I was a seafarer for a while, I remember it was 2004, I went to Solomon, I was transporting wood. Time has passed so long that I can't remember clearly. Take your time back to the memories
The ship had not yet reached the waters of Solomon, and the captain gave us all a meeting overnight, saying, "Everyone, if you can't fight back, if you don't fight back, if you don't fight back... In the face of the local old black, you must always keep smiling. Because a Chinese crew member had an argument with a local black man, he was stabbed to death. Some people said below that a few years ago, a Chinese ship came to Solomon to load goods, a black child ran to the kitchen to steal something to eat, the chef caught and hit a few times, and then the black tribe fried the pan, all kinds of small boats surrounded the freighter, dead or alive to kill the chef. There is no embassy here, and the local agent can't shock the gang, so they take care of a diver for peace, pretend to throw the chef into the sea, and then the diver follows underground, so as to save the chef's life. They may also be saying, "Friends come with good wine, if the jackal comes, there is a shotgun for it" ...
The ship dropped anchor in the agreed area of loading, and immediately came a dinghy, a few old blacks, carrying AKs on their backs. It is to collect the parking fee, don't misunderstand, people are local government representatives, including water diversion, people are public families. You have to give money and pay the water diversion fee when you stop the boat at the person's house, and you have to give money when you stop the boat at the person's house, we all understand and prepare it early, and they don't want much. Annoyingly, the gang was sent away, and soon another group of people came asking for money, and we explained to them that they had already given money, and the gang was also very reasonable, saying, "Your ship, the bow of the ship is in the sea area managed by the gang, and the stern is in the sea area we manage... So you have to give" There's no way to give money. Later, the cargo owner and the shipowner contacted the local agent and found a black buddy to stay on the ship, in order to avoid us being blackmailed again.
We loaded wood in Solomon for two months, and we had no experience, thinking that when we arrived at the port, we would fill it up and return. Actually, no, it's all small islands. The boats could only be parked at anchorages, and the locals transported wooden boats little by little, little by little.
When I arrived at the first loading point, I also slept all night, there were local black workers on the boat, they set up bunks in the living area, and some people knocked on my door, looking for me to smoke, there was no way because in the country has long prepared a lot of fake cigarettes and fake wine, one or two dollars a box of cigarettes is not worth much, casually throw them a few can be quiet half a night.
At dawn, our boat was bustling, all kinds of small boats, small sampans, canoes, with wives and children came, the deck and living area on the first floor became a market, black people with all kinds of seafood in their hands, wood carvings, and you exchanged tobacco, wine, cola, chewing gum, and wind oil essence flower dew were all sought-after goods. They are also very obedient, the second floor is not up, I know that it is the cadre crew, just on the first floor of the living area. I used two bottles of thirty dollars a box of liquor to pay back ten lobsters. With a tight vest that had been worn for half a year, he returned a macaw and a crown white parrot, but none of them were later fed. At that time, it may be that the black brother stationed on our ship was their local social person, the old black would not rob it when he got on the ship, nor would he steal it in the room, but I once put a white half sleeve on the deck, and one of the workers immediately took it away, and also handed over the sleeve, and then dressed in a big way and dangled in front of my eyes. What he meant was that you have sleeves, and I don't have sleeves for this one.
The black workers at our first loading point were indeed a bit miserable, their clothes were said to be old clothes donated by the United Nations, and they looked sloppy, and they were a bit simply lower-body. I didn't see anything, I wanted cigarettes and alcohol, I was lazy at work, I procrastinated, and I was very annoying. Even the leftovers in our restaurant are not right.
Returned the second loading point, the workers who came up did not expect, the quality is a lot higher, the appearance is not so dark and dark, a bit like the Black of the Indonesians, the clothes are also neat, the bunk is also a bit of their own camp bed, do not eat our leftovers, and rarely reach for things, our ship's agent black brothers said, many of the people in this place are Japanese houyi, love to be clean, the Japanese government also gave them some help. I said, the little devils hybridized out, take a closer look, it is really a bit like a devil, not very tall... Ha ha
We stayed in Solomon for two whole months, stopping at a larger island with water, and that island had towns, and we went around for a while, not daring to go far. At that time, the overseas Chinese who came up, that is, the Chinese who opened a shop in the local area, they came to our ship to buy rice, they said that Solomon's local rice, too unpalatable, like eating the rice of the motherland, want to buy some...
At that time, I was a seafarer for the first time, and I didn't know how to make money. One day, a few black people actually brought a crocodile that was more than two meters long. I was frightened, we have a Qingdao three tracks, know the goods, with four boxes of liquor plus a few bottles of six gods of flower dew, in exchange for it, but with the old black said, as long as the skin does not want meat, the old black is really fierce, three under five divided by two, got the crocodile, the skin gave the three tracks, the meat they happily took home the wine... On this crocodile skin, the three tracks returned to Qingdao to sell 20,000, that is 2004, Tianjin to buy a single is only 50,000.
The black people there basically had knives on their bodies, and they were all good at using knives. Because our food was almost eaten, the local agent contacted us with a batch of food to send to the ship, including a black pig of more than two hundred pounds, and I looked like a wild boar alive. We were all confused that this should be done, the black delivery said, they managed to kill. Look at them killing pigs really sharply, a few people took sticks to force the pigs to the corners of the back deck, beat them to death, and then the gasoline barrel made boiling water, broke the stomach and peeled the skin, and it didn't take long for us to hand over the lean meat with body temperature... Of course, the pigs' heads belonged to them, and they had to give them a few bottles of Chinese liquor, and they went directly to the back deck BBQ.
During the two months I was there, my life was very regular, watching the workers work during the day, certifying all kinds of transactions, exchanges, including the agent to find a little black girl for the captain, and helping the captain learn foreign languages one-on-one in the room for several hours. At night, it is basically fishing, people really zero pollution, the sea is clear you dare not imagine. At night, the headlights hit the surface of the sea, and all the fish came over, how big the hook was, how big the fish was caught. I went to this kind of raw hand, all caught a fish of more than five pounds and don't know what to do, one of our three pairs in the northeast is too greedy, and made a kingfish hook to hang a small half a pound of beef. As a result, the hook was bitten, several people could not pull it, and finally found that it was a large ray with power generation on the shelter, which was more than one than one by one, and did not come up at all, and lost a piece of meat in vain...
There was also an accident, an old sailor in his fifties, fell from the wood, his head was broken, in fact, it was not serious, the leader asked me to take him to the hospital on the island to bandage it. The agent contacted the speedboat. I and the sailor took the speedboat to the big island not far away, I was small, and put my hand in the sea to feel the speed of the speed of the speed of the speed, the black man who drove the boat quickly reminded me to take it up, and pointed to not far away, the small light bulb looming on the surface of the water said, It is not a lamp, on the crocodile's eyes. It almost didn't scare me to death. When we got to Oshima, because of the night lighting, a lot of black people took us to the hospital with flashlights, and the so-called hospital was a wooden house, and the doctor inside was an Asian face, as if he were a volunteer of the United Nations. Just bandage and give a few pills, because she only has a few pills...
There are still many interesting stories during this period, and my brain time has been too long to be connected. I'll add it later
Finally, let's talk about the day we finished loading and prepared to leave Solomon, and we were blackmailed again. On that day, solomon customs had to get on the ship to check, there was nothing to check, there was nothing to smuggle in this place, but the customs officers still detained us, and they all complained that our chief engineer and old man loved to raise flowers, and did not know where to dig up a pot of plants and raise them in their own pots. The brothers of Solomon Customs told us that this is their country's protected plant, we are all smuggling to protect the plant situation The problem is serious, the captain is also stupid, there is not much reserve money to wear, the agent told them that these grandsons actually want the insecticidal water in our storeroom. You may not understand that insecticidal water and the flower dew water I mentioned above are so valuable, and you must understand that in that tropical island country, the number of insects, especially mosquitoes and flies, is not something you can imagine. These are hard currency. Geese plucked their hair, customs emptied our warehouses, they were much more powerful than the mob...
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In that place, there are all kinds of parrots on the island, green and red, white, old black to exchange wine with you, the whole world old black is good to drink, the higher the degree, the better. The old crew said that if these parrots could be brought back to Tianjin, they could only sell for thousands, especially if there was a kind of white hair and a small crown on the head, which could sell for five thousand, so we all went to change parrots, and everyone had several. But when the return voyage is stupid, these parrots only eat the local papaya, papaya feeding is gone, they can only feed rice, a large number of parrots diarrhea, and then died, returned to the voyage for 64 days to Zhangjiagang, there were 7 parrots alive, my all dead
Don't ask us why, don't feed parrot vegetables, because we don't have any vegetables to eat, come back for 64 days, eat nothing, we eat butter fried pickle shreds and rice every day, or fry some gnocchi with onion soy sauce...
As for the water, because Solomon added water is too expensive, dare not add more, we sailed back to the best week on the limit of water, a person a day on two small buckets of water, washing and drinking, water is pressurized water, that water quality, at least to settle for a few hours before it is transparent... I regret it, I went to exchange lobster and papaya beer with old black Coke, if only I stayed...
Someone asked me after reading it, aren't crocodile-skinned parrots that are bold enough to protect animals, and you really dare to sell them. I just stated the facts, I caught up with a tail, before the seafarers are having this convenience to bring things to the country, children do not know the Tanggu foreign goods market, but have seen "I am not a medicine god", how the medicine inside is brought in, is not the ship's chef put in the vegetable warehouse meat warehouse. As soon as the food on the ship is maintained for a month, thousands of pounds of vegetables and meat side dishes, food warehouses are piled up into hills, how to check the customs, basically do not check. They basically only recognize money, especially the customs of these countries in Southeast Asia. We abhor corruption, and we are only facing a private black-box operation at home. Twenty years ago, the customs of these small countries in Southeast Asia were really bold, as long as the ship docked at port, they must carry a few empty handbags, that is, briefcases that can hold a lot of things. As soon as I entered the captain's room, I sat there, and began to slowly and leisurely look at the ship's certificate documents, and what kind of cargo list, I didn't quite understand, in short, the documents that needed their stamps, and the briefcase they brought was always open. At this time, the captain had to let people stuff things into it, of course, not using the fake cigarettes and fake wine we used to deceive the black brothers, all real guys, Marlboro three or five Liqun soft China, the wine must be at least Jack Daniels Hennessy and the like, do not dare to fool them. Until they filled these bags, they read them with the afterglow, and they were satisfied, they were successfully stamped, no one dared to go around them, and they would not go from house to house to check. Indonesia Filipino Vietnam is the most rampant, as well as Thailand Malaysia are like that, Singapore is more disciplined.
But I am talking only about the big head entering the port, when you dock in the port, these customs leaders will also give you a fishing law enforcement, very simple, for example, Indonesia is a Muslim country to ban alcohol, they will find someone to play the worker, look for us to buy wine, if you sell it to him, then you will be deceived, the customs law enforcement officers will appear on the scene, they will take you away, but don't panic, give them twenty or thirty knives, then it will pass, experienced crew members will never sell their wine in places like Indonesia, that is, deceitful and greedy rookies. Therefore, compared with them, Solomon Customs, which deceived us into many boxes of insecticidal water, is already very benevolent.
The life of seafarers is very boring, and if they have a heart to earn money, they often buy some small animals, one is to relieve boredom, and the other is to make money. A mechanic in Indonesia spent ten dollars to buy a monkey, bigger than the hand, short tail, long very good-looking, anyway I have not seen this in the water park, the mechanic said that this thing must earn money to bring back to the country, we raised it for several months, from Indonesia to Malaysia to Solomon, the customs came in order to fear that it will make a move, to the cabin a hidden you put it, our ship, 35,000 tons, the main engine is four stories high, the cabin hides dozens of sheep and no one finds it, let alone a monkey.
That monkey, a few months later back to Zhangjiagang, as soon as the boat arrived at the anchorage, there was a small boat to come up to do business and collect things, the monkey first brother came out three thousand, and then came a brother out of four thousand, the two almost fought, and then sold to the first person, the mechanic earned money, to Yangzhou to invite me to eat and then take a bath...
There is also a tragedy, there is a small sailor on the ship also got a puppy on the boat, said that it is also a precious breed, that buddy likes sneakers, from Singapore got a lot of said to be very valuable sneakers, did not expect, this puppy did not look at, the shoes are bitten, grinding teeth, and so this buddy found, has not been saved, buddy anxious even the sneakers in enough, are thrown in the sea, I did not stop, watching the puppy fluttering in the sea, I am still very uncomfortable, must also play with it for a while... Alas, it was all its destiny.
I said fake cigarettes and fake liquor, is the cheap shop wholesale, cigarettes and liquor, I remember in Zhenjiang bought a cigarette called "Shimen", less than two dollars a box, and "Stone Forest", the outer packaging is exactly the same, is the cottage smoke, I do not smoke, bought in order to change things, black brothers seem to be Chinese tobacco, they told me that the tobacco leaf is secondary, can also smoke. As for the wine, the higher the degree, the better, the best is what Moutai town so-and-so wine, a few dollars a bottle, there is a strong line, black people like this, are called Chinese Husky.
In fact, many Solomon black people are still very friendly, just arrived there, a black child, into our restaurant, collecting our restaurant ready to pour out the leftovers, is a teenager, by me to meet, scared to turn around and want to run, I look very pitiful, went into the kitchen to give him a small pot of stewed ribs. The child thanked me for saying more than a hundred thank you
The next day came again, got me a lot of papaya, I especially like to eat papaya in China, the supermarket sold a dozen pieces of a pound at that time, I was touched bad, just a little leftovers Later the child came a few times to bring me bananas Coconut, I talked to him, the child had to row for two hours at a time, I gave him stewed ribs Braised pork were brought back to his sick grandmother to eat. I was touched badly.
Later, when I got off the boat and turned around, I knew that the island was full of papaya coconuts and bananas, and there was no cost to the child, but this filial piety also made me admire. The children of the poor have long been in charge
It has been said that you have returned from Solomon for sixty days. Haha, when I came back, I drove for 60 days, unloaded in Yangzhou, pulled wood, the center of gravity was unstable, the ship was not fast, the big ship pulled wood was the easiest to overturn, and the good boats and new ships were not willing to continue to plant. Our thirty-year-old large bulk carrier, with five or six miles of wind and about ten miles of full load, is the limit. That's five to ten nautical miles in an hour. I forgot if it was the time to pull the wood back, or another voyage, but also a full load to return, in Filipin, there was a typhoon in front, the ship did not dare to cross the Bashi Strait, waiting behind the typhoon, the cargo owner urged the emergency, the captain risked death from the side of the typhoon. That night I will never forget, more than thirty thousand tons of large ships, like a small leaf, a bow in the sea, a moment out, a dozen levels of wind, pots and pans on the ship, all the things that are not fixed, all flew up, the refrigerator rushed at you, about to shoot you, and went back. Don't talk about sleeping, it's difficult to lie on your stomach. I could only wear a life jacket, sit in the aisle of the living area, feet against the wall, leaning against the wall, so confused for a night, hoping that our nearly thirty-year-old host would not stop, and the parking car would be completely finished. A few short and a long, I forgot, and when I heard it, I abandoned the ship. The old sailor told me that if I abandon the boat, get on the life raft, don't get on the lifeboat, in fact, I can't figure out which is which... Seafarers are not sightseeing in the mountains, eating and drinking, but they are desperate to do their jobs
In those years, many freighters of private companies were bought from abroad as scrap iron, returned to China, and did a set of fake procedures. Our Elizabeth, which I know is a German ship from 76 years old, was also bought by a Shanghai company at a low price from abroad. After a few months of repairing in Qingdao, I got a set of formalities certificates, and I didn't dare to run around the world The farthest trip to the Solomon Islands was this.
Some people question whether it is legal for seafarers to carry goods, how to say it, this is also a historical problem. The first time I got on the boat, I was catching up with the alkali noodles, and there were tens of thousands of tons, all of which were white noodles from generation to generation. I watched them loading and unloading, I thought here if there is a package of heroin mixed or something, how to check, no one reported, you know which bag is this and a certain old willow problem is similar, can't say clearly...
It was written earlier that we buy crocodile skins and buy monkeys. In fact, ivory also has someone to take just we run Southeast Asia, ivory is not so cheap, Tianjin Ocean Company in 00 years a boat to Africa, a few brothers got some ivory back, playing cards on the ship, a sailor and the captain had a little conflict, to Shanghai on the phone to report, the result was from the ship to find a ton of ivory, the captain sentenced for several years. In the same boat, one boat, we must have the same experience.
Because it has been almost twenty years, I dare to say something I have, just like my nonsense. In fact, guns were also bought, at that time very young to Thailand, the agent contact car to play in Bangkok, there are gun shops in the year, we are a few in our twenties who do not understand the law and are naïve, went, all want to buy a play. As a result, it is really expensive to go in and ask, and the most important thing is that it takes more than ten days to get the gun, and two local shop guarantees are needed, that is, the guarantor. As soon as we saw that there was no drama, we came out.
At this time, a small black man with a height of less than one meter and six came out of the alley, and he spoke a meal of English to us, I certainly couldn't understand it, we had a shanghai three pairs, good English, after listening to us and saying, "This buddy asked us if we want to buy a gun, he has." I was timid at the time, and I also reminded my brothers that it was not a fairy jumping. The third pair said, "What are you afraid of, we have three or four big guys, this is the city again, go and see... Entering the alley, the black brothers took out a tarpaulin bag, which was wrapped in a large revolver, really bright and quite heavy, I had never seen that. The third pair said that this black brother was a deserter from the Philippines, there was a war there, this gun was used in the military, there was a number on it, he did not dare to sell it to the locals, he thought it was safe to sell us. Then they bargained, and finally I remember that three pairs cost 800 knives to take down, and everyone said yes, no one needs to say it.
Later, when the ship started, when we got to the high seas, we all itched, let the three pairs go to the back deck, let us put two shots, he was very angry, he shot two shots himself, he said that the bullets were specially made, just a small box, without bullets, it would be worthless to go back. Then he took a vacation, who knows how much he sold back or kept it for himself... The above is all my nonsense, everyone listen, I just want to explain, in the same boat, just such a big space, a life for more than a year, as long as your personality is not particularly strange soon there will be brothers around, plus at that time there will not even be WeChat, maybe a voyage down, no longer different ships, maybe not.
In fact, you, I have written so much, not that I can write much, I am a person who has nothing to write as a foundation. Just seeing Solomon's riots and remembering some old memories, I will let you talk about it, and everyone will listen to it.
Some people say that you are seeking perfection abroad and let you write with relish, which is really a shame Chinese face. Alas, to be honest, to tell the truth, if you think I am humiliated, then what should we do, in order to earn dignity and be tough with the old black, we go out to run the boat to make money, to be in the domestic physique, comfortable and have a good job, who comes out to play this life, why do we have to compete with the black people again, for the face of the Chinese, that is the work of the wolf.
Don't associate everything with national righteousness and politics, that is, the common people.
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I have mentioned more than once the Solomon trip when I was a seafarer. That time, because they had no experience, the loading stayed there for two months. And Solomon was a place where there was no way to replenish materials, and the water was expensive, and the same was true for other materials. We replenished some rice before we left for the return voyage, or the kind of local rice that was slender and long, similar to indica rice. The entire return voyage lasted nearly sixty days. We, the Elizabeth E, are a 76-year-old old boss, with a maximum speed of 8 knots downwind, because of the loading of a ship of wood, the center of gravity is unstable, and we dare not drive too fast, and walk slowly. Even so, the auxiliary aircraft broke down several times, one of which stopped the ship for a day. That time the freezer was also affected, and the few frozen meat left was almost gone. There are often problems with this freezer, the meat inside, frozen and frozen. When I saw them in the kitchen, they were already green, and the chef was still trying to add more soy sauce. So in the last half month, the people on the boat did not dare to eat, those meat, there is surplus grain back to the house to eat instant noodles, no, that is, fried bean sprouts and foreign rice without rice flavor. Later, the soybeans were gone. Even the oil was gone, and we ate for several days in a row, sautéing shredded pickles in butter with rice. I said before that during that time, a person had two buckets of water a day for domestic use, or pressurized water, similar to muddy water, which needed to be precipitated to drink. It was almost half a month later, and my favorite food at that time was that the chef used butter and flour to live together, make gnocchi, and then stir-fry with soy sauce pickles.