All At Sea ... (Excerpts from Maris Magazine Oct/07)       Shaun, a shipping man and son of best-selling novelist and biographer W. A. Harbinson, gave his father a free voyage as the sole passenger aboard the containership Elisabeth Schulte, a vessel having virtually no facilities for passengers. Once on board, the writer decided to keep himself busy by recording his thoughts into a dictaphone and then transcribing them, every day, onto his laptop.       In previous publications we have transcribed a few excerpts from the early days of his voyage including his first visits ashore. We’ll now offer you another glimpse into his story relating to his days at sea after which the book was named All At Sea On The Ghost Ship:

“... 8.15pm. 22nd November. I’m out on the deck, having my last look at nocturnal Hong Kong. As usual, the docks are brilliantly illuminated, with striations of light beaming up into the night, another son et lumiere spectacle. And beyond a container ship, the P & O Nedlloyd, docked at another quay, the high-rises are lit up, most of the hundreds of windows spilling light, the buildings rising one behind the other, in tiers, on the dark hills.       I’m now at the starboard side of the ship, looking out at barges, tugboats, fishing boats, container ships and bulk cargo ships passing each other, going in both directions, in the glittering, turbulent water, all strung with lights and adding to the general spectacle. A lot of the ships are repeatedly blowing their klaxons, signaling to each another.       8.40pm. The ship is heading west, around Hong Kong Island, before turning south along East Lamma Channel and out to open sea. Right now we’re moving away from Victoria Harbour with its neon-coloured spires - a little bit of Las Vegas there – and all the high-rises of Victoria are lit up as well, illuminating the hills. Actually, you can barely see the hills; you can only make them out by the placement of the lights, the way they rise and fall, and by the lights of isolated houses or clusters of houses. They’re twinkling up there like stars. Also, a lot of the boats in the harbour are strung with lights as if for Christmas – different coloured lights which, being attached to masts and spars, have triangular shapes, just like Christmas trees - and those lights are reflected off the rippling water, creating an enchanting, kaleidoscopic effect. There are a lot of boats out here, all lit up, big and small. The boats just look so colorful, so fantastic, like a dream come true.

I am looking across at this spectacle of lights, which I am seeing for the second time, and I’m thinking, ‘I will never forget this’.

Then I recall that last night and tonight, there was not one person on this ship, apart from myself, leaning on the railing watching this. The only ones watching, apart from myself, are the officers up on the bridge, guiding us out of here. The rest of the officers and the Chinese seamen, all off duty, are in their cabins or in the Smoking Room, watching videos or relaxing in some other way. But they’re not watching this. I mean these guys pack up their work, they don’t go out on deck to look at the scenery. They’re used to it. They might have been thrilled when they saw it the first time, but right now, I’m the only one looking at it with a sense of wonder. So maybe, by the end of the voyage, I too will be looking at everything with a sense of déjà vu. I mean, we might come into Venice and I’ll find myself saying ‘So what? It’s just another port’. But I truly hope not.

... 7.05am. 24th November. I’m feeling as fresh as a daisy this morning, after a good sleep. Looking through the porthole window, I see nothing but ocean, which is all I’ve seen since Hong Kong. It’s very beautiful, though. The sun is getting up, the heat’s rising, and the light is lovely, gleaming across the ocean. Not even a single boat on the horizon. I’m now in another world in which there’s only water and sky, with nothing else to look at. But it’s warm and the light seems enchanted.       4.45pm. I’ve just had a stroll around the whole ship, up and down the various walkways, all along the main deck from bow to stern and back again. As usual, though we’re steaming away to Singapore, there isn’t a sign of a human being on board, apart from little old me. So I’m, indeed, still all at sea on the ghost ship.

9.10pm. Earlier today, at lunchtime, when Venkata was dinning with me, he invited me to a ‘special occasion’ in the Seamen’s Mess at 6:30 pm. I assumed he meant a few drinks before dinner. So at 6:30 sharp I went down, assuming that I was going to have a few nips with him and a couple of Chinese seamen. To my surprise, it turned out to be a big dinner party, with all the Indian officers, plus two wives and their boys, seated around one table, the Chinese seamen seated around another. It was really pretty impressive, because the regular cook, Ravi, had produced a lot of the food, mostly Indian, but the Chinese seamen had also cooked their own food. So the table was completely covered with Indian and Chinese dishes, plus bottles of Beck’s beer and vodka. It turned out that the party was to celebrate Venkata’s recent promotion to chief engineer.       ... 12.00 midnight 27th November. Can’t sleep. Pissing rain out there. Ironically, the first officer was assuring me earlier that the weather would be fine for the barbecue promised by the captain for tomorrow evening. Because, he explained, we’ll then be approaching Colombo. ‘No problem with the barbecue’ Sumeet said. ‘The sun will be blazing’. Yet here we are, at midnight, the start of the day of the barbecue, and it’s teeming rain out there.       Having completed my reading of Bob Dylan, whose tormented life now haunts me, I am going to start reading Fred Kaplan’s monumental biography of Gore Vidal. Monumental because it’s over 800 pages long and the typeface is tiny. Still a rough sea out there and the rain continues to pour down. The boat rocking, bucking like crazy... and just as we’re supposed to be entering this calm, tropical zone. So to hell with Gore Vidal, at least for tonight. I’m going to sleep.

3.15am. That violent storm is over. It was so rough, I got out of bed and took my laptop computer off the desk and placed it on the carpeted floor so it couldn’t fall. Surprisingly, rough as the sea was, I actually managed to fall asleep again.       ... 6pm 28th November. I thought some of the skies in West Cork were magnificent, but they don’t compare with this. These striations of light are like fabulous, immense, shimmering pillars, soaring to the sky, disappearing between the clouds, and then pouring across the top of the clouds to form those phosphorescent silvery edges. And in some places the light appears to be bouncing off the clouds, refracted rays, so you’re getting some striations beaming upward, straight into the azure sky, while others beam downward. It is quite incredible, like it’s another planet … or, maybe Heaven.       10.20pm. Well, I’ve just been to the barbecue and enjoyed every minute of it. It started at 6:30 pm and it’s now 10:20 pm, though it seems more like two in the morning. And, of course, having lost an hour this morning, the clocks are going back tonight for the second night in a row, so it’s actually only 9:20 pm now, or, if this were two days back, 8:20 pm, which may explain something about my problem with sleeping soundly.       But the barbecue was great fun. They had the fire already lit when I joined. It was held on the deck of the bridge, Deck G, seven decks above the main deck, approximately 70 feet above the sea. The sky was superb – those silver-edged, snow-white clouds in great pools of blue and crimson – but the sun was going down and the wind, though warm, was strong. When I say ‘wind’ I’m simply talking about the slipstream that’s created around the ship as it bores through the sea at an average speed of 20 to 21 knots, or approximately 37 - 38 km per hour.

There was more food than anyone could eat, the booz flowed liberally, and everyone was wonderfully jolly!       This was the first chance I’d had to really meet the whole crew and I think I did meet most of the twenty-one people on board.

… 10.40am 30th November. The ship has just shuddered, which normally means it’s starting to move. So I went to my porthole and, lo and behold, we’re already about fifty yards out from the quay. There’s another ship directly in front of us, blocking our path. I’m going outside to see what’s cooking. 10.45am. I’m beginning to think shipping is addictive, because I actually enjoy it more on the ship than I do running around on shore. At least, I think I do. Though it’s certainly exciting when the ship moves on. I get frustrated when it’s just sitting at the dock. I mean, I get off the ship and I have my run-around, which is always enjoyable, but the minute I get back on board, I find myself thinking: ‘let’s get going’. And as soon as it starts to move I feel happier. So I can understand the addiction that certain people have for the sea.       ... 8.10am 7th December. I’ve finally got my time right. It’s now ten past eight and I’ve just come from breakfast and a walk around the main deck, the lower deck, which I think is actually called Top Deck. I haven’t done that for some time, so I hope it helps me to digest my hearty breakfast of fried eggs, mashed potatoes and toast, not to mention Zhan’s incredibly sweet coffee. Later, over breakfast, Prashanta informed me that we were getting near the end of the Indian Ocean and approaching the Gulf of Aden. He thinks we’ll arrive early this evening.       1.20pm. The things I thought were buoys in the sea turned out to be oil rigs in the most southern oil fields of Yemen, off the starboard side of the ship. The mountainous desert is South Yemen. The equally barren land off the port side is Somalia, bordering Ethiopia. According to Farookh, our worthy navigator, this is the Gulf of Aden. We are therefore heading steadily for the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez.       1.30pm. Those oil rigs in the sea, framed by the Lawrence of Arabia mountains and desert, are close to Aden. South of Aden, across the Gulf, is Djibouti; between them they form the mouth to the Red Sea. The sky is a flawless blue, marred only by the black smoke spiraling up from the rigs burning off their gas. You can see the flames shooting out, red, yellow and blue, very colorful, before disappearing into the filthy black smoke.

… 8am 8th December. We are now at anchor in the Port of Suez, waiting to go through the canal. On my right, off the starboard side, is this magnificent mountain with nothing at all on it. It’s totally bleached by the sun. There’s not a shred of bright colour. It’s just a sandy-coloured, sun-scorched rock. But all along its base, as far as the eye can see, are oil refineries with ships docked in front of them. To the port side, the land is much farther away, but again, you can see nothing but oil refineries. And those big container ships, bulk ships and various kinds of smaller cargo ships, spread out as far as the eye can see, are all waiting for permission to go through the canal.       8.35am. Now the bed news… Captain Singh informed me that although we should have started through the canal at eight this morning, we’re still at anchor because the weather is bad. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I’ve even cancelled my lunch because I don’t want to miss anything when we go through the canal and I’m snapping away at everything in sight.       According to Captain Singh, the reason we’re waiting is that the wind is too strong for us to go through the relatively narrow canal. Now what worries me is that as far a I know ships don’t navigate the canal at night. But at the moment, Captain Singh hasn’t a clue about when we might start going through – or when any of those other ships can start through – so I think we’ll be lucky if we get through by this afternoon. This really bothers me, because it means I’ll miss half of my photography. To make matters worse, I met Varuna and Sumeet on the stairs, and they’re convinced it’s going to rain. So it’s all a bit disappointing so far.       ... 3.30pm. I am back in my cabin looking through the porthole, where I can see that the big container ship that was on our starboard side, between us and the eastern mountains, has now crossed our bow and is definitely moving out. The other ship that was on the port side has moved as well, so we’re all starting to move at last. We’ve been sitting here at anchor all night and for most of the day, and now that the sun’s blazing, the sky’s clearing, and the water’s calmer, the great exodus from the Gulf of Suez has begun.       3.45pm. We are definitely on the move at last. The ships in front have disappeared and we’re now heading, this time beyond a doubt, for the Suez Canal and a journey of approximately a hundred miles to the Mediterranean Sea.

4.00pm. We’re just entering the canal, with the town of Suez gliding by on the port side. It’s quite a big, sprawling place, really, and is divided here by what looks like a big lake or lagoon. A group of locals, some in Arab robes, other in Western clothing, are standing down on the quay, waving and whistling at us as we pass. Clearly, they come down here just to watch the ships go through the canal. It’s certainly not a particularly attractive town, though it’s not bad; modern apartment blocks, a fair amount of traffic, and not a hovel in sight. A lot of white buildings bathed in the sunset’s golden light. There’s a park with lots of trees. And we’re coming up to a modern mosque, built on the western bank of the canal. So it’s all fairly functional.

Dhow Egyptian coastal trader sailing through the Suez Canal

Off to the starboard side, on the eastern bank of the canal, is the beginning of the wilderness … nothing but flat, seemingly endless desert.       Anyway, we’re going through the canal right now and it is, indeed, as I remembered it, fairly narrow, though we’re not so close that you could throw a stone from the deck of the ship and actually land it on shore. Also, there are markers thrusting up from the water, about fifteen or twenty feet from each bank, which the boat must stay between as well, narrowing down the shipping lane even more. This explains why the traffic only goes in one direction at a time and why we had to wait so long to get through. We were waiting for the traffic coming from the opposite direction to pass through and leave the canal clear.

They are all up there, by the way, on the bridge. They’ve been there since just before we entered the canal. Both captains, the pilot, the navigator, and three or four other officers and officials, all looking somber, all concentrating, because going through the canal is a serious business.       Though the ship up ahead appeared to be at anchor, it’s actually moving, but very slowly, and we’re keeping exactly the same distance from it, moving at the same speed.       4.20pm. I’m out on the deck again. We’ve just passed Suez. It’s quite chilly out here now. The sun is going down in the west, falling behind the last buildings, the northern edge of the town. So I’m really not going to get many pictures, if any, as we go through. I’m afraid the Suez Canal has been a total wipe-out as far as pictures go, though it will possibly be quite exciting tonight, when all these towns on the western bank light up.       4.50pm. The sun is well down, it’s getting dark out, and the lights on both banks of the canal are coming on, particularly on the western side, in all the built-up areas. On the starboard side of the ship, which is the eastern side of the canal, it’s still largely desolate, flat desert. There are a few things out there now – oil fields; widely scattered, bleak workers’ colonies; concrete-block living accommodations and other bunker-like buildings – but basically there’s not much happening there. It’s mostly sand. Even where people are working, there’s just desert with nothing visible on it.

However, on the port side of the ship, which is the western side of the canal, the Nile delta, it’s completely irrigated, with green fields and a wide variety of trees; date palms, juniper, eucalyptus and sycamore trees. Certainly it’s cultivated and lushly green. So I’m seeing extensive greenery on one side, and desolate, scorched desert on the other. And lots of buildings on the west bank as well. It’s all built up out there, in the sense that there are a lot of towns, most of them fairly modern.

… 8.35pm. It’s a truly romantic experience to stand up there on the bridge, observing the wonderful spectacle of the western bank slipping past as the Elisabeth Schulte glides almost silently through the canal in the dead of night. A fabulous sight, really. You see fancy houses with swimming pools, hotels and restaurants, illuminated mosques, boat-filled marinas, busy harbours, seemingly endless roads, small towns and big towns. Combined, they form this enormous web of lights that stretches away to the starry sky and then merges with it. It’s a dazzling cavalcade of lights. So I’m glad I went up there.       9.40pm. Right now I can see some kind of big monuments approaching, again on the westerns bank, and beyond it lies a really big town or port, which could be Port Said. The brilliance of the stars is unbelievable.       This is a fairly fantastic sight to behold. Those towns and that harbour all lit up, that fork where the canal veers to the north-east, that ribbon of white and yellow lights vaulting across from one bank to the other, only to gradually disappear into the eastern desert’s vast, immutable darkness. It’s unforgettable, really.       10.30pm. We’re passing that other town right now and there’s a kind of lagoon breaking into the land at the far side of the western bank: maybe some kind of marina. I can see a couple of boats there; motorboats, a big yacht with its sails lowered, a luxurious, blue-painted boat with lights all over it. And I can hear Arab singing, rising up from down there, sounding ethereal from here, though I can’t tell exactly where it’s coming from. The singing and sights combined make it seem truly exotic.       Motorboats are zipping along the canal in both directions, noisily churning up the water, lights flashing, always tooting us with their horns as they pass. Now isn’t that friendly?       ... 00.15pm 9th December. In all these towns, I notice, they have ferry ports where cars can catch boats to take them across from one side of the canal to the other. We’re passing a ferry port right now and there’s a boat loaded up with cars, just about to take off. A car with headlights beaming into the darkness has just pulled up to catch the ferry and … just missed it. I bet he’s pissed off. The ferry is pulling out right now, coming straight towards us as we pass, merely yards from us, with its headlights beaming out over our lower decks and the containers stacked up there. It looks like the ferry is going to collide with us, but, it’s just turned away and is now passing across our stern, heading for the eastern bank.       There go more white birds, flying silently past the ship, and below me, low over the black water, hundreds more are flying around, attracted by the lights of the ship. Where they’re flying just above the surface of the water, it looks as if they’re floating in it, just sitting there, drifting like flowers in a moonlit stream. Looking at them makes me feel that I’m dreaming. It’s the silence that does it.       If I’m dreaming, I must be asleep on my feet, so I’m going to bed at last, hopefully to have more dreams, Mediterranean dreams ...”

Extracted with permission from W. A. Harbinson’s
All at Sea on the Ghost Ship,
available at $17.99 from amazon.com or booksurge.com.

Editorial Reviews Book Description       Highly literate, stunningly evocative, often hilarious memoir of a lengthy voyage on a container ship made by an ageing, former bestselling author in search of a personal new horizon. About the Author       Author of over fifty books, including two UK/US bestselling novels and one US No.1 bestselling biography (Elvis Presley). Recently completed an epic, 2-volume novel, Lagan River, Black Mountain, based on 'the Troubles' in his home town of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

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California - Asia - the Mediterranean Hanjin Amsterdam, Athens, Brussels and Ottawa

Sailing approx. every two to three weeks as follows: Los Angeles, Long Beach terminal (Day 1); San Francisco, Oakland terminal (3); Tokyo (14) and Osaka, Japan (15); Pusan, Korea (16); Shanghai (18) and Ningbo, China (20); Kaohsiung, Taiwan (21); Hong Kong (23); Singapore (26); transit the Suez Canal (37); Port Said, Egypt (38); Naples (42) and La Spezia, Italy (44); Barcelona, Spain (47); transit the Suez Canal (51); Port Kelang, Malaysia (62); Singapore (64); Hong Kong (67) and Yantian, China (68); Osaka (71); Tokyo (73) and Los Angeles (84).

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