One day in the Officers’ Messroom we’d been talking about the Eurozone,
and I mentioned with a chuckle that I thought the recent soccer game between
Greece and Germany had been hilarious. Apparently,
that joke is not funny here.
But these European officers do not miss an opportunity to poke jabs at the
U.S. On another occasion, the 2nd
Engineer announced that one of the company ships was right then ablaze
somewhere off the Azores. A container of
hazardous material had somehow caught fire, and the crew was struggling to put
it out. The ship was now listing dangerously
as she limped back to port.
Of cohse, eet vas Amedikan cahgo,
he railed in his Teutonic English, thick and guttural. Zeece
Amedikans! Zey come up vit all zeez r-r-rules,
and zen, zey do not follow zem. Vun man
ist meecing. Vun man ist dead! How can zis be?
He asked me this as though I had checked my citizenship at the bottom
of the gangway before embarking in Oakland, and could therefore offer an
impartial opinion. But I could only nod,
mute under his penetrating glare. A
nation of scofflaws needs a lot of laws, I thought—but I kept it to myself.
Then again, on a tour of the Ship’s Office, the Ship’s Mate was
explaining how their automated heeling system pumps ballast from one side to
another as the ship is loaded, constantly straining to maintain the vertical while
at dock. I asked if the cargo couldn’t
be loaded in such a way as to equalize the load even as it’s being loaded.
Ja, zis can be done, but some
pohts zey vill not vork vit you. Amedikan
pohts, zey ah zee vurst. Vee ask zem to
load in a certain vay, vich zey do foh maybe vun owah—zen zey fuhget! Foh zem, eet ees all about f-r-reedahm. Zey vill load ze sheep howevuh zey vant. Foh me, I just vant ze sheep to stay upr-r-right!
Of course, I thought. The land
of the free…
A couple days later I asked how that crippled ship was faring. I was told she had made it into British
waters but was denied entry into port.
Turns out they have some rule about hazardous cargo that is not properly
contained.
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