No, this is not about that fine book by Annie Proulx. This is one of those 'six degrees of separation' thingies. And one of those 'if a butterfly beats its wings in the Amazon' thingies.
So Nick G is on an island-bound ferry and bumps into a M, who works for a shipping company on the Big Island. So far, so good.
As well as her regular grind, M, it turns out, has been dealing with the collateral damage that happens when a very big container ship runs aground on the coast of Mexico.
Among the customers who had cargo on the grounded vessel is one who had a container-full of frozen Thai shrimp. Sure enough, the refrigeration soon went down.
The shrimps? They gently cooked as they sat in the container that sat on the ship that sat on the sea-washed sands that sat on the sun-bathed coast of Mexico.
Result? Extra paperwork, phone calls and emails for the harried Ms M.
But ship ran aground, you say? Turns out it is one of those huge 550ft-long, ocean-going behemoths that weigh 15,000 tons and carry 30,000 tons of cargo. Takes five miles to stop, etc.
Unless you run it onto a beach, that is.
Or, rocks.
Usual story: sailing under an Antigua and Barbuda flag, owned by a company based in Bremen, Germany, chartered by a global transportation company, APL. The 25 men board were also an international group with the captain and officers from Croatia, first engineer from Poland, crew from Myanmar (Burma).
The ship went aground at Ensenada, Mexico.
On Christmas Day.
Christmas Day? Too much Christmas cheer? Who knows?
San Diego Union-Tribune is covering the story:
Tugboats tug and pull (14 January 2006)
Crew's Testimony (23 January 2006)
After helicopters, plan B (9 February 2006)
Another view: Gringo Gazette North
It's rough out there, the cruel sea. Plus, there are all sorts working the shipping lanes. A year or so ago New York Review of Books carried a review of a book about that -- The Outlaw Sea: Chaos and Crime on the World's Oceans, by William Langewiesche
The NYRB review is now in its pay-per-view archive. No matter. The book was very recently reviewed in the Guardian by Nicholas Lezard: the wide anarchic sea
Thanks for the news, Nick G!
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