(from my diary)
11 November 1992
Overslept and missed breakfast. Tried to keep to bed until lunch. Better after eating. Rocking increased in the evening. At night everything in the cabin rattled and got thrown around. It rained.
The ship left the Gulf of Finland during the night. She was going across the Baltic Sea towards Germany. It was our first night in the open sea and we did not have the right habits. When the ship tilted, all small objects left on the table like pens, my wristwatch and glasses ended up on the floor where they rolled from one wall to another. Our unsecured baggage shifted and made a lot of noise. Now we understood why the furniture was firmly attached and could not be moved. After that we learned to keep everything loose into the drawers or to lock it in the wardrobe. Otherwise our belongings became scattered over the cabin.
The weather was cold and rainy. The rattling inside, the howling wind and rain patter on the metal deck outside did not let us sleep well at night and we woke up too late for breakfast. As the first mate said there was no food between meals; we had to wait until lunch.
The ship rocking in the open sea got worse. While making hasty preparations for the departure I was so preoccupied with doing lots of things that I never linked a sea voyage with motion sickness. Of course, I knew that we were prone to seasickness, but I was too focused on getting us on the damn ship and leaving Russia before the visa expiration date. If I tried to picture our life aboard a freighter, my mind went blank. I shook my head and told myself that we would figure out that somehow.
Both of us were seasick. We lay on our bunks hoping that being still would help, but it did not. After lunch the ship’s second mechanic Vladimir, my son and I walked back to our cabins. Vladimir noticed our pale green faces.
‘Do you have nausea?’ he asked.
We admitted that we had.
‘Try to eat more, even if it is difficult. You will feel better with a full stomach. Don’t sit inside, go on the deck to get fresh air and do not concentrate on how you feel. Think of something else. Then you will get your sea legs fast.’
Eating more did not make sense to me. I thought that if my stomach was empty then there would be nothing in it to throw out, but I trusted the sailor with years of experience. At dinner I forced myself to eat and indeed the nausea subsided.
Vladimir also explained why the sleeping bunks were oriented along the keel and the coaches were across the ship. This was designed to fight seasickness. In case of swaying, i.e. side-to-side motion, lying on the bunk helped to be less affected. If the ship moved about her longitudinal (front-back or bow-stern) axis, it was better to be on the couch. This advice was not easy to follow. It seemed to me that the Academic Gorbunov was pulled in all directions at the same time. Waves tossed her up and down and sideways. After a while I gave up trying to identify the type of ship motion. Eating well and staying outside definitely improved our condition.
Since we had to be on the deck despite the bad weather, I noticed that the crew was busy with the newly loaded shipping containers. They were attaching those containers to the deck. This kind of work was supposed to be done at the port and not in the open sea when the ship was moving, but it cost extra to pay the stevedores to secure containers. The Baltic Sea Shipping Company (BSSC) had no money for that. The usual, dangerous practice was to leave the port and let the crew do the job later. The sailors told me that once the sea was rough; two containers bounced like balls and leaped overboard before they got locked to the deck.
12 November 1992
In the Baltic Sea. Smell of petroleum instead of salty sea breeze.
The Academic Gorbunov was going around Denmark. It was winter; the sea and the sky looked grey. The weather remained cold and we could not be on the deck for long. I expected to breathe in the salty sea air, but the Baltic Sea smelled of chemicals and petrol.
Maria’s cabin was next to ours. Naturally my son and I became acquainted with her first. Maria was about 10 years older than me, lively and talkative. As I mentioned before it was her second trip to Australia. Maria had no particular purpose to be there, apart from getting out of Russia for a while, and no close friends in Australia either. Getting a visa solely for tourism was impossible for Russian citizens at that time. So Maria paid the people whom she did not know to invite her as a friend and thus she got a tourist visa to stay in Australia up to 3 months.
I asked Maria what she did in Australia during her first trip. Three months was a lot of time. She said she worked odd jobs like a kitchen hand at a cafe, babysitting and house cleaning, although a tourist visa did not come with a work permit. At first Maria was so zealous at doing the job that soon her employer told her that their house was too clean and they no longer needed her help. Maria learned from that and stopped working hard. Then at another house, a child’s bedroom was always a mess. Maria put books on the shelves and toys in the box, made the bed and tidied up the desk. Next time Maria came, everything in the room was again turned upside down.
Recently divorced, Maria delayed stamping her passport at the Civil Status Registration office until after her return from Australia. All Russian internal passports had records of employment, places of residence, marital statuses and children. The Australian consulate checked these records and a single person had no chance to get an Australian visa because he or she was more likely to stay in the country illegally than someone who had a family back home.
13 November 1992
In the North Sea. Heavy rocking. Strangely, I feel okay. Everything in the cabin moves. During lunch the ship tilted so much that plates and other stuff fell off the tables. Zhenya in his chair skidded as far as the steward’s pantry where he crashed on the floor.
The Academic Gorbunov skirted Denmark and entered into the North Sea. We sailed far enough from the shores to see them. The rocking became really bad, although the weather was not stormy. I looked at the water and could not understand what caused that motion. There were small wavelets only, but they jerked the huge ship so much that getting around her required support.
We were having lunch when a sudden tilt to one side made everything to slide off the tables. We instinctively grabbed at whatever could prevent us from falling. My son was thrown away from our table together with his chair. Then the ship sharply tilted to the other side. Zhenya in his chair flew across the officers’ mess to the pantry door that stopped him, lost his balance and fell on the floor. Everything happened so fast that nobody had time to react. After the initial scare passed, it was found that my son was not injured and all of us including Zhenya laughed at the incident.
14 November 1992
The rocking ceased. Sailed up the Elbe estuary towards Hamburg for half a day. The river is all studded with buoys, beacons and so on. Heavy river traffic. Once again we stayed onboard. To get to the city we needed to pay 4 German marks for a boat that would take us to the bank. Zhenya was very upset. Learned to play tennis in the evening. Leaving for Rotterdam at night.
The Academic Gorbunov turned in the Elbe estuary. She made a painfully slow progress up the river. A pilot came and navigated our ship through the waterway between countless buoys and beacons. Vessels of all kinds and sizes were at anchor or moving up and downstream. This time the Academic Gorbunov did not dock at a wharf, but was moored in the river.
Maria showed up and told us that a transfer from the ship to the port cost two German marks per person. She was ready to go. I had several 100-dollar banknotes and nothing else. Having never been abroad before, I did not think about taking with me cash in small denominations. Even if the Russian customs officer had not taken my two twenties I would not be able to exchange them on the ship. How could I pay 4 marks for the transfer? Maria had no answer to that and she offered no help. She had that kind of personality when someone else’s problems were not hers and her problems were everyone else’s. I do not mean that she was a bad person. We eventually became friends and stayed in touch after our arrival in Australia. Looking back now at what happened 25 years ago, I realized that when it came to sharing Maria never volunteered and she was always quick to use help of other people.
My son almost cried when I told him that we could not see Hamburg. I felt awful because I did not deliver on my promise to go ashore at the next opportunity. Maria returned empty-handed from the trip to Hamburg. I did not even want to ask her where she went to. It was clear that Maria did not care about sightseeing. Her goal was to shop-shop-shop and to do it as cheap as possible.
We played more table tennis in the evening. It was much easier to play while the ship was at anchor and did not rock. I hid my disappointment that we did not get see Hamburg and pretended that everything was fine. It may look like we did not enjoy the trip from the description of all these issues, but it’s not true. We gradually learned how to live on the ship. Every day was different and came with new experiences; we were not bored.
The next port of call was going to be Rotterdam, Netherlands. I went to bed hoping that the third time would be lucky for us.