EXCERPT FROM THE DAILY LEVEL # 5

Saturday, September 5 , 1998

THE PARROT STORY

Sea Level, N.C., July 27, 1998

...I was captain on this big supertanker...I had been chief mate of her and then the captain got off and I relieved him.... and, we were running for the Persian Gulf to Japan...now, the ship is so big, that she can't go into an American shipyard...we paid our crews off in Japan and took our annual inspection in Japan, because there was not an American shipyard in nineteen sixty-two that could take this ship into port, and do the work on it...they did it in Japan...everytime we came into Japan, most of the crew wanted to get off...around the Persian Gulf... there's no shore leaf in the Persian Gulf...one night in Sapporo, Japan and one night in Yokohama.....the guy that had to stand watch got sick, he wanted to see the doctor... so, they get ashore and the guys that got ashore, never came back ....I paid off a chief officer, and the chief officers kept getting off the ship in Yokohama...one of the main reasons they got off is, that this ship drew fifty foot of water loaded ....and they put her in a dock at Ras Tanura, Arabia, that only had forty-two foot of water alongside at high tide...so, we would load the ship to forty foot, then we had to get the last ten foot of cargo in...in order to get it in, we had to load it forty-thousand barrels an hour, and top off the tanks to come right up to the deck, and almost get a full load...there's very few chief officers that can handle cargo that fast...they come out the United States, and they are used to loading at twenty-thousand barrels an hour, and top it off about six-thousand...so the ship was a monstrosity to load...so, we come in to Ras Tanura, Arabia, load the forty feet, wait till the tide starts coming in and you can bring it up, and all the mates are quit... we got a mate in our union that has sleeping sickness ...in fact, he sued the Masters, Mates and Pilots for not shipping him out when he got a fit for duties from Marine Hospital...you know, they had a Marine fit-for-duty slip, and the Marine Hospital would keep him a couple of weeks, and then want his bed, and say...'hey, we can do nothing for this guy'... they threw him out... but he'd fall asleep standing up, he'd fall asleep sitting at the table, eating...so, he comes aboard as my chief officer....now, I got to have a chief officer to sail from Yokohama, and I can't get another one, so I take the guy....I know his problem but I take him....he's a good administrator, he could tell the bosun what work to do and maintaining the ship and everything like that, he was a good man....a jewish boy named Bernie....anyway, Bernie come aboard and he's sort of an eccentric ...he wants to sleep on the floor, put tatamis 1) in his room and all that, he's just a character ...anyway, he buys a parrot in Yokohama, he goes aboard with a parrot on his shoulder... ...we get down the Persian Gulf and the second mate missed the ship, so the two third mates are standing, six on and six off, because I can't put Bernie out on watch, he'd fall asleep on the bridge, he falls asleep at the dinner table...the poor guy has got a problem...so, we get out to load cargo...Bernie's got one of the third mates down here on watch with him, and he's down there, sitting on a valve with the parrot on his shoulder ...like this ....and I say, all those mates are tired, they been standing six at six, and they're looking in that tank, getting all gassed up, and Bernie got up there, looking in the tank, and he'd probably fall asleep and fall in the ullage cap...so I better get down and help him, which I been doing every trip, helping the mates get the cargo in, which they resent very much...'what's the Captain doing down here?'...besides that, I'm supposed to go ashore and clear the ship at Riyadh...if I'm loading cargo, I can't do that, and they won't let anyone represent the captain, only the captain go ashore, so...it was a problem...I get down there with them loading the ship, and here's the chief officer sitting on a valve...he's got a sailor at this valve here and a sailor at this valve here...when the tank is full, they close the valve and open this one up on another tank...he's got them all in position...sitting there with the parrot on his shoulder....well, the ship had beams that were three foot below the deck... when the oil hit that beam, that was a sign to start turning the valves off, because it takes twenty-two turns on one of them valves... to turn the valves down, it was kind of hard, hauling oil and everything, and the man really has to pull hard to turn the valves down, so it's a slow process to open up, the other one is a slow process, so you start to get about three feet to work with...when the oil hits the beam, the air has got nowhere to go... because it's locked in by the beams, but there's little holes where the beams fasten to the deck ... about every few feet there's a little hole, like limber holes, little U-shaped holes on top of these beams ...when the oil hit these beams, that air had to rush through these holes, to come up to the ullage cap... apparently that made a noise that disturbed the parrot...I was standing there, ready to tell them to shut the oil off, shut the valve down, and the parrot started squalling....now, every tank we went to:....right on cue, when the oil hit that beam, the parrot would squall...the next trip I say 'to heck with it...if Bernie has a spill, he has a spill, let him and the parrot do it'....and the next trip the parrot squalled on cue every time, we filled every tank right up...so, we sailed and we're sailing on time, and we get the ship loaded, I'm going ashore and clearing the ship and everything's fine...we get the full cargo... sometimes, if we didn't load fast enough, we sailed short and then ....'cause we had to leave the dock immediately at high tide...we made three perfect trips with old Bernie and his parrot...I called a friend of mine over on one of the trips, and I said, 'watch the section down on deck'...he says, 'I don't believe in this crap'...he says, 'I have seen everything, but I never seen anything like that'...I say, 'well, that's how we do it', and he laughed...he says, 'where are you going?'...I say, 'she's going to get a partial load of grain in Portland, Oregon, I guess, or Vancouver, Washington and then go back on the Japanese route'....I say, 'I'm paying off and going up New York, to straighten up my accounts and go to India, and marry to an Indian girl'... he says, 'well, I see you maybe in New York, I'm heading for the States too'....we get into New York and the owner of the ship says, 'hey, you got a three-thousand dollar bonus for those last three trips, turnaround and everything ....fine job, Captain!...how about lunch?'...I say, 'fine!'...so he takes me down to where all the Greek shipowners seem to meet... it's down there in the Wall Street area ....and then he asked me, 'how did you get the ship turned around so fast?', and I said, 'you don't want to know', and then George says, 'yeah, cause now she's got a new captain'....I say, 'it can't be done, George'....he says, 'what do you mean?'...I say, 'the chief mate is gone'...'well,' he says, 'we've got another chief mate' and I say, 'but he don't have a parrot!'....

(Harrison Maycroft)

1) tatami = a mat made from woven rushes, used as a traditional floor-covering in Japan.