Author Interview - John De Silva - Troubled Waters
John de Silva is a master mariner and Author of Troubled Waters.
Troubled Water reflects on the highs and lows of the professional seafarer’s life. Troubled Waters I the story of a voyage that Captain John de Silva undertook with all its attended vicissitudes and death-defying miseries.
John, thanks so much for granting us this interview.
John as a start, tell our readers a bit more about yourself? How did you come to this stage where you decided to put all your experiences down on paper?
I was born in the post independent era of Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was known then. I come from a Catholic family. My father worked for the Sri Lanka government and my mother was a housewife. I am the eldest in the family of three. Both my brother and sister are married and have families. My father , who was everything to us, passed away in April 1989; my mother is still living, at 83 years of age.
I had my secondary education at a leading Catholic school in Colombo, St Joseph’s College.
I ventured into seafaring in 1974, and I got married in 1983.
Now I live in New York with my family, wife, son and daughter. My son works in graphic design, and my daughter studies medicine at City University of New York. My wife works for Davids Bridal. Now that they are pursuing things they love, I allowed myself to do the same.
I used to tell stories of things I experienced on ships and ashore , and also about some of the people I have met in different parts of the world. Having listened to my stories, my wife and few of our friends persuaded me to put my stories on paper. And, I first started to write in 2007.
My first book was Through Deep Waters which was published in Sri Lanka in April, 2008. I knew that I could write as I came under the tutelage and influence of Rev. Father Mercelline Jayakody, a versatile writer and Sri-Lankan national literary figure. I had my writer’s baptism under his watchful eyes during my college days. Father Jayakody is now gone to his eternal rest.
What made you decide to strive for Captain? How many years did it take in the field to take up the rank of captain?
My parents, naturally, had very high hopes for me, I being the eldest in the family. They expected me to become a medical doctor or some sort of professional. But a chance meeting with a naval officer and a visit to a ship berthed in Colombo harbour developed my youthful fascination for seafaring.
The ship in the photo is the one I visited, the “Lanka Rani.”
I joined the merchant Navy as a Officer Cadet in 1974. My total time in training – cadetship-- was three years and three months. At the end of training period I enrolled in Sir John Cass Nautical College in London and studied there and passed my Second Mate- Foreign Going Exam. Thereafter I sailed as Second Officer (Navigating Officer), on various cargo-ships and all of those were trading on international voyages. I should have entered College in 1981 to study for my First Mates Exam but there was a delay mainly due to financial reasons.
Finally I joined Lal Bhadur Shastri Nautical & Engineering College in Mumbai and studied for my First Mates – Foreign Going exam. I passed the exam in July 1985 and returned to sea. I sailed as the First Mate or Chief Officer, the executive officer on board and second in command to Master. Thereafter I completed four years service as Chief Officer on board ships. I joined the Australian Maritime College in Sydney and graduated as a Master Mariner in 1989. I earned my first command in June 1990, since then have been commanding merchant ships round the globe. I am also a marine surveyor and a consultant.
Do you have set routes you travel?
No. We do not have set routes. It all depends on the ship’s charterer and the charter.
For example: the last ship that I commanded was chartered by Safmarine, Belgium. And the route was between North Europe and West Africa including some off lying Islands like Las Palmas, Malabo (Equatorial Guinea).
The vessel I am in command of now is chartered by American President Lines. The route is between Central American and South American ports on Pacific-side.
Tell our readers a bit about the dangers you encounter at sea.
The above photo was taken after a storm, on the following morning when one of my Officers could go out and by this time the sea and rolling had reduced to a great extent.
There are myriad dangerous encounters I have had at sea.
I will touch on the most recent one. December 7, 2011 became another important day in my Life. It was evening on that day and the weather was very bad -- very bad indeed. The ship was in the North Sea on a voyage from Aberdeen, Scotland to Lisbon, Portugal.
The ship was going through a storm. In this condition of heavy sea a swell was on the beam of the ship and the ship was rolling heavily and violently at times. At that time the swell height ranged from 20 to 25 metres. Unfortunately, at this time no adjustment of our course was possible due to the presence of numerous oil rigs on one side and underlying dangers such as reefs and shallow water on the other side. And once the vessel was on the trough between two waves the main engine stopped. What a precarious situation it was!!!
I looked at the next wave that was coming toward the ship which was in dead condition, and thought, Oh NO SURVIVAL!!! Because I knew the ship could not ride the wave in that condition, and capsizing was imminent.
My immediate thought was about my wife and children and about other sixteen people on board and their families. What a way to die! When in the water of sub zero temperatures there was no chance of survival without thermal protection. There was no time for that anyway.
I prayed silently and asked God, Is this your final call for all of us on board? Still looking at the wave I thought of the hymn, “Nearer my God to Thee....” and turned toward my first Mate who was standing in front of the radar. I am sure he was also staring at the wave. He then turned toward me in the dim light of the radar and said, “Good bye, Sir. It was great...” and suddenly he got very busy with responding to Main Engine control orders from the Engine room.
We believed that God’s hand came in and started the Main engine. Later we found It was our Electrical Engineer who had started the main engines. And, that is how God works, I think. The Chief Engineer was injured – he suffered a head injury following a nasty fall in the engine room due to heavy rolling.
As the engine started the ship rode the wave taking a very dangerous roll. But we
were saved. Thank God!
I suggest you see the film The Poseidon Adventure which dramatizes what I experienced—though there were no survivors on that ship.
For your information, the ship on which we had this precarious experience was 143 metres long and was about 12,500 tonnes.
Is the book – Troubled Waters the only book readers can expect or are there more to come?
No. My next book will be ready in few months. It is also based on seafarers and seafaring. I am planning to re-publish that with Story Merchant Books. The one that I am writing now is of a different genre. I’m also planning to do a Romance, too. And no doubt more than one more based on seafaring.
I have never been an 8 to 5 person. Then is this the reason I decided to quit a good shore job – a very good job, actually, and return to sea. In other words when I am on dry land and my life is flowing smoothly, that is when I long for the wide open spaces of the ocean, the life of a seafarer.
How I paved my way to a job at sea.
Then all the experiences – bad ones: Collision to mutiny.
And so begins an almost picaresque voyage up the coast of West Africa, where almost everything that can go wrong does. From a plague of cockroaches onboard, to the seasick chef who can’t cook, and the assistant cook who won’t cook.
The crew themselves are mostly from Myanmar, silent but deadly. Then there is the Sri Lankan, second engineer, Wije, whose work is appalling but whose cooking is sublime, whose crowning achievement during un-berthing of the ship at port of Matadi, Congo, is the attempted murder of the Chief Engineer.
But the ship’s management refuses to get rid of him, and it says much for the Captain’s generosity of spirit that on Wije’s last night he takes him out for a slap-up dinner and a night in town, the port of Dar-Es- Salaam.
Then there is Reema, a Tanzanian born Indian girl who gets pregnant and is subsequently abandoned by her Tanzanian boy friend, and is forced into lifetime of prostitution. The Captain
goes to meet Reema’s estranged parents, and against the wishes of her aggressive brother manages to persuade them to take their daughter back.
The villain through the whole book is the ship’s management, which unaccountably fails to answer messages when the needs of the ship are at their greatest.
Add to this the stowaway who creeps onto the ship and needs to be disembark.
From your blog I have noticed that you show a lot of interest in ancient Navigation – can you elaborate a bit more on some of the history and your favourites.
When I started my sea career there were Electronic Navigation aids such as Decca and Loran already in existence and were fitted in some ships. This is in addition to Radar and Directional Finder (DF).
But none of the ships that I sailed on during my first few years of sea faring were fitted with Decca or Loran. Then the Satellite Navigator was introduced. But I never had the luxury of that either. For me it was navigating with the aid of Celestial objects when in open ocean, terrestrial objects near the coast, and older electronic aids such as Radar and DF.
Let me tell you briefly about navigation. Navigation is to take a ship:
In the safest
the shortest
and the most economical route.
So, we use celestial objects--sun. moon, stars, and planets--to obtain the ship’s position whenever possible.
My favourite was obtaining the ship’s position in the morning and in the evening by taking the angle of few stars which are perpendicular or nearly perpendicular to each other. Also watched the Southern Cross and Pole Star whenever possible.
During the days of sailing vessels, the old navigators also used the magnetic compass and celestial objects as navigational aids, especially for ocean crossings. On a day with clear skies, after sun set, a ship heading North would take the Pole Star as reference and heading South would take the Southern Cross as reference or guiding mark.
Then there is the sun rise and sun set to find East and West.
Let me introduce briefly some historical mariners who have made invaluable contributions by their marine products-navigational aids:
Admiral Zheng’s most important technology was the compass. Chinese scientists knew as early as the third century AD that iron ore, called magnetite, aligned itself in a North/South position.
Then the marine chronometer designed at sea by Yorkshire born clock maker John Harrison. Until the 18th century there were no clocks that could accurately keep time at sea-the rolling waves, changes in temperature and humidity played havoc with inner working any mechanical timepiece.
And, it says that John Harrison’s product was critical to the success of Captain Cook.
The compass, marine chronometer and sextant was all that old navigators had at hand, and they used them well.
The sextant had been invented by Thomas Godfrey in 1731. The first marine sextant had been built by Jesse Ramsden of London, England, in 1795. that we went through on a voyage from
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