Originally Posted by
John Arton
In 1971 is 3rd mate on the Beaverpine and we were on a KNSM charter, loading in northern Europe and discharging around the Carribbean, all general cargo.
Saint croix first, Ponce Puerto Rico, port au Prince, Santo Domingo, Nassau.
In port au Prince the pilot could only say "hard starboard, hard port, full astern", which he repeated over and over, so the captain had to berth the ship himself. The town was basically a shanty town with any solid buildings being in need of major repairs.
Whilst there we went to the national stadium to watch Haiti play football against a touring Brazilian club side that included a number of their famous players. We were sitting right on the touchline and as we were the only white faces in the crowd and most of us had cameras, the Brazilian players must have thought we were press and so came over to to have their photo taken with us, something the armed guards seemed to take offense to and started to converge on us but at a signal from the boss man, papa doc, they left us alone.
The stevedores were paid 1$ a day plus a free meal and a fair percentage of the cargo went over the offshore rail into the bum boats gathered alongside, though what use were Phillips radios, tape recorders etc were to them when electric supply was almost non existent. Everywhere we had to everything locked up securely as it would have disappeared in a moment, they may have been slow workers but boy could they not thieve anything in the blink of an eye.
In contrast Santo Domingo was the complete opposite, the stevedores were searched by armed guards every time they came on or off the ship and if they were found to be in possession of anything beyond their I.d then they were literally for the chop.
Going ashore at the dock gate was a manned army tank whose machine gun would track you as you approach, show your pass to the guards, no dropsy ever asked for, and once out on the street some great bars and restaurants with very friendly natives were all along the maindrag.
Last discharge port was Nassau where the gay saloon steward had booked up with an American gay who nightly used to pick him up in his pink Cadillac and take him to the casino on pleasure island complex, giving him money to gamble with.
The American was actually a decent guy who even took a couple of us along one night but it turned a bit sour towards the end, when discovering our next port was to be Baltimore to load grain for the U.K he offered us each 200$ to carry bags of marijuana to Baltimore and pass them on to his contact there.
Rgds
J.A.