the dock and holler up to me something to the effect that I really didn't need him to come back to relieve me until the ship was ready to sail.

On New Years Eve, December 31, 1973, we were docking in Jacksonville.  Tug boats were used to run the lines to nearby bollards.  The crew on the stern tug were noticeably drunk.  We lowered them the stern lines which they piled up on their deck, then promptly threw the excess overboard right into our propeller.  What a mess.  We had to bring more lines up from the lazarette to get tied up, then the next day hire someone to cut the original lines out of the prop.  Capt. Borgerson was getting ready to retire and wound up making this his last trip.  He sold me his sextant when he left.  It was a WWII vintage Plath.  I still have it today, although nobody uses sextants anymore.  I just keep it as a souvenir.

After Capt. Borgerson retired, we had several other masters during my time on the Kansas including Jack Roos and Bill Cubbage.  Capt. Cubbage deserves special mention because he was one-of-a-kind.  An old-timer, Capt. Cubbage gave the first impression of being very gruff.  I found him entertaining and got along well with him.  He certainly had some navigation idiosyncracies, the most unique being passing inside of Diamond Shoals Light, located off of Cape Hatteras, on southbound ballast voyages.  It took some getting used to but we never ran aground and managed to avoid some of the Gulf Stream current by cutting the corner. 

I spent 5 months on the Kansas, at my request.  That was because my wife was expecting again and the only way I would have enough vacation to be home for the birth was to build up a lot of vacation time.  However, during the time on the Kansas, I frequently lobbied the Port Arthur personnel office for a temporary shore assignment in either the New York office or the Bayonne Terminal.  Neither materialized although as I found out later, the New York office did want me to come in for an interview but the word was not passed on to me.   The closest I got to home during that time was Norfolk.  Midway through the assignment, my wife made the trip down.  I got to see her only once in those 5 months but in the end it was worth it because I was able to take extra time off when my son was born.


In July 1974, I was assigned to the Texaco Illinois as 2nd Mate.  The Illinois was another jumboized T-2.  Originally named San Pasqual, she was built in 1945 by Sun Shipbuilding.  In 1947 she was renamed Illinois and in 1960 Texaco Illinois.  She was jumboized at Alabama Drydock in 1961, enlarged to 14,324 GRT and measuring 549' x 78.6'. We carried clean oil from the Gulf to USNH.  Portland, ME was a common discharge port.  My father often visited when we docked in Portland.  Bruce Calhoun joined as Captain.  It was his first skipper's job.  He was rudely greeted in early September by Hurricane Carmen.  We were loading in Port Arthur.  The hurricane had just come across the Yucatan into the Gulf of Mexico.  I clearly remember someone from the office coming aboard for lunch, which was a common occurrence, and asking Bruce if he was going to sail.  Bruce replied "Of course."  As we departed Sabine Pass, we encountered other ships that had turned around and were heading back into port, not wanting to mess with the storm.  Bruce had a plan.  Not knowing whether the Carmen was going to turn West toward Texas or North toward Louisiana, we headed due South at slow speed until the storm made up its mind.  It headed West.  We turned due East, sped up and passed well North of Carmen, encountering some good sized swells and increased winds but nothing like what it could have been like.  It was a well-thought-out voyage plan.

Bruce was bumped back to Chief Mate when the steady master returned, Capt. Louis Guernsey.  Affectionately known as "mother," Capt. Guernsey was an involved captain.  For example, when stripping tanks, he would often come out on deck, borrow the mate-on-watch's mirror, and strip some tanks himself.  Personally, I found this a bit annoying because there was always a feeling that "mother" didn't trust his mates to do the job and that he could do it better than we could.

One voyage, after discharging at Portland, ME, we took a coastwise pilot so we could go through the Cape Cod Canal to save time.  I was on watch as we approached Brenton Reef pilot station just south of Narragansett Bay where the coastwise pilot was to disembark.  The Captain and the pilot were out on the port bridge wing talking while I manned the telegraph.  A commercial fishing boat was approaching broad on the port bow, heading back into port.  Being the starboard vessel, we had the right of way.  The fishing vessel passed very close ahead. The Captain and pilot charged through the wheelhouse to the starboard bridge wing.  As they passed, I asked if they wanted me to stop the ship and blow the danger signal to which they replied "yes."  The fishing boat passed right down the starboard side, with men on deck yelling and shaking their fists at us.  It was unclear if we had collided.  The fishing boat then continued its course into Narragansett Bay.  Capt. Guernsey called the USCG on the VHF and advised them that his ship had just been struck by a fishing boat.  I was sent down to wake up Bruce so he could go check the forepeak for possible damage.  There was none.  We anchored for several hours until cleared to sail by the Coast Guard.  The scuttlebut later on was that Texaco bought them a new fishing boat.

The Ilinois was due for its periodical drydocking.  After cleaning tanks, we went to Tampa Shipyard, owned by a famous baseball family.  I stayed a week before going on leave.  That week was not uneventful.  We had tank washing slops to discharge.  Unfortunately, the shipyard did not have adequate slop facilities.  They hired tank trucks which we would fill using a steam stripping pump running slow and butterworth hoses.  Tank trucks seemed to be in short supply and we often had to wait for the truck to go discharge the slops somewhere than come back for another load.  It took forever.  Then the shipyard came up with the brilliant idea that at night we should stretch hoses into a neighboring field and flood the field with slops so it would sink in before daylight.  After much debate, this was how we were directed to proceed so for 2 nights we flooded the ground until all our slops were discharged.  I was glad to go on vacation after seeing those shenanigans.

Texaco sold the Illinois in 1976.  She became the Point Julie and was scrapped in 1982.

During my time on the Texaco Illinois I earned enough 2nd Mate's time to sit for my Chief Mate's license which I did during my vacation.  As a reward, we went to Bermuda for a week and stayed at Glencoe located on the Salt Kettle peninsula right across the harbor from Hamilton.  We liked Glencoe a lot.  It was convenient to the south shore beaches by moped and also within a short ferry ride to Hamilton.  Our routine was to go into Hamilton in the morning to shop and have lunch and then hit the beach, or the golf course, in the afternoon.  After returning home, I remember telling my wife that, while I didn't expect a Chief Mate's job anytime soon, I'd better start paying close attention to the Chief Mate's duties.  Lo and behold if Lynn Phillips, the Texaco officer assignment rep at the time, didn't call the next week and assign me to the Texaco Connecticut as Chief Mate.  Capt. Albert D. (Dave) Healey was the skipper and he made the new promotion easy for me.  Capt. Healey was as organized as any skipper I had sailed with.  He kept meticulous navigation records, recording every ship's position, speed, distance, current, landmark etc... one could possibly imagine.

Texaco Connecticut
On my first voyage as Chief Mate, we split-loaded Furnace Oil at the Loup, an acronym for Texaco's Louisiana Plant, which was located about 8 hours up the Mississippi River near the town of Gonzales, and Port Arthur. Our discharge ports were White Fuel (South Boston), Tiverton, RI and Providence.  After Providence, we headed for Point-a-Pierre, Trinidad to load Jet Fuel and Naptha for New York.  The stay in Trinidad was eventful.  Texaco's linehandlers were on strike.  Things got worse just before we arrived.  The linehandlers had been tying up or letting go one ship per day until one ship got smart and put out bights of lines, then, when finished loading, slipped their lines in the middle of the night and undocked on their own.  This caused the linehandlers to reduce their efforts to one line per 8 hour shift, excepting the spring wires which they worked 2 per shift.  We stayed there for 2 weeks for what normally would have been a 24 hour loading operation.  The docking and undocking operations took two days each, with pilots and tugs working the entire time.  I was able to go ashore to San Fernando one afternoon.  I was surprised to see that most of the shop keepers were from India.  I can't think about my first time on the Connecticut without mentioning the Third Mate, Jay Kelly, one of the hardest-working, most diligent young mates I have ever met.  Our paths were to cross several times later over the years including in Bermuda where he once vacationed based on hearing me talk about my recent trip to Glencoe.

I stayed on the Connecticut for a month before transferring to the Montana as 2nd Mate, my third go-round on the "Queen of the Fleet."  Capt. Manry was the skipper.  He was nearing retirement and was very concerned about leaving the sea.  On his last voyage, he rarely left the bridge, even sleeping on the settee in the chart room.  It was sad to see him in such a state.  The Chief Mate (C.G.) was an old-time cajun.  A very nice and polite man but his better days had passed him by to the extent that he shouldn't have still been sailing.  He didn't appear to have a good grasp on the cargo system and relied too heavily on the unlicensed crew.  I clearly remember one Sunday we were southbound off the Florida coast, not far from Port Everglades.  The Mate had been washing tanks in the morning.  He apparently told the bosun to change a manifold run-a-round after lunch and then start washing the next set of tanks while he took a break.  The manifold was changed as directed but the bosun forgot to close the related header valves.  When they started the tank washing, two streams of dirty water came shooting out of the open manifolds right over the side.  I happened to be standing on the starboard bridge wing at the time and saw it immediately.  I yelled down to the bosun to close the headers and ran into the wheelhouse, called the engine room and had the pumps stopped.  I sent the quartermaster down to get the Mate who had apparently been taking a nap since he came out on deck in his pj's rubbing his eyes wondering what was going on.  Because it was Sunday, the coast was littered with small boats of all sorts.  No one could have missed the incident.  Two hours later, at afternoon coffee time with Capt. Manry and the Mate in attendance, as we passed Miami a Coast Guard cutter came out of the harbor and made two circles around us.  It was evident that a small boat had reported our pollution incident.  Surprisingly enough, the Coast Guard didn't hail us but just went back into port.  Capt. Manry, not being aware of the incident, wondered aloud why they had come to check us out.  Nobody said a word.

"Queen of the Fleet"
I made three voyages on the Montana before going on vacation. We called at multiple ports including the Loup, 9 Mile Point (Mississippi River), Corpus Christi, Port Everglades, Eagle Point, Chelsea, Bayonne and Providence carrying multiple clean oil cargoes such as Diesel, Furnace Oil, Fire Chief Gasoline, Petrox, Benzene, Av Gas, and Alkylate.

Texaco North Dakota
Those multiple ports and cargoes paled in comparison to my next ship, the North Dakota.  She was the only one of her class that wasn't jumboized (like the New York, Connecticut, Florida and California).  The North Dakota was 565 feet long and 75 feet wide with a DWT of 19,916.  Similar to the Kansas, she was fitted with special tanks (5 and 6 across) to carry Asphalt and Road Oil.  She also had 12 small lube oil tanks (7, 8 and 9 wings).  It was not unusual to carry 20 different grades of cargo.  This was a busy ship and a fast ship.  Voyages were short and there was no down time.  If we weren't in port working cargo, then we were at sea cleaning tanks or standing extra watches so the Chief Mate could rest.  Three months on this ship was a long time.  Luckily, John Welch was the captain most of the time. He was a fine man and a first class skipper.

During my next vacation, I was scheduled for fire fighting school held at the Navy training center on Treasure Island.  We left the kids with their grandparents and flew out to SF a week early to vacation with John and Patti McConnico.  We spent the first few days touring the city itself.  One evening we signed up for a guided tour which included drinks at the Hungry I (beatknik bar where the Kingston Trio got their start), a show at Finocchio's (infamous cross-dressing entertainment) topped off by a dinner concert at the Fairmont Hotel (Brasil 66).  I don't claim to be an expert on concerts but without a doubt the Sergio Mendes Brasil 66 concert was the best show I have ever seen, bar none.

Just prior to leaving for SF, my wife decided to get a hair cut.  The "in" style at the time was a shag cut.  When she came home from the salon, her new "do" made her look a bit like Patty Hearst.  I jokingly told her that she was going to get us arrested out there.  Darned if Patty Hearst wasn't caught not far from our hotel while we were there.  The next day, my wife went and got her hair cut again.

San Francisco - Sept 1975

From SF we headed to Carmel on the Monterey Peninsula.  The 17 mile drive near Pebble Beach was pricey but worth it.  Carmel was already an up-scale town in those days. The thing I remember the most was the huge omelet I had for dinner there.  It was the biggest omelet I'd ever seen.  After leaving Carmel, we drove south on Highway 1 to Big Sur.  The scenery was beautiful but there really was no destination other than a state park / campground so we turned around and headed to Fresno, where the McConnico's lived. 

Monterey - Sept 1975

From Fresno we took a day trip to Yosemite Park.  Gathering pine cones was allowed in those days and we picked up quite a few very large ones as souvenirs.  We still have a couple of them that we put out during the holidays.

All in all we had a wonderful week's vacation.  I sent my wife home the day before fire fighting school started.  The school lasted 5 days however one of the attendees, an older Chief Engineer who worked for Chevron, died of a heart attack during the hose-handling training which caused the instructors to limit our participation for the rest of the week.

Upon returning home I was offered a temporary assignment in the New York office which I accepted.  It was short-lived.  Welcome to office politics.  I had enjoyed my time in the NY office in 1971.  Everyone was on the same page and did their job professionally.  Not so in 1975.  Texaco was developing a computer-based data base named MIDAS (Marine Information Data Assessment System).  I was asked to coordinate it.  My first day on the job was an eye-opener.  The office I was promised turned out to be the desk with the coffee gear on it.  The assistant port captain was an old-time Caltex employee who spent the whole day circulating around the office doing nothing.  At one point he asked me to help him catch up on his work.  He brought over a stack of letters, many months old, and asked me to respond to them.  Most of the letters dealt with the international fleet that I was not familiar with.  However I was familiar with the substance of one of the older letters - carrying Naptha from Trinidad to the Northeast.  I had done so on the Connecticut and told him so.  The letter had requested his attendance at a ship discharging Naptha in the New York area.  He didn't want to do it and told me to do it in his place.  It was apparent I was just going to be used as the office gofer.  The straw that broke the camel's back happened the first Friday.  I was called in to the personnel manager's office and asked why I had not shown up for the job interview set up for me a year previously.  I was dumbfounded.  A year earlier while I had been on the Kansas, I had repeatedly lobbied the personnel department in Port Arthur for a temporary NY office assignment so I could be home when my son was born.  I was denied the assignment and spent a long 5 months away from home seeing my wife only once during that time.  That wasn't easy.  Turns out that there was an opening for an assignment in NY but for some reason the Port Arthur office never communicated this to me.  When I told the NY personnel manager this, he seemed not to believe me and acted like it was my fault.  I was really pissed.  That weekend I decided the office politics were pure b.s. so I went in on Monday and requested to return to sea.  I was soon assigned to the Texaco Massachusetts as Second Mate.

Texaco Massachusetts - Call Sign KAAD
The Massachusetts was built in Sparrows Point, MD in 1963.  She was 578 feet in length, had a GRT of 16,515 and DWT of 19,683.  Several crew members on the Massachusetts had strong personalities which gave the ship a bad reputation.  Many young officers had been fired from this ship.  My belief had always been that other personalities didn't matter as long as you were professional.  This attitude served me well on the Massachusetts because within a month I was promoted to Chief Mate and after finishing my 3 months onboard, was asked to return again for another go-around.  Capt. O.J. Landry was the skipper.  An old-timer, Capt. Landry had a tough exterior, having been a boxer in his youth and also having spent prison time on Louisiana chain gangs.  But underneath this toughness, I found Capt. Landry to be a very fair person.  Do your job and you were fine.  Gordon Tinney was the Chief Mate/Relieving Master.  He was a very large man, tipping the scales at over 400 pounds. He was affectionately know by the crew as "Fat Daddy" and took this moniker in very good spirits.  Even though it was difficult for "Fat Daddy" to get around, I learned a lot from him.  He had vast experience as Chief Mate and knew every shortcut in the book.  This made him one of the most efficient Mates I had sailed with.  For example, the Massachusetts and her sister ships were fitted with a gas-freeing system, a "windmill," which could be quirky to operate.  "Fat Daddy" had the "windmill" operation down to a science, knowing exactly how many turns each tank valve had to be opened, and could dry up the tanks quickly.  There was no wasted motion with "Fat Daddy" and he was helped out with his good working relationship with pumpman Foster Davis.

The Radio Officer on the Massachusetts, George Billias, had sailed with Capt. Landry for years.  They both liked to play the horses.  I had been to the track but wasn't that knowledgeable about horse racing.  One trip to Boston, I overheard George and Capt. Landry talking about the daily double that day at Suffolk Downs, the local race track.  They mentioned the number 3 horse in the second race.  My wife had previously been lucky at the track by playing our anniversary date, 10 3, for the daily double so I gave George $10 to play 10 3 for me.  Turns out 10 was a real long shot but wound up winning the first race.  The 3 horse lost the second race by a nose so nobody won, but George was sure I had a system because I was able to pick the winning 10 horse.  I just told him I had a good feeling about it.  Afterwards, when our schedule allowed him time to head to the track, he would ask me for my picks, which were pure guesses on my part.

I enjoyed my two rotations on the Massachusetts.  Most of our voyages were to USNH including many backloads at the Getty refinery in Delaware City.   Ships loading at Delaware City were used to help keep the entrance channel there from silting up.  We would often scrape the bottom on the way out.  This dredging practice was also permitted and carried out at certain berths in Port Arthur and Pilottown, LA.  The only snafu I ever had during my time on the Massachusetts was trying to get relieved on time; few Mates wanted to be assigned there.  I had already been onboard over 100 days when I called home from Corpus Christi to find out my house had been robbed and my grandmother, who was our neighbor growing up, was on her death bed.  My wife had called LP to see if I was being relieved in Corpus.  When I called, LP said she couldn't relieve me until the Connecticut got back from Trinidad because Billy Yawn was Mate there and he was the only one who would agree to sail on the Massachusetts.  I was not relieved until the 5th port afterwards.  I missed my grandmother's funeral by days.

1976 was America's bi-centennial year.  That summer, my in-laws rented a house in point Pleasant Beach, NJ for the month of July.  It was a fun summer.  I clearly remember sitting on the roof watching the fireworks on the 4th of July.  The house was a split-level and we had the bottom floor to ourselves.  Somehow my father-in-law wound up with a state-of-the-art table air hockey game which we played endlessly.  My wife usually won.  We were the 2nd house from the beach so we came and went to the beach at will.  Surf fishing was a common evening activity although only one day sticks out.  I wasn't going to fish that evening, not having had much luck anyway, until John, my brother-in-law, came running to the house saying the surf was full of fish.  We grabbed our poles and headed up.  There must have been a red tide or something similar causing the fish to come inshore because the waves were awash with fish.  I caught something with every cast.  Needless to say, we fed the whole beach that night.

The other fish story I remember also entails Johnny-boy.  I bought a small dingy to use to row out past the surf break from which to bottom fish.  One evening we loaded up the gear, guided the dingy through the surf, climbed in, then rowed a hundred yards or so offshore and anchored.  The fish weren't biting and John grew restless so we heaved up the anchor and started back in.  Just then, my wife showed up on the beach waving a McDonald's bag.  John was not familiar with boats and being a growing teenager, to him seeing the McDonald's bag was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.  He immediately stood up, put all his weight on the rail and pushed off to swim to shore.  In doing so he swamped the dingy which tipped over with all the fishing gear sinking to the bottom.  I was able to retrieve the boat, the oars and the anchor but nothing else.  This was the last time I took the dingy offshore and wound up selling it the next summer to neighbors back home.  The best part of the story was that it gave me a good excuse to buy all new fishing gear.

We spent a couple of weeks in August visiting my parents in Kittery, ME.  The routine in Kittery never changed.  We'd start the day with a walk with my parents at Fort Foster.  Then we'd hit the Kittery Trading Post before going home for lunch.  It was back to Fort Foster in the afternoon for swimming and sand dollar hunting. The kids made friends with the neighbor's kids, Michael and Becky Hall, and would pal around with them.  Occasionally, Mum and I would take the dingy and fish for flounder off the Hyde's house.  My mother was the best fisherman I ever knew.  Even though the fishing in the harbor wasn't good, she always managed to catch something.

Texaco Wisconsin - Call Sign WIGK
My next ship assignment was the Texaco Wisconsin, a sister ship to the Oklahoma which had sunk in 1971.  The Wisconsin was 661 feet overall with a 90 foot beam.  She was built in 1958 at Sparrows Point, MD, had a summer DWT of 34,598 and drew 35'5.5."  A full cargo was 280,433 Bbls.  Texaco ulitized her as a black oil ship.  Not only was the Wisconsin physically different from the other tankers on which I'd sailed (she had 10 tanks across, not the usual 9) but she was also managed differently.  By that I mean that the Captain, Vernour Claybourn, ran an unusual ship.  For example, in the officer's messroom, the captain always sat at the head of the table.  Not so on the Wisconsin.  First come first serve was the captain's directive.  He didn't care who sat at the head of the table and would himself sit at any open seat.  On the surface this appears "cool" but I thought this lack of order was misplaced since it showed up elsewhere on board.

There was a running penny-ante poker game after dinner in the officer's lounge midships.  I had played a lot of poker with my older brothers growing up but didn't particularly like to gamble onboard because some of the officers were real card sharks.  I grudgingly played most nights.  One night in particular sticks out in my mind.  While playing a hand of 7 card stud, I was dealt 4 aces, three of which were in the hole (ie - face down).  The other players kept bidding having decent hands themselves.  Finally all folded except the Captain and I and we kept raising each other.  I knew I had him beat so I continued to raise the bet until he finally called.  He had a full house.  My pot was close to $50, not bad for a penny-ante hand.

I stayed on the Wisconsin for a month before developing a disc problem in my back.  I got off on sick leave, had the disc checked out - was misdiagnosed (turned out to be caused by a spinal fracture which would continue to flare up for years to come) - then joined the Connecticut.  Was only onboard a few days when the disc problem returned "in spades" and wound up being airlifted off the ship by USCG helicopter.  Stayed home 3 weeks getting checked out and misdiagnosed again before rejoining the Connecticut in Anacortes, WA.   At the rental car booth in SEATAC Airport, there was one other customer, James Garner, the actor of Maverick (and other tv show) fame.  We chatted briefly.  He was going visit his daughter.  Upon rejoining the ship, Capt. Healey insisted we go out to dinner to sample a local fare called "geoduck" (pronounced gooey duck).. It tasted more like the pronunciation than the real name.  Geoduck turned out to be a salt water clam that tasted like shoe leather.  I didn't finish mine but at least I can say I tried it.

Geoducks - not very scrumptious