Regarding Customs checks
by Published on 14th November 2023 01:50 PM
I did a 4-month voyage on the London Bridge (a Bowrings bulk carrier) in the aurumn of 1969. We sailed from Rotterdam (to the best of my knowledge, with maize) to Sept Isles where I saw my frst iceberg in the mouth of the St Lawrence. We loaded iron ore, a strange cargo, for the ship rolled like a pendulum. We left there and anchored in Hampton Roads, Chesapeake Bay, before eventually discharging in Baltimore. While at anchor over the weekend, many a pleasure launch ventured near. I remember one American shouting up to us as we were painting over the side on stages, “Hi, there! What are you carrying?” To which a quick-witted AB yelled back,”Ores!” There was no response from the launch.
We left Baltimore for a US naval base called Richmond where we loaded a cargo of coal for Osaka. Off the coast of Japan, we encountered a typhoon and I was amazred at the height of the waves. The mast-top of a Japanese coaster about a quarter of a mile away kept disappearing in the troughs of the waves! I remember thinking that a house and its chimney-top could as easily be swallowed up. In Osaka, I was impressed by how friendly the bar girls were. (Yes, I was a bit green in those days.) Here I bought a lovely Minolta camera in a family store for far less than it would have cost me in the UK.
We sailed from Japan in ballast. (I remember, although freshly showered and sparkly clean, being ordered by the miserable, gruff Scottish bosun to get my working gear back on and head back down the hatch to hose down the coal dust because we would soon be arriving in Sydney!)
After about four weeks, with a full cargo of maize, we docked in a blizzard in Rotterdam. After paying off, we were flown to Heathrow. I declared my nice new camera, and was asked if I’d be out of the country for the next year, to which I said yes. But next to me a differeent customs official charged the young third mate duty on the camera that he had bought! Despite this stroke of luck, I’d encounter a fair bit of hassle in the future from Her Majesty’s Customs as I didn’t have any written proof of my customs clearance.(By the way, because I’d been out of the UK over the four months of our circumnavigation of planet Earth, I was allowed to claim back all my expenses for my numerous runs ashore, so perhaps I shouln’t complain…)
