Welcome to Brooklyn - 1966

I have always said that Devis was the happiest ship I ever sailed on, and it’s probably true; but Viajero was not far behind. Certainly, of all the places I have been on earth, the Amazon experience is up there with the best of them. Viajero was built in Hamburg in 1957, powered by an eight cylinder four-stroke 1500 horse power MAN diesel engine which after the brutish B and W engine on Devis was a pleasure to behold.

Pier One, Brooklyn - 45 years younger and about 20 kg lighter

I arrived in at Pier One, Brooklyn on a cold day in November 1966 as the most junior of the four engineers on board. Geoff Laws, the new third engineer from Keighley in Yorkshire had arrived a day or two earlier on Queen Mary and it wasn’t long before I joined Geoff and the second engineer, Frank Stinchcombe from Bristol in the regular haunt for all Booth Line engineers when in Brooklyn, a local bar and grill about 50 yards from the dock gates.

I sailed with many extraordinary individuals during my time at sea, but of these, Frank was probably the most remarkable. Known to all as The Saint, he was about 45 years old, as skinny as a rake with a face only a mother would love and could mix a Cuba Libre like no one I have met before or since.

(I urge you to follow the Perfect Cuba Libre link, to learn how to make and mix the perfect rum and coke, Stinchcombe-style).
All deck and engine room officers that joined Booth Line for the Amazon service signed on for a year (four round trips from New to Iquitos).  Frank had done two trips and had been on board for six months. It was in New York that all major repair and maintenance work was done during the one or two weeks it took to provision and load the vessel prior to the journey south.
The ship's engineers had a great working relationship with the Brooklyn dockside maintenance crew. I can’t remember the names of the local guys, but it was my first time in the US and where better to begin an education in US culture than Brooklyn, New York. The local bar was called Otto’s and it was here that I became familiar with their signature dish, an epicurean delight known as an ale and chicken dinner (a pot of Schlitz beer with a pickled egg chaser). It was considered de rigueur to drop one's egg shells on the floor where it would quickly become lost among the sawdust and other particulate matter which collected beneath our bar stools.

Booth Line had half a dozen or so ships running up the Amazon from New York. All the ships had Spanish names beginning with “V” (Viajero, Venimos, Veloz, Vamos) The three month run would take us south through the Caribbean on to Belém at the mouth of the river and 3,000 miles along the river to Iquitos in Peru. We would be spending six weeks on the river each trip, and I couldn't wait.
First we would be dipping into the Caribbean islands and our first port was to be St Kitts. I was excited at the prospect of visiting these island nations for the first time. As a stamp collector in my youth names like Barbados, St Vincent, Dominica and Grenada filled me with visions of pirate ships, plantation owners, sun, palm trees and of course, cricket.
Only a few years had elapsed since the very first tied cricket test in Brisbane in 1960 between Australia and the West Indies and the images of the smiling black giant, Wesley Hall, crucifix swinging from his neck as he thundered in to bowl is one that all cricket lovers remember. I was then in the second week of my apprenticeship as a mechanical fitter at the local brewery (The First Job - Cairns 1960) and the memory of us all clustered around the tiny transistor radio which hung from a nail in the workshop storeman's little room, listening to the ABC commentary is as vivid today as it was then. Now I was on my way to the West Indies and the home of cricket, rum, and calypso.
Viajero was quite a small vessel and it was the first ship I had sailed on where all the accommodation was in the after part of the ship rather than midships.  This provided better access to the cargo from smaller wharves with limited unloading facilities typical of the small islands and river ports we would encounter, but it made the going a little rough in poor weather and we certainly encountered quite a bit of that in our first couple of days out of New York as we headed south through blustery North Atlantic conditions.
Viajero had a Barbadian crew and the warmth of their personalities and their love of music and celebration was everything I had expected. We had a steel band and once we were away from the constraints of the work and the weather, we were able to watch them fashion their instruments from cut down 44 gallon (200 litre) empty fuel drums.  The bass pans were made from the whole drum and tenor and baritone pans were made by cutting the drum in quarters and halves.  As the weather became warmer, the band could be found on the poop deck every afternoon playing songs like Peanut Vendor and My Pussin - songs that made you want to dance and clap your hands. The third engineer, big Geoff did just that – he was always there, leaning against the capstan banging a couple of claves together in time to the music and generally making sure he was part of the fun.
I had the feeling that I was going to enjoy the next twelve months - I wasn't disappointed.

To read more - jump ahead to A Really Big River.
 

Ownership

I caught up with an old fishing friend the other day who happened to be in town.  A lovely fellow, he endeared himself to me even further by making complimentary remarks about this blogsite saying how he liked the writing style and one or two of the anecdotes.  However (there is always an however), knowing how opinionated I can be when among friends, he wondered whether I was ever intending to make use of this apparently newly discovered talent to voice a few opinions of my own.
The problem here friends, is that I do have a few strongly held views, and am not above sharing them over a glass of quality red, but some of them may not always be the same as those held by colleagues and business associates; and opinions, contentious or otherwise, once aired in a forum such as this, have a habit of staying around for a long time.  OK, maybe I am being just a bit theatrical and pompous, but there it is.
So you are unlikely to hear me sounding off about my political proclivities, or my views on abortion and gay marriage (ok, I'll give you that one - I'm with Clint Eastwood on the gay marriage bit) - nor am I likely to enter into a debate on religious convictions.
However, there is one issue which has been bugging me for a long time, which I need to get off my chest - and that concerns this whole Australian-owned thing.
Recently I changed address, and in so doing decided it was a good time to combine our supply of gas and electricity under the one provider.  Now there are no doubt many providers of these services in the town where I live, but of the two suppliers who seem to have most of the market, one is an Australian company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and employing about 2,000 staff.  The other is owned by a Chinese public company and of its 6,000 employees, about 1,000 of them are in Australia.
The argument, subsequently placed before me, was to question why, all others things being equal (which of course they never are), I would choose as my service provider a company which was foreign owned and which would thus export all of their profits off shore - to China no less. 
Now here's my point.  Why does it matter, whether the shareholders of these companies acquired their stock in Hong Kong or Australia.  I have no way of knowing where they actually call home.  The Australian company's top twenty shareholders (about 40% to 50% of all the shares in the company) include HSBC Nominees, Citibank Nominees and several other overseas owned shareholder funds.  As an aside, it is worth noting that our big four Australian banks also number several overseas owned shareholder funds among their top shareholders - and why shouldn't they?  Our Aussie banks are established, well regulated, sound conservative investments and contribute a lot to why Australia has such a solid and stable economy.  If I were an overseas investor, looking for a safe haven for my money, and were given the choice of an American, a Scottish or an Australian banking institution, I don't think I would have to go to Robert Gottliebsen or Alan Kohler to help me decide!
No my real point, is that both of these organisations employ significant Australian workforces - and that, to me is what is important.
When I hear this buy Australian-owned winge, my mind goes back about fifteen or twenty years to when French and British companies first began to take an interest in Australian water infrastructure projects and waste management operations.  I was working for an Australian owned engineering company at the time, which has since been acquired by a large US group, and continues to thrive as a global business with Australian managers from that business now working on major projects all around the world.  I attended a presentation at the offices of one of the major municipal water authorities.  The briefing was being held for companies interested in participating in the building and operating of water treatment plants which would meet the State's objective of enhancing the quality of drinking water in its major city.  Most of the major construction companies were there: Leighton, Transfield, Concrete Construction, Lend Lease and many others.  There were also many international water groups present, including Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, and the French companies of Veolia and Suez (although they were known by different names then).  During the briefing, one of the local Australian manufacturers asked the question, "Why do we need to buy from the British and the French when we have perfectly good local technology here in Australia?"  I will never forget, the impromptu response from the fellow who was there on behalf of one of the major international companies.  He was (and is) a well known Australian engineering manager, who had been on the construction contracting scene for many years.  He leaned back in his seat, looked back over his shoulder at the questioner and said in the strongest Aussie accent, "Do you mean Frenchmen like me?"  
This is what is at the heart of the issue.  It was of course, a perfectly reasonable question for the local manufacturer to ask, but if we are going to continue to participate as a global economy (and we clearly have little choice in this unless we revert to the old ways of restrictive, mind-numbing protectionist trade practices), then we must recognise that the best option is to participate and share our innovation and ingenuity with the world.
A few years ago, I was one of about 3,000 local employees working for a French-owned waste management company and there is absolutely no doubt that our ability to provide a high quality sustainable resource recovery and management service was enhanced by our access to global resources and technology, and global research budgets.
So I don't support the hypocrisy of "Australian owned", particularly while we are so keen to export our own products and innovative ideas, and sell our own resources into the global market place.  I will support local manufacture, (why would we want to buy our cheese or our wine from anywhere else - except perhaps New Zealand occasionally), but please don't send anyone knocking on my door, asking me to buy Australian owned products because I'm not sure that I will believe it anyway.

The Perfect Cuba Libre

I've been wanting to tell this little story for a long time.  I'm jumping ahead I know and I will return to Viajero in Brooklyn, I promise. Meanwhile please indulge me while I add to my Amazon memories this little piece of nostalgia...

On that first trip south from New York, en-route to Brazil we meandered through the Caribbean, through the gentle Leeward and Windward Islands of St Kitts, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenada. Sometimes we stopped for no more than two or three hours, other times it was a couple of days. Each island had its own special flavour and atmosphere.  The docks were often right in the centre of the main town, and contrasted from sleepy little colonial towns sitting between the hills and the bay like Basseterre at St Kitts to the bustling French-Creole atmosphere of Point-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe.

The most memorable stopover and always thereafter my favourite port of call was Bridgetown, Barbados. I clearly remember the first time I was there - it was November 30th 1966, the day Barbados ceased being a British colony and became a self-governing state. It is now of course, the date celebrated in Barbados every year as Independence Day. The country had a new flag, a new Prime Minister and something to sing and dance about and we spent the best part of a week joining in with them.
Soon we were all singing God Bless Bim and wearing shirts in the colours of the flag. Our second engineer, Frank Stinchcombe, known to all as the Saint was in his element – and it was here that I was to see him at his best when it came to creating the perfect Cuba Libre.
After a day working below, on whatever tasks needed doing while in port, Geoff and I would meet in the Saint’s cabin at about 4 PM. “Come in, m’dears,” he would say in his rich west country accent.
Tall and bony he would be seated bare-chested at his desk in his second engineer’s cabin with Emile Straker and The Merrymen invariably cranking out Archie from his HMV turntable. He would swivel towards us in his grubby khaki shorts, train driver’s peaked cap perched on the back of his head and peering at us through his National Health spectacles he would say, "you're just in time for some liquid refreshment". 
Geoff would be in an equally grubby white t-shirt and shorts, with me a shorter and smaller version of the same. Having left our engine room shoes at the top of the hatchway, we would enter in our socks and sit opposite him on his day-bed sofa taking care not to soil his furniture any more than it already was.
He kept a fine silver ice bucket on his desk from which he would delicately select one or two cubes of ice using fine tongs set aside specifically for the purpose. He would carefully drop each cube into crystal Old Fashioned glasses, always kept for such occasions. Next, he would open his desk drawer and reverently take out a bottle of the very finest Mt Gay Eclipse Rum which he would open and generously splash over the ice. He followed this by taking a lime from a fruit bowl on his desk and using a sharp paring knife would cut it into three segments which would be dropped into each glass. This was followed by a liberal measure of Coca Cola poured from a freshly opened can.
Finally with a flourish he would pull a ten inch screwdriver from his pocket, wipe it down with a piece of grubby cotton waste which had been sticking out of his back pocket all day and gently stir the contents of each glass as though he were at the Rivoli Bar in the Ritz.
Nothing before, or since, has ever tasted so good. Cheers to you Frank!