M/V MIGOLINA my first ship.
It was March 3rd, 1970, I will never ever forget that date, I signed on to Migolina as a galley boy or in Norwegian language Busegutte. This was a completely new beginning for me as a new career at sea and the excitement was so intense and very difficult to contain.
At the time, I was working as an apprentice chef at the Mosman Hotel at Spit Junction in Sydney. My employer was a really lovely lady by the name of Joan Dearson, I was working away one afternoon and my elder sister Margaret called my workplace and advised me that the Swedish embassy had contacted our house and was looking for me to get in contact with them, she gave me the number and name of the person who to contact and I then went ahead and contacted them, The Swedish Consulate informed me that they had my name on the list of potential crew and asked if I would be interested to come down and meet with them to discuss possible employment on a Swedish vessel that had just arrived in to Sydney. I was so excited and went and told Mr Dearson about the telephone call, Joan let me go for the afternoon and away I went down to Nr 3 Spring Street in the City, (that is where the Swedish Consulate was in those days)
I was greeted by an administrator in the Consulate office who advised me that I was to go to the nominated Doctor and have a complete Seaman’s medical examination, I duly did so and passed the examination and bought the details back to the Swedish consulate office and gave them to the administrator, I was very lucky because I did not have to undergone colour sight test, upon receipt the Administrator told me that the vessel that just arrived in to Sydney was called M/V Migolina and that they are seeking to hire a galley boy / mess boy, and if I am interested in the job I should get myself down to the vessel and speak with the Captain and Chief Steward, I was given the address of where the vessel was berthed and wished good luck by the administrator.
I took a bus (nr. 441 ) over to Birchgrove ( a suburb of Sydney) and found a landing near Birchgrove Oval that had the Nicholson Bros launch service that went out to “ The Dolphins” which were big concrete buoys that the vessels can tie up to and discharge their cargo in to barges or large punts, there were a lot of berths in Sydney that were at the wharves but Sydney also had the Dolphins which were located at Snails Bay, I asked the launch deck hand which launch was going out to Migolina, they told me to hop on board as the launch was soon to go out, the ride to Migolina only took about ten minutes and then I saw her, she was a really beautiful looking vessel she had a dark royal blue hull and a large white stripe that completely encircled her painted right around the hull half way up from the water line to the main deck, it was a feeling of looking at a really pretty girl with a white ribbon in her hair, don’t ask why, but I have always and still do today, see ships as a beautiful girls, some are more beautiful than others, she was a sleek looking vessel, soon l was climbing up the vessels gangway, the gangway was light aluminium and was very “springy” I felt as if I was going to bounce right off as I made my way up through the rungs, I was not worried about boarding the vessels because I had already been working in a ship yard as an apprentice boilermaker/ welder for 18 months prior to changing my vocation to catering and becoming an apprentice chef, I got up on deck and made my way inside the accommodation, I inquired from the first person I saw as where I could find the Chief Steward, the crew member took me upstairs about three decks and took me to a cabin which belonged to the Chief steward, I do not recall his name any more but he was a nice person and gave me a bit of an insight in to the job that I would be performing should I take the position and providing that the Captain agreed to take me as crew, The chief steward took me down to the galley and introduced me the to the Chief cook who was from Shanghai China and the second cook who was from Hong Kong, both of the two cooks did not speak hardly any English at all, just kept smiling and nodding their heads in a type of “yes” gesture.
Chief Steward told me that the vessel had just arrived the day previously and had come from Vancouver in Canada, with a cargo of timber (I had no idea where Canada was on the map and Vancouver well never heard of the place), he told me this vessel was a “tramp ship” Tramp ships are vessels that take spot cargo and have no real set voyage and permanent runs, on a tramp ship you never ever know where the vessel will go to next as they don’t get the orders until the last moment, this is because of spot cargos ) and that after Sydney the vessel would go to Port Lincoln in South Australia and load a cargo of wheat to carry to Shanghai China, The chief Steward said to me if you do take this job then it might be that you never ever get back home again for a very long time perhaps years and years because of the nature of this vessel being a trampler,, My reply was,, I want to go,, where do I sign on?”
The captain was a nice gent as well and he did not even bother to talk to me about my experience at sea or anything, ( I had no previous sea experience ) I may have worked onboard ships in the shipyard, but I had never been to sea before, he went on the recommendation of the Chief Steward who told the captain that I would be acceptable, so I got my first ship.
Migolina was a truly good-looking ship she was a bulk carrier of around 18,000 tones, and regular size bulk carrier of the 1970’s age, her size of 18,000 Tones seemed quite big in those days however a lot of years later I was to sail on bulk carriers that were ranging from 150,000 tons to 200,000 tones, which made Migolina today seem very tiny, she was built in 1962 She was owned by Rederi AB Dalen and was Swedish flagged and registered in Gothenburg Sweden.
I went back to work at the Mosman Hotel the very next day all excited and went up to see Mrs. Dearson, I explained to her that although I had signed apprentice indentures papers for a full 4 year term and I had only barely completed half of that term, I wanted to break my indentures and commence a career at sea, Mrs. Dearson although having the right to hold me should she wish, said okay Kevin I can see on your face that you are beaming and are very excited and enthused about heading away to sea on that ship, I will not stand in your way, you can break the indentures, she also said that if by some chance that I don’t like going to sea and working on the ships then I would be welcome to come back and finish my apprenticeship at her Hotel ( This was 1970 and now 2014 ,, 44 years later I am still at sea and have been ever since that first day ), I thanked her immensely and went down stairs to complete my last day working at Mosman Hotel. I also was a little sad to say goodbye to my head chef and trainer/ mentor Chef Arthur. Chef Arthur was a great teacher and to this day I still think of him and wonder if he is still about, and hope that he is, although he would be over 90 years old now. Actually it was about 10 years later and I was walking down York Street in Sydney and I was taking a short cut passed the back of the Wynyard Travel Lodge Hotel, there was the back of the kitchen area and there was a chef standing outside taking in some fresh air, I looked up and I thought to myself , heck that person looks like Chef Arthur, I just stopped and stood there staring and he started to stare back and all of a sudden I just said Chef Arthur is that you?, he laughed and said sure is. Where do I know you from? he said it’s me, I said I’m Kevin your early apprentice from Hotel Mosman. We acknowledged each other and went on our way again he back into his kitchen and me, well I went back to sea.
I can still see myself all excited waiting to pack my suitcase ready to go to the Migolina, I loved the name Migolina, and it sounded like a lovely name something like Mona Lisa. I did not have a suitcase and my sister Margaret gave me her own suitcase, it was not too feminine it looked just like an ordinary suitcase that a male or female could use. I did not have a lot of things to pack just my clothes which was not a great amount and then I was packed ready to go.
That night I did not sleep, I have found that the night before I go to sea and the last night before I come off the vessel, I never can sleep and usually just toss and turn all night long, this is something that has now been part of me ever since the first ship and to today 44 years later I still have the same feelings the night before I go on to a vessel or the night before I get off again, it is usually sleepless for me.
Next morning, I was up bright and early and ready to go, my sister Margaret gave me some money for the taxi and I went up to the public phone near where we lived and called a taxi, all the way in the cab and also on the way out in the launch I had these butterflies feeling inside my stomach a feeling combination anxiety and a bit frightened, I noticed that no one on the Migolina spoke much English and was wondering how I was going to communicate with the crew on board.
It did not take long to be able to be understood, there were Swedish, Norwegian Chinese some Spanish and some Yugoslavian crew on the Migolina. We communicated somehow it just seemed to work we did a lot of slower speaking and a lot of hand movements. I have today lost my regular Australian accent as over the years I have been working away from my national country and working with a real band of United Nations has had me seem to pick up a new type of accent, most people when they first meet and talk with me think I am British although I would never really think that I sound British at all.
The vessel sailed in the afternoon headed to Bernie in Tasmania to finish discharging her cargo there, we were just steaming out of the Sydney heads, and I went up on deck to have a look as we passed through, Sydney heads, I did not think that it would be nearly 3 years later that I would see Sydney heads again. The 4 days at sea it took to reach Bernie were a little scary for me as I was unsure just what these people were like and I was still just getting used to be able to even talk with them, I sort of felt like I had made a mistake and I was not really going to enjoy this new career after all, but gladly that negative feeling soon passed me and soon I was starting to more than enjoy this life style at sea. We headed to Port Lincoln after Bernie to load the cargo of wheat for China, the loading process was quite fast we came in to the jetty and tied up under a huge big loader and within hours of getting tied up we had started the loading of cargo, it took about three days to fully load us and then we departed on our way up to Shanghai, after sailing out of Port Lincoln we came back up the East coast of Australia passed Sydney, we were too far out to sea to even see the coast line and the next time I saw land was about 10 days after departing from Port Lincoln we saw the coast of Java in Indonesia. We kept on heading towards China and about 8 days more we finally arrived in shanghai the trip in total took 18 days although not long it felt like a couple of months, at sea sometimes the days just seem longer than what they really are.
Shanghai in 1970 was nothing like it is today, Chairman Mao Tse Tung was still in power and ruled China with an iron fist, there was nowhere that we could go if we went ashore, we were only allowed to go to the “Friendship Store” which was the old British Embassy building and complex, which had then been turned in to a type of Seaman’s club shopping complex, one could buy Tsing Tao beer, and eat Chinese food in one section of the complex and in the other two sections one could buy souvenirs such as jade bracelets etc or beautiful silk gowns, these items were very inexpensive because the Friendship store bought direct from the peasants and did not make a profit they sold it for the same price as the peasant sold it to them for. You could not stay longer than 10pm ashore and had to leave the friendship store by 9pm if you were to reach the vessel by 10pm, you were compelled to take either a rickshaw or motor cycle taxi and were not allowed to walk, there were huge billboard size posters of the Chairman Mao Tse Tung on every building and there were load Tannoy speakers everywhere broadcasting the “”Thoughts of Mao”” we spent about 10 days in Shanghai discharging our full cargo of wheat, every few days soldiers from the Red Army would come down to our ship and all the crew had to muster in the recreation room onboard and the Red Army would read passages out to us from the :Little Red Book”” again these were the thoughts of Mao.
I did notice that in China whilst we were discharging the wheat cargo that not a grain was lost, they had women that were walking along the hatch combing with brooms sweeping the wheat that had dropped through the grabs and they kept sweeping it off the top of the hatch combing and onto the deck itself where another woman would sweep it up in to a big heap and they would then shovel it into a big canvas open awning that later when lifted resembled a huge big balloon bag and send it ashore,, nothing was wasted what so ever.
Just before we sailed the Red army came down with a team of soldier’s about 30 or so in number, they conducted a more than thorough search all over the vessel both inside and outside every single part of the vessel was searched, they were searching for any stowaways that wanted to run away from China in search of a different way of life and to start a new life in a new country.
We left shanghai and then headed to Japan about one week at sea, to take the vessel to the shipyard and dry-dock, we arrived at Shimonoseki and immediately went in to the dry dock, Shimonoseki was a small town mostly for shipyards and not much else, if you needed to go to a bigger town then you had to get the ferry across the bay to Moji which was about one hour by ferry boat, it was on a trip on the ferry to Moji that I first saw Colour Television, we did not have colour TV in Australia at that time but in Japan they had it on the ferry boats already.
It was wonderful to go to Japan, the contrast between China and Japan was incomparable like chalk and cheese. Japan was so industrialized and so far ahead in technology it seemed like we in outer space. We spent about two weeks in the shipyard in Shimonoseki and after that we sailed out of Japan and headed to Portland Oregon USA west coast, the trip to Portland took around 18 days and it was so beautiful sailing right across the Pacific Ocean, we arrived at Astoria Washington State and took the pilot from there who navigated us right up the Columbia River to Longview Washington, by the time I reached Longview I had been onboard the Migolina for over 3 months already and a few of the crew had decided to leave the vessel and sign off in Portland and planned to travel down to San Francisco in the view of shipping out again on a different ship and different routes etc, they said to me ,, are you coming with us?,, I was still a bit too green to want to go off yet so I declined and wished them good luck and I stayed behind, we were loading lumber again in Longview and it was about a two week loading time, after a couple of days I decided that I might try my luck and do as the others had done so I signed off the vessel, I took a bus from Longview to Portland which took about 4 hours or so then I made my way to the airport and got a flight to San Francisco, which was around a 3 hour flight, I can’t begin to tell you how nervous I was as this was my first time alone in a foreign country going off like this with no idea of what was ahead of me plus I had never ever even flown on a plane before either, well anyway here I was flying down to San Francisco. I arrived in san Francisco and walked out of the terminal and cab driver asked me where I wanted to go, I had a piece of paper and written on was 1205 Vallejo Street San Francisco, this was the address of the Norwegians Seaman’s Mission, the crew that signed off had given this address to me in case that if I did change my mind I would be able to find them if and when I arrived in San Francisco or “Frisco’ however the locals do not like their beloved San Francisco being called Frisco, to them it is absolutely vulgar and they really do not enjoy hearing anyone abbreviating the name down to simply Frisco. The taxi knew exactly where to take me and within 45 minutes we were pulling up outside 1205 Vallejo Street. I went up and knocked on the door and was welcomed in by the owner who immediately asked to see my discharge from the ship, if I was not a seaman I would not be permitted to stay there, it was a cost of US 45.00 per week which included the bed and breakfast. I asked the pastor if my fellow crew members were around and when he asked their names and I duly informed him of the names, he said,, oh those three have already taken ship and gone a few days ago, they went to Japan, I had built a good relationship with those crew and I am sad to say that after 41 years at sea I have built so many great friendships with crew and after a short period we all seem to go to other ships and never ever see each again for the rest of our lives, when you work on a ship it is nothing like working with friends in a shore based environment, we are all confined on a small steel island for months on end and we become like a big family, sometimes we get lucky and actually bump in to one and other years later in another port, this does not happen often but it does happen.
Migolina was now a ship of my passed and I was soon to get another wonderful ship that has always been still close to my heart until this day. That ship is called MV Siranger. But that’s another whole story.
It was March 3rd, 1970, I will never ever forget that date, I signed on to Migolina as a galley boy or in Norwegian language Busegutte. This was a completely new beginning for me as a new career at sea and the excitement was so intense and very difficult to contain.
At the time, I was working as an apprentice chef at the Mosman Hotel at Spit Junction in Sydney. My employer was a really lovely lady by the name of Joan Dearson, I was working away one afternoon and my elder sister Margaret called my workplace and advised me that the Swedish embassy had contacted our house and was looking for me to get in contact with them, she gave me the number and name of the person who to contact and I then went ahead and contacted them, The Swedish Consulate informed me that they had my name on the list of potential crew and asked if I would be interested to come down and meet with them to discuss possible employment on a Swedish vessel that had just arrived in to Sydney. I was so excited and went and told Mr Dearson about the telephone call, Joan let me go for the afternoon and away I went down to Nr 3 Spring Street in the City, (that is where the Swedish Consulate was in those days)
I was greeted by an administrator in the Consulate office who advised me that I was to go to the nominated Doctor and have a complete Seaman’s medical examination, I duly did so and passed the examination and bought the details back to the Swedish consulate office and gave them to the administrator, I was very lucky because I did not have to undergone colour sight test, upon receipt the Administrator told me that the vessel that just arrived in to Sydney was called M/V Migolina and that they are seeking to hire a galley boy / mess boy, and if I am interested in the job I should get myself down to the vessel and speak with the Captain and Chief Steward, I was given the address of where the vessel was berthed and wished good luck by the administrator.
I took a bus (nr. 441 ) over to Birchgrove ( a suburb of Sydney) and found a landing near Birchgrove Oval that had the Nicholson Bros launch service that went out to “ The Dolphins” which were big concrete buoys that the vessels can tie up to and discharge their cargo in to barges or large punts, there were a lot of berths in Sydney that were at the wharves but Sydney also had the Dolphins which were located at Snails Bay, I asked the launch deck hand which launch was going out to Migolina, they told me to hop on board as the launch was soon to go out, the ride to Migolina only took about ten minutes and then I saw her, she was a really beautiful looking vessel she had a dark royal blue hull and a large white stripe that completely encircled her painted right around the hull half way up from the water line to the main deck, it was a feeling of looking at a really pretty girl with a white ribbon in her hair, don’t ask why, but I have always and still do today, see ships as a beautiful girls, some are more beautiful than others, she was a sleek looking vessel, soon l was climbing up the vessels gangway, the gangway was light aluminium and was very “springy” I felt as if I was going to bounce right off as I made my way up through the rungs, I was not worried about boarding the vessels because I had already been working in a ship yard as an apprentice boilermaker/ welder for 18 months prior to changing my vocation to catering and becoming an apprentice chef, I got up on deck and made my way inside the accommodation, I inquired from the first person I saw as where I could find the Chief Steward, the crew member took me upstairs about three decks and took me to a cabin which belonged to the Chief steward, I do not recall his name any more but he was a nice person and gave me a bit of an insight in to the job that I would be performing should I take the position and providing that the Captain agreed to take me as crew, The chief steward took me down to the galley and introduced me the to the Chief cook who was from Shanghai China and the second cook who was from Hong Kong, both of the two cooks did not speak hardly any English at all, just kept smiling and nodding their heads in a type of “yes” gesture.
Chief Steward told me that the vessel had just arrived the day previously and had come from Vancouver in Canada, with a cargo of timber (I had no idea where Canada was on the map and Vancouver well never heard of the place), he told me this vessel was a “tramp ship” Tramp ships are vessels that take spot cargo and have no real set voyage and permanent runs, on a tramp ship you never ever know where the vessel will go to next as they don’t get the orders until the last moment, this is because of spot cargos ) and that after Sydney the vessel would go to Port Lincoln in South Australia and load a cargo of wheat to carry to Shanghai China, The chief Steward said to me if you do take this job then it might be that you never ever get back home again for a very long time perhaps years and years because of the nature of this vessel being a trampler,, My reply was,, I want to go,, where do I sign on?”
The captain was a nice gent as well and he did not even bother to talk to me about my experience at sea or anything, ( I had no previous sea experience ) I may have worked onboard ships in the shipyard, but I had never been to sea before, he went on the recommendation of the Chief Steward who told the captain that I would be acceptable, so I got my first ship.
Migolina was a truly good-looking ship she was a bulk carrier of around 18,000 tones, and regular size bulk carrier of the 1970’s age, her size of 18,000 Tones seemed quite big in those days however a lot of years later I was to sail on bulk carriers that were ranging from 150,000 tons to 200,000 tones, which made Migolina today seem very tiny, she was built in 1962 She was owned by Rederi AB Dalen and was Swedish flagged and registered in Gothenburg Sweden.
I went back to work at the Mosman Hotel the very next day all excited and went up to see Mrs. Dearson, I explained to her that although I had signed apprentice indentures papers for a full 4 year term and I had only barely completed half of that term, I wanted to break my indentures and commence a career at sea, Mrs. Dearson although having the right to hold me should she wish, said okay Kevin I can see on your face that you are beaming and are very excited and enthused about heading away to sea on that ship, I will not stand in your way, you can break the indentures, she also said that if by some chance that I don’t like going to sea and working on the ships then I would be welcome to come back and finish my apprenticeship at her Hotel ( This was 1970 and now 2014 ,, 44 years later I am still at sea and have been ever since that first day ), I thanked her immensely and went down stairs to complete my last day working at Mosman Hotel. I also was a little sad to say goodbye to my head chef and trainer/ mentor Chef Arthur. Chef Arthur was a great teacher and to this day I still think of him and wonder if he is still about, and hope that he is, although he would be over 90 years old now. Actually it was about 10 years later and I was walking down York Street in Sydney and I was taking a short cut passed the back of the Wynyard Travel Lodge Hotel, there was the back of the kitchen area and there was a chef standing outside taking in some fresh air, I looked up and I thought to myself , heck that person looks like Chef Arthur, I just stopped and stood there staring and he started to stare back and all of a sudden I just said Chef Arthur is that you?, he laughed and said sure is. Where do I know you from? he said it’s me, I said I’m Kevin your early apprentice from Hotel Mosman. We acknowledged each other and went on our way again he back into his kitchen and me, well I went back to sea.
I can still see myself all excited waiting to pack my suitcase ready to go to the Migolina, I loved the name Migolina, and it sounded like a lovely name something like Mona Lisa. I did not have a suitcase and my sister Margaret gave me her own suitcase, it was not too feminine it looked just like an ordinary suitcase that a male or female could use. I did not have a lot of things to pack just my clothes which was not a great amount and then I was packed ready to go.
That night I did not sleep, I have found that the night before I go to sea and the last night before I come off the vessel, I never can sleep and usually just toss and turn all night long, this is something that has now been part of me ever since the first ship and to today 44 years later I still have the same feelings the night before I go on to a vessel or the night before I get off again, it is usually sleepless for me.
Next morning, I was up bright and early and ready to go, my sister Margaret gave me some money for the taxi and I went up to the public phone near where we lived and called a taxi, all the way in the cab and also on the way out in the launch I had these butterflies feeling inside my stomach a feeling combination anxiety and a bit frightened, I noticed that no one on the Migolina spoke much English and was wondering how I was going to communicate with the crew on board.
It did not take long to be able to be understood, there were Swedish, Norwegian Chinese some Spanish and some Yugoslavian crew on the Migolina. We communicated somehow it just seemed to work we did a lot of slower speaking and a lot of hand movements. I have today lost my regular Australian accent as over the years I have been working away from my national country and working with a real band of United Nations has had me seem to pick up a new type of accent, most people when they first meet and talk with me think I am British although I would never really think that I sound British at all.
The vessel sailed in the afternoon headed to Bernie in Tasmania to finish discharging her cargo there, we were just steaming out of the Sydney heads, and I went up on deck to have a look as we passed through, Sydney heads, I did not think that it would be nearly 3 years later that I would see Sydney heads again. The 4 days at sea it took to reach Bernie were a little scary for me as I was unsure just what these people were like and I was still just getting used to be able to even talk with them, I sort of felt like I had made a mistake and I was not really going to enjoy this new career after all, but gladly that negative feeling soon passed me and soon I was starting to more than enjoy this life style at sea. We headed to Port Lincoln after Bernie to load the cargo of wheat for China, the loading process was quite fast we came in to the jetty and tied up under a huge big loader and within hours of getting tied up we had started the loading of cargo, it took about three days to fully load us and then we departed on our way up to Shanghai, after sailing out of Port Lincoln we came back up the East coast of Australia passed Sydney, we were too far out to sea to even see the coast line and the next time I saw land was about 10 days after departing from Port Lincoln we saw the coast of Java in Indonesia. We kept on heading towards China and about 8 days more we finally arrived in shanghai the trip in total took 18 days although not long it felt like a couple of months, at sea sometimes the days just seem longer than what they really are.
Shanghai in 1970 was nothing like it is today, Chairman Mao Tse Tung was still in power and ruled China with an iron fist, there was nowhere that we could go if we went ashore, we were only allowed to go to the “Friendship Store” which was the old British Embassy building and complex, which had then been turned in to a type of Seaman’s club shopping complex, one could buy Tsing Tao beer, and eat Chinese food in one section of the complex and in the other two sections one could buy souvenirs such as jade bracelets etc or beautiful silk gowns, these items were very inexpensive because the Friendship store bought direct from the peasants and did not make a profit they sold it for the same price as the peasant sold it to them for. You could not stay longer than 10pm ashore and had to leave the friendship store by 9pm if you were to reach the vessel by 10pm, you were compelled to take either a rickshaw or motor cycle taxi and were not allowed to walk, there were huge billboard size posters of the Chairman Mao Tse Tung on every building and there were load Tannoy speakers everywhere broadcasting the “”Thoughts of Mao”” we spent about 10 days in Shanghai discharging our full cargo of wheat, every few days soldiers from the Red Army would come down to our ship and all the crew had to muster in the recreation room onboard and the Red Army would read passages out to us from the :Little Red Book”” again these were the thoughts of Mao.
I did notice that in China whilst we were discharging the wheat cargo that not a grain was lost, they had women that were walking along the hatch combing with brooms sweeping the wheat that had dropped through the grabs and they kept sweeping it off the top of the hatch combing and onto the deck itself where another woman would sweep it up in to a big heap and they would then shovel it into a big canvas open awning that later when lifted resembled a huge big balloon bag and send it ashore,, nothing was wasted what so ever.
Just before we sailed the Red army came down with a team of soldier’s about 30 or so in number, they conducted a more than thorough search all over the vessel both inside and outside every single part of the vessel was searched, they were searching for any stowaways that wanted to run away from China in search of a different way of life and to start a new life in a new country.
We left shanghai and then headed to Japan about one week at sea, to take the vessel to the shipyard and dry-dock, we arrived at Shimonoseki and immediately went in to the dry dock, Shimonoseki was a small town mostly for shipyards and not much else, if you needed to go to a bigger town then you had to get the ferry across the bay to Moji which was about one hour by ferry boat, it was on a trip on the ferry to Moji that I first saw Colour Television, we did not have colour TV in Australia at that time but in Japan they had it on the ferry boats already.
It was wonderful to go to Japan, the contrast between China and Japan was incomparable like chalk and cheese. Japan was so industrialized and so far ahead in technology it seemed like we in outer space. We spent about two weeks in the shipyard in Shimonoseki and after that we sailed out of Japan and headed to Portland Oregon USA west coast, the trip to Portland took around 18 days and it was so beautiful sailing right across the Pacific Ocean, we arrived at Astoria Washington State and took the pilot from there who navigated us right up the Columbia River to Longview Washington, by the time I reached Longview I had been onboard the Migolina for over 3 months already and a few of the crew had decided to leave the vessel and sign off in Portland and planned to travel down to San Francisco in the view of shipping out again on a different ship and different routes etc, they said to me ,, are you coming with us?,, I was still a bit too green to want to go off yet so I declined and wished them good luck and I stayed behind, we were loading lumber again in Longview and it was about a two week loading time, after a couple of days I decided that I might try my luck and do as the others had done so I signed off the vessel, I took a bus from Longview to Portland which took about 4 hours or so then I made my way to the airport and got a flight to San Francisco, which was around a 3 hour flight, I can’t begin to tell you how nervous I was as this was my first time alone in a foreign country going off like this with no idea of what was ahead of me plus I had never ever even flown on a plane before either, well anyway here I was flying down to San Francisco. I arrived in san Francisco and walked out of the terminal and cab driver asked me where I wanted to go, I had a piece of paper and written on was 1205 Vallejo Street San Francisco, this was the address of the Norwegians Seaman’s Mission, the crew that signed off had given this address to me in case that if I did change my mind I would be able to find them if and when I arrived in San Francisco or “Frisco’ however the locals do not like their beloved San Francisco being called Frisco, to them it is absolutely vulgar and they really do not enjoy hearing anyone abbreviating the name down to simply Frisco. The taxi knew exactly where to take me and within 45 minutes we were pulling up outside 1205 Vallejo Street. I went up and knocked on the door and was welcomed in by the owner who immediately asked to see my discharge from the ship, if I was not a seaman I would not be permitted to stay there, it was a cost of US 45.00 per week which included the bed and breakfast. I asked the pastor if my fellow crew members were around and when he asked their names and I duly informed him of the names, he said,, oh those three have already taken ship and gone a few days ago, they went to Japan, I had built a good relationship with those crew and I am sad to say that after 41 years at sea I have built so many great friendships with crew and after a short period we all seem to go to other ships and never ever see each again for the rest of our lives, when you work on a ship it is nothing like working with friends in a shore based environment, we are all confined on a small steel island for months on end and we become like a big family, sometimes we get lucky and actually bump in to one and other years later in another port, this does not happen often but it does happen.
Migolina was now a ship of my passed and I was soon to get another wonderful ship that has always been still close to my heart until this day. That ship is called MV Siranger. But that’s another whole story.
