Tims Times

One of the few times I went through the Suez Canal was when I served as a cadet on the VLCC (Very large crude carrier) Esso Hawaii back in 1993, before digital cameras but I had my trusty Olympus Trip camera with me, loaded for some reason with XP2 black and white film perhaps I was attempting to be arty or something. Anyway I only recently scanned in a lot of the negatives from that time, it’s only 15 years ago but it seems like a lifetime. My collage shows the “bum boats” being hoisted up to deck level, one of the bridge wings and the funnel and name plate of the VLCC Esso Hawaii. She ended up in the recycling yard/strand a few years ago so all that is left is the memories and the stamp in my discharge book.
These boats in the picture were filled with “boat men” whose job was to cause as much hassle as is humanly possible to the crew of a ship, and to moor the ship in the case of emergency, completely pointless on a ballasted VLCC with a 15 metre freeboard and only a few metres to spare on either side of the canal at the narrow parts. Every door on the ship was padlocked or locked access only for the crew, this was long before ISPS, the threat wasn’t terrorism (although we were terrorized for Marlboro) it was theft, there was a special cabin called the “Suez Canal Cabin” designated for these boatmen, a simple room with 4 double bunkbeds and a communal toilet, known as the WOG locker by the less politically correct members of the crew. It was a depressing enough cabin when empty, it was disgusting when full of people and afterwards the cleanout had to be done with high pressure hose and full chemical suit, the toilet not being used in a manner normal to western standards, because they didn’t use the flush function. This may be hard to believe that people would want to wade around in their own squalor but it happened.
The old man at the time probably brought a lot of the problems we had that transit down upon himself by trying to enforce the company policy of “no gratuities”, now anybody who has been through the canal knows that the bureaucratic lubrication comes in the form of cartons of Marlboro cigarettes, everyone who is anyone requires these before any further conversation will be entered into. The Pilots all 8 of them require cigarettes, the “Doctor”, the “Electrician” and “Port Authorities” all demanded them. The Doctor climbed onboard and put a stamp on the health declaration, the Electrician switched on the Suez Canal search light, the Port Authority collected more paperwork and the agent was there somewhere too, plus all the boatmen and all the other boats that flocked around like scavengers waiting for Marlboro. But the old man stuck to his guns and refused to open the bonded store, no cigarettes he bellowed to one poor unfortunate, nearly knocking him over. Well it nearly started the 1993 Suez Crisis, they were going to stop the ship and there was going to be delays, and it was most irregular. Eventually the old man pacified the pilots saying that they would be looked after, they received a paper bag with fly spray, a couple of cans of coke and a few bars of chocolate. I thought that one of them was going to bust a blood vessel at this outrage, the other one rolled out the prayer mat and started fervently praying on the bridge deck. So we were unpiloted for a few minutes that seemed like a very long time with the one pilot glowering at the old man and the other one giving it plenty on the prayer mat, eventually the old man had to give in, was it worth letting a VLCC ground in the canal and cause an international incident, no. So the cigarettes arrived and it was all sweetness, and the helm orders started again. A few years later I saw the complete opposite where the old man sat with a 5000 case of Marlboro and dished out left right and center, and we had no problems, he explained that the British pilots in the canal in the old days started the carton of cigarettes lark, so the Egyptians were not going to break such a tradition.
Because we were such a large ship we required many pilots and there were 4 sets of pilots in total, one pair to bring us into the canal, one pair for the upper section to the Bitter Lakes, another pair to Suez and the another pair for the voyage out of the canal, talk about jobs for the boys. All received the paper bag and Marlboro included, the old man was very annoyed that he had to give in to the pilots so he was marching around like a bull with a headache, sweat stains under his arms and forehead clenched with rage, all cadets had to scatter to avoid the wrath, shit rolls downhill. He wasn’t happier when the 3rd mate suddenly asked one of the pilots if “that the airfield the one where the Israelis bombed the shit out of the Egyptian airforce?” More silence a near diplomatic incident and Marlboro dished out, and the 3rd mate had a black shin for weeks afterwards from the kick he got from the mate trying to shut him up.
More from the photo archive later.