This morning we are given a tour of the deck by Louis, a Filipino officer who speaks with flawless American English, and I wonder where he's learnt it. “In the dockyards,” he explains, “I used to work with a lot of American ships that came through. I just kinda picked it up.
The entire deck is packed with huge metal containers totalling, in some feat of geometrical organisation, no less than six thousand. The contents of the containers remain as much a mystery to the sailors as they do to us. He points out that those with temperature displays on the doors are probably carrying fruit, vegetables or electronics.
It could be far less mundane; in the past, he's had containers carrying whiskey, and even freshly printed cash. I ask him about the most bizarre cargo he's ever carried. “A tiger,” he replies, “travelling from the States to a circus in Germany. Ten days at sea and the trainer insisted on staying in the container with the beast.”
We are then taken to the bow of the deck. Next to the huge chains that lower the anchor, we have shrunk to the size of figurines. We wander among ropes as thick as legs, wound tightly around giant toadstools, which are used by tugboats to help manoeuvre the ship and which, if they snapped under tension, could kill a human being in one lash.
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