Things You Have Experienced Should Never Discourage You
Year 1984, it is the year of the internship. Whatever the opportunities we catch, we were just attacking to get that chance to be on board of those ships. Some of us in yachts, some of us in ferries that are in service and those having quite some support without saying anything and not to care whether the ships tonnage is high or low.
How was mine, well, through the intervention of my father’s friend who actually was a lawyer, I happened to learn in a great joy that my application of internship, was welcomed by this famous ship- owner’s company after waiting three days at the doors of his Office and the message was passed to me by his company’s errand ordering me: “Be present at the port of Bartın (A city of Turkey) at the date quoted”. At that given date, I was present at the port of Bartın, but the ship was not there. I called the company, the answer was; “Just wait there, she will arrive”. One day, two days, three days, I was just standing by. Every day I was going to the harbor and watching for the ship. Meantime the daily pocket – money that is the allowance given to me has been running out. I was not able to compensate my expenses though I stayed in the cheapest hotel facilities nearby. I took the risk and used my return fund to pay for the hotel. I’m not going back without accomplishing my internship… Finally the ship arrived. Surprisingly, the day I was on the board of the ship, the ship’s new captain and his family were also joining/attending the ship. I waited for four days, but because they knew the ETA of the vessel and hence joined the ship exactly on this correct day in Bartın!
I was given a rating’s cabin. I have not seen such a messy dirty bed not just in my whole life as well as during my past boarding school years. Imagine a pillow without sleeve, mouth reeks, vomits due to sweat and all that was there. Bed sheets and linens I had better not to mention here right away. During that period of my internship my sweater was my pillow and a clean flannel of mine was its sleeve. Preparations of the ship ready to sail took about five days to be completed. Meanwhile, I was eating all together with the ratings in the ratings’ lounge and taking the duties and moving around the ship. Once the ship put off and cleaned the warehouse and another one day passed then for the first time I happened to be final at the bridge. The captain has not even asked my name. He was just chatting with his wife and three children. My first shift period was going on carrying and serving tea to them. My day time duty was to be prentice to work in a wooden boat at the deck to caulk and as an apprentice seaman next to helmsman during evenings to serve as a stewardship.
The ship’s info that I was able to find out was that she was about 3000 DWT at the age of fifty (50), a Steam boiler vessel, coaster and this was her last expedition just before the planned scrapping procedure. On board there were just two stoker / boiler crew. Having these crew on board luckily helped me once to recover my cold, one of them Uncle Ali “God bless him” who advised me to stay in front of the steam boilers to sweat. Believe it or not I was just completing my loading the goods experience on board at Burgaz, without charting the position of the ship at all and not even seen the radar screen of its presence I have not known at all. I was just watching the warehouses to be filled with sacks of wheat and fertilizer. Even the return phase was not offering any different expectations, it was completely the same. Lunches and dinners were all the same. We had chance of having meat two times in twenty days. Sundays at breakfast, the eggs we had were the only great luxury of us together with the smell of cooking food for the captain’s family was our additional breakfast nutrient. What I hated the most was to serve water to the seafarers, because we had on board just one refrigerator and it was installed only at the main deck pantry. Moreover, the rats were moving around me as I was serving for water and that also scared me quite a lot. I still can remember that afternoons breakfast services of made with onions and olives.
I did not take with me any overalls and shoes. Even the seafarers mostly do not really have them. Everyone is working with their own personal clothing’s. I was just coming back to home land for the first time in my life without setting foot on a foreign land. Reason for that was that the office in Burgaz Immigration Bureau, quite rightly, could not take into account our two- paged of Apprenticeship Document which was handed out to us by our Port Authority as a valid passport to be on their land.
My internship has come to an end in Samsun (A city of Turkey) after twenty days. When I got home, my mother was in shock as she saw me. I was totally stinking as I have not been taking showers for almost three weeks, because of cold water on board. Meantime, I turned to be so weakened because of not eating those meals that I had been disgusted with. She does not even wash my clothes and throw them just into the garbage basket seeing mouse droppings and pecks on them. After spending hours in Turkish Baths and having been serviced by my mother’s home – made meals for three and four days, I found myself to be belonging to the humanity back again. Without making a single penny of the money during my internship period I even ended it without insurance, as well.
Sometime after delivering of my report, our valued mentor, Captain Ihsan Çatık called me in his office. He asked me to tell him about what I could not write in my reports and I told him all. Then he asked me ‘‘All right then, did you like your profession my son?’’. Being at the sea is quite something special apart from all its difficulties. So, what we have seen and experienced at sea should not mean that we have to leave the profession. “I liked it dear teacher of mine” was my answer. A merry laughter and then he added “Well, my son, you do not have any difficulty then at sea, welcome on board.”
Since then thirty years have passed. I had a lot of time to assess the disadvantages and advantages of my school and of my profession respectively. If you could go back again to those years and my father had asked me again “My son, a maritime school has been opened in Ortaköy (A town in Turkey); would you like to join, then?” Believe me dear ones; I would not hesitate to say yes.
Levent Karsan
General Manager
Armona Shipping Company
Translation By: Huseyin Sahin
Added By: Gamze Nur Yalcin
