My belief, this was a miracle.
For a brief period of time, I worked for an Australian Shipping Company which was operating in Papua New Guinea. The head Office of the company was in Lae. The ship I commanded was Coaster with a Length Over All of about 87 meters. All officers and crew were from PNG, and I was the only out sider.
I assumed command of the ship at Townsville. The first port of call of the ship under my command was Lae. Thereafter, the ship sailed around PNG coast and in the East Coast of Australia.
Some of the ports that the vessel called in the PNG, did not have Pilots and tugs etc., Therefore, docking and undocking of the vessel was done by the captain himself. The best part was nobody told me about this until Henry my Chief Officer advised me on this. There was no problem, as professionally I could manage this kind of work. But what I am trying to highlight here is that nothing about this situation was mentioned at the time of my signing on.
Thereafter, the vessel called at the port was Wewak. This was the first port at which I had to do docking and undocking of the ship and everything went on well. I later realized that I was a bit too fast, and I took note of that.
The port thereafter was Vanimo, and it was a difficult maneuver. It was mainly due to the reason the port was located in a very tricky place. The berth had to be approached on a perpendicular direction, and having partly submerged wreck and a shallow patch on the Port side, and with a quite shallow on the Starboard side being the seashore.
The ship was fitted with a Variable Pitch propeller. When going astern the bow cants to port. So, I dropped the Port anchor when the dock was approximately 50 meters from the bow of the ship and approached with slacking the anchor chain with keeping a control of the head way. When the ship was closer to the dock, the forward back spring was passed and by slacking chain as necessary ship was docked.
The docking of the ship was without much of a problem.
However, during the second call at the same port, it was on a Sunday, and the vessel was approaching the dock at around 0730 hours. Usually there were men posted on the pier to take the ship’s lines and put on the bollards ashore. But this time, as the ship was approaching the berth, the Second Officer who was manning the forward stations informed me ‘Captain there is nobody to take our lines’. I could see the situation and, it was low water making the situation more difficult. I knew that I was in trouble. I prayed to the Lord.
We had been watching and there was not a soul on the pier and in the container yard. And there was no chance of turning around!
Suddenly I saw a man wearing a red T-shirt running towards the dock. I knew that my problem was somewhat solved. The man came towards the bow of the vessel and picked up the heaving line and pulled one rope and put the same in the bollard as we wanted. After taking two mooring lines ashore I saw him running towards the after part of the ship. I was terribly busy maneuvering, but with all that, I told the Second Officer, “Eddie, call that man who ran across the yard and picked our lines. I want to give him something.”
I thought of giving him a cash gift for his help. But to my utter surprise the Second Officer told me that there was no such person. I was so annoyed and said “Eddie, don’t tell me you are blind”.
And, when I checked with the third officer, Thomas who was manning the aft stations at the time of berthing he confirmed what the Second Officer said. No such person. Then who helped us with line?
Finally, the ship was docked without much problem.
I thanked the Lord (The silent helper) for helping us out of this precarious situation.
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