Around the World in 63 Days / Part 3

Prince Rupert did not live up to its title as the wettest city in Canada. Located on the west coast of Canada, in the province of British Columbia (BC), it sees 240-days of the year. That is two in every three days. It did not rain at all when I was there. It was lovely and sunny.

Despite its city status Prince Rupert had a desolate feel to it. It had, according to wikipedia, a population of 12,508 in 2011 – reflecting a decline of just over 25% from its peak of 16,714 in 1996. You see more bald eagles than people – probably not surprising given that British Columbia, along with Alaska, is home to the largest bald eagle population in the world.

Yellowhead Highway / Terrace (BC) - CANADA

From Prince Rupert I took a three-day Greyhound bus journey to Phoenix, Arizona. This journey made me realise just how vast Canada is. My wall map suggested a relatively small distance between Prince Rupert and Vancouver. It turned out to be quite a distance: 889 km as the crow flies or, more relevant to me, 1443 km by road. My route first followed the Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16) that took me 722 km east to the city of Prince George (bus 1).  From here I journeyed south on Highway 97 and then Highway 1 to the city of Kamloops – about 520 km – where I boarded another bus to Vancouver (buses 2 and 3). The change-over in Kamloops felt very surreal but that was partly because I had had little sleep since leaving Prince Rupert nearly 24-hours ago. The journey to Vancouver was rather quick in comparison at just under four-hours and 357 km.

Vancouver was my last bus change in Canada. This was to take me to Seattle in the State of Washington (US) via the Peace Arch border-crossing. The crossing itself was surprisingly quick and easy. I had to take my luggage off the bus to be inspected – as did everyone – and while we were all being welcomed by US border officers, the bus was being examined for any possible contraband. It is interesting how an old looking camera can spark a conversation between strangers. In this case it was the border officer who was fascinated that I was still using film and keen to know whether I developed it myself.

Despite arriving late in Seattle I was able to catch my connection (bus 4) to Sacramento. You meet some interesting people on long-distance bus journeys – especially when they are full (the bus that is). On this leg I met a woman travelling to Portland (Oregon) to meet her sister. She told me to “be careful when in LA.” I said I was not planning to leave the bus station, to which she replied, “as I said, be careful!” From Sacramento (bus 5) I sat next to a young musician hoping to make his name when he got there. He composed his music on his computer; I left him to it. By now my body clock was going AWOL – it was over 36-hours since I left Prince Rupert. Microsleeps were starting to set in as I watched the world go by. By the time I arrived in the City of Angels I felt like a walking zombie. I was so fatigued that I even, for a nanosecond, thought about catching a short (1 hr 20 min) flight rather than face the 12+ hours I still had ahead of me on the Greyhound. In the end I realised I would not be true to myself if I flew. As it happened, I was able to get an earlier bus (bus 6) to Pheonix which at least kept me moving and reduced my journey time by a few hours.

I had a five-day rest in Phoenix. I needed it! My time there coincided with one of the hottest months Arizona had experienced in years, maxing out at 49.8°C. It was here that I did my only bit of flying – a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon. There is a reason for the adjective in its name. Apart from being 446 km long and up to 29 km wide at its widest point it is also over 1.5 km deep. I also used my time in Pheonix to arrange my onward journey to Wilmington – where I was scheduled to catch the cargo ship Independent Accord. I wasn’t keen on another Greyhound journey and Amtrak (rail) proved to be problematical logistics wise. With flying off the table I decided to undertake the final part of my US-leg by car and found a friendly Swede (Janni) and her dog (Bailey) to share the journey with me. 

Canyon Hues / Grand Canyon (AZ) - USA

The distance between Phoenix and Wilmington is just over 3,500 km along interstates I-10, I-20, I-97 and then Hwy-97 once in North Carolina. The longest stretch was the I-20 with a total length of 2,477 km and along which we twice overnighted: in Odessa (TX) and Tuscaloosa (AL). Janni’s end destination was Washington D.C. and over the course of the journey she found another ride-share heading to New York willing to take her to D.C. They suggested meeting at a place called South of the Border that, funnily enough, lay just south of the border between the two Carolina’s. We arrived on time. They did not. I decided to stay with Janni and Bailey to make sure they remained safe while they waited. I am glad I did as it was another five hours before they arrived and daylight had given way to darkness. The driver looked like an older version of Kathy Bates’ character Dolores in Stephen King’s film Dolores Claiborne. She got out and started dancing like a dervish during Sama – although not quite as energetic or as graceful. She had two male travel companions: one wanting to find the liquor store while the other was just enjoying the ‘trip’ – and he wasn’t referring to the car journey. I was a little concerned about leaving Janni and Bailey with them and offered to take them Wilmington and help her get to the US capitol somehow. But, she was happy to go with them, so I said my goodbye and took my leave. I still had a couple of hours drive and I arrived at my hotel exhausted.

I had two days in Wilmington and used the opportunity to visit a couple of places. First was the Bellamy Mansion – built between 1859 and 1861 for Dr. John D. Bellamy. The mansion is considered as one of the finest examples of pre-Civil War architecture in North Carolina. My second visit was to the Poplar Grove Plantation, a former peanut plantation, just outside the city. The following day I returned the hire-car and spent the evening enjoying the 04th of July – Independence Day – celebrations with others downtown along the riverwalk.

The Independent Accord left Wilmington as scheduled on 05th July. The Port of Wilmington is not actually on the Atlantic Coast but situated inland along the Cape Fear river. The distance between port and estuary is approximately 40 km and it took us the best part of four hours before we entered the Atlantic. Along the way I spoke to the captain who told me about the ship. Built in 2007 it has a length of 168m, a width of 25m and a dead weight of 20,955 tonnes. It can carry 1,574 TEU containers stacked six below and five above deck over 9 rows.

The Atlantic crossing was very much like the Pacific crossing. We crossed six time zones and time changes took place at 02:00 every morning between day three and day eight. I was welcome to visit the bridge at any time and visit the engine room with supervision. All officers came from the Balkans (which made conversation difficult) and all, except for the captain and Chief Engineer, did not want to be photographed. All the crew were Filipino.

Old Baldy Lighthouse / Bald Head Island (NC) - USA

As a passenger I had my own dining table in the officers’ mess and meal timings were like that on the Hanjin Geneva – including a spit-pig roast on Saturday. The crossing did provide for the worst day at sea I experienced. I was not the only one who suffered – several of the officers and crew took themselves to bed, as did I. “Today is quite bad, even for me,” the second officer remarked when I eventually got myself to the bridge. My cabin, incidentally, was that reserved for the owner of the vessel, so it was quite plush.

I was the only passenger. The lack of fellow travellers soon made the voyage a lonely experience. While the officers and crew got on with their nicely structured working day my daily schedule consisted of sustenance broken only by a visit to the bridge or a walk around the deck. I did visit the engine room – which took away some of the tedium. The Chief Engineer, a Hungarian called Boris, was a friendly chap and, despite his limited English, we got on well. That evening we took to the kitchen to make Hungarian potato dumplings called dödölle. But as one day morphed into the next came feelings of isolation and remoteness.

Boris / Independent Accord - ATLANTIC OCEAN

Day-in day-out all you see is sea to the front, sea to the rear, sea to the left, sea to the right, sea below and sky above. Even a walk to catch a breath of fresh air was confined to the deck – the vast ocean becoming the invisible bars of a prison. I remember looking up, probably about halfway across, and seeing a plane heading towards the US and realised how trapped you are. While those onboard the plane had just a few more hours before setting foot on land I had another five days to go. I was starting to understand mariners’ madness:

When humans have been pushed to their absolute limits and their minds have cracked […] or when doubts and anxiety have crept in like water through a tiny hole in the hull of ship, unnoticeable until its weight has become too heavy to ignore and impossible to fix.

https://snr.org.uk/the-mariners-mirror-podcast/madness-at-sea-a-history/

I wondered what may cause this and thought how a lack of reference points, physical or otherwise, made it feel like being suspended in time. How we perceive time, or chronoception as the scientists call it, is not a constant. Various factors influence it that, in turn, impact on our state-of-mind. Subjectivity is one factor – as we know time goes faster when enjoying yourself. The reverse is also true with times of boredom feeling ‘longer.’ Another factor is visual stimuli – changes in our surroundings helps us realise that time is passing.

I earlier referred to the officers and crew having a nicely structured workday. This reminded me of my conversation with a colleague before I left the UK. Jamie, in his previous life, was in the merchant navy. He was keen to tell me of life on the high-seas and what to look forward to. A significant element of enjoying life onboard was the evening socialising and entertainment. Before dinner officers (and sometimes their wives) would meet in the officers’ lounge for an aperitif and return later for some entertainment such as a quiz or film. My father, on his container ship crossing in 1986, recalled one ‘film night’ where Jaws was top of the bill. Now, officers and crew tend to spend downtime as me time with their entertainment provided on a personal laptop. In a similar vein, time in port used to be a 2-3-day affair, giving officers and crew time to leave the ship and relax on land. Now, with automation, the time it takes to offload/load a ship has drastically reduced to a matter of 6-7 hours. “The fun has gone with all this technology", the electrician told me, “there is no point of leaving the ship now as you don’t have enough time to do anything.”

And so it was that I found myself slowly making my way up the English Channel. It was probably the dirtiest stretch of water. When we passed through the Strait of Dover there was a disgusting brown smog hovering above France and the UK. The shipped docked in Antwerp just after midnight on 16th July after having spent the previous evening navigating the Westerschelde estuary. It was then just a short hop and skip by train to Cologne – the city I left sixty-three-days ago.

Port Lights / Antwerp (VAN) - BELGIUM