“I am not traveling. This is work.”
The seamen on the Independent Venture don’t hesitate to put me in my place. Chief officer Ivan has sailed around the world numerous times, but assures me that the countries he has visited are not travel destinations. “You are rich,” Glen, the cook, says. “You are here on vacation, and I am here to work.”
His words make me wonder. A vacation is definitely not what I had in mind when I decided to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a cargo ship.
With my family and many friends living in Europe, the Atlantic Ocean is a constant presence in my life, a vast body of water separating me from loved ones. I had lived in the United States for more than seven years when I reached out to a specialized travel agency to organize this trip. When I signed the transportation contract, I felt proud for reducing the environmental impact of my transatlantic flights. My journey from Philadelphia to Antwerpen was going to take two weeks and I had invested a good amount of money, so I praised myself in questioning the fast pace and high greenhouse gas emissions of a globetrotting lifestyle that usually relies on air travel.
As I explain this to Glen, he is not impressed. And he has a point: I am the only passenger, the only Western European, and the only woman on a vessel run by a twenty-man crew, carrying more than 2,000 containers. My presence on board is far more complicated than my intended critiques. I am avoiding the CO2 output of a transatlantic flight, which amounts to that of heating my house for half a year. Instead, I experience the absurd emissions involved in cargo shipping firsthand. I am not adding to Europe and Northern America’s lead when it comes to flying (constituting less than a fifth of the global population, they consume half of all air miles worldwide). Instead, I witness the neocolonial and hyper-capitalist labor structures within global transportation. “Work” is not unreasonably stressed by Ivan and Glen. A cargo ship is nothing but a workplace. Sitting on the bow and marveling at the vastness of the ocean is only for those who pay to be here.
Messman Jouemen greets me as I climb up the shaky walkway on the side of the vessel on day one. “Three months left to go!” is one of the first things he tells me. Jouemen is in charge of the mess rooms and cabins on the vessel. His contract on the Independent Venture lasts for nine months. Since he came on board half a year ago, he has not set foot on land. At the end of this period, he will fly back to the Philippines. For Jouemen, “vacation” means being at home with friends and families. And “work”, well, work is the rest of the world.
Managing meals and accommodations, he is the person I have the most contact with. It is only during a barbecue held on deck after we leave the last U.S. port that I get the chance to chat with several other crew members. Alcohol is free to all this evening and helps to break up groups of nationalities and languages. People mix and gather around a karaoke screen, and the men sing and tell stories. With strict work hierarchies in place, every surname comes with an occupational title: Glen the cook. Paterno the bosun. Wladyslaw the chief engineer. Dominik and Alin, second and third officer. Glen grills enormous amounts of meat and fish and the men eat it all. For some hours filled with sunset and early stars, an atmosphere of camaraderie and leisure hovers over the ship.
Hours of leisure are scarce, I learn quickly. There are no days off on a cargo ship. “Work” is the obvious mantra, accompanied by “economy.” Any time spent in a port costs the ship owner, a German company, extra money. In ports, the crew works day and night. Two or more cranes are operating non-stop, often discharging and receiving containers at the same time. The engineers do maintenance work as these are the only hours the engine rests. As soon as the ship leaves the shore, regular work in the engine room continues and navigation sets in 24/7 for the three officers. The remaining crew repairs the damage perpetually occurring on a ship sailing for 365 days a year.
The ten year old vessel was built with cheap steel, so I am told. Now rust materializes everywhere and the sailors spend the calmer summer days abrading it and covering the spots with equally cheap paint. “Money,” Alin shrugs. I jump over the freshly touched up parts and try to stay out of the way as I walk toward the bow, my favorite spot on the ship. It is quiet here. The containers towering between me and the ship superstructure deafen the otherwise omnipresent engine noise. I lean against the railing and enjoy the splashing of the water, the endless shades of blue and grey, the horizon encircling me. When the sea is calm, I am allowed to go wherever I want. But there are not many places to go to. I spend most of my time sleeping, reading, or writing in my own spacious cabin. At least once a day, I climb up the seven stairs to the bridge and visit the officer on watch. The bridge has the best coffee machine and while I brew a cup, I chat with the men present and learn more about nautical life than I ever knew to ask.
Standing on the highest point and looking down on the countless containers piled in front of me, I am amazed by the enormity and senselessness of global trade. Eighty-percent of the global trade volume is transported by ship. There are hundreds of ships waiting to enter around the big ports in Asia, Dominik, the second officer, tells me. “Huge parts of the sea,” he says, “covered with ship. So close together.” He holds his thumb and index finger up, almost touching. “This is trade.”
The crew does not always know what is in the ship’s containers. They only watch out for dangerous goods and temperature-controlled freight, which they monitor. “Everything is in there.” Dominik continues. “Sweet potatoes. Cars.” I wonder if they contain something I will buy in a European store. I turn my head and look at the wide trace of black smoke traveling behind us. One thing is for sure: the environmental cost of whatever this vessel carries is much higher than the price consumers will pay for it.
A day earlier, Wladyslaw, the chief engineer, invited me on a tour of the engine room. The Independent Venture is a small one among the over 50,000 cargo ships currently registered worldwide.. In comparison to other vessels, its engine is tiny. I look at it as it fills a room the size of a small gymnasium. When I ask about emissions, he consults the meticulously kept log book. In the last 24 hours, we burnt over 50 tons of crude fuel, the dirtiest fuel there is. “50 to 55 tons per day, going eastwards,” Wladyslaw says. Sweet potatoes and cars, I think to myself and cannot help but wonder: is any of this by other than capitalist means necessary?
In Fish Story, artist Allan Sekula suggests that Western consumers and recipients of shipped goods are “forgetting the sea.” We hardly ever think about the fact that almost everything in our stores spent weeks on the sea, sailing across some ocean or another, passing through two ports or more. Globalized capitalism is built on water. Being at sea renders this seemingly elusive economic system and its fossil fuel addiction very concrete. For many days, the only other sign of human life I see are the jet trails of planes passing over us. They provide neither environmentalist comfort nor a sense of safety.
Asking about medical help, my question yet again earns friendly laughter. No, there is no doctor on board, and no, no helicopter will come and rescue the injured or ill. Self-reliance is key and safety drills take place every week. There is a life jacket in the wardrobe of my cabin and Alin shows me how to use an immersion suit. “When there is an emergency, you grab your life jacket and you come here,” he says, standing in a small chamber next to the muster deck. “You put on one of these suits. It will float. You can stay in -30°C water with this for several hours, no problem.” I picture myself floating in the middle of the Northern Atlantic in a thick orange neoprene suit. I nod my head, “No problem.” We both laugh. The other security measures are as entertaining and sobering as my stay on board in general. There are boxed lifeboats that spring open automatically when the ship has sunk below four meters. The main lifeboat is an orange, shoe-shaped plastic container, 7 meters long, 2.8 wide and 1.3 high. I feel horror imagining 21 adults spending several days in this box, but I am assured: “There is water, there is food.” The safety equipment’s’ alarming neon colors communicate only one thing to me: we are alone out here.
During the barbecue, I ask Ivan if he considers his work dangerous. “It really depends on the people you work with,” he says contemplatively. I am relieved that the atmosphere on board is generally positive. Crew members laud the captain, and Marek himself explains that he regards his vessel as a place where he can make a real difference in the world. Good leadership, however, cannot erase the neocolonial structures apparent in the composition of the crew. The captain, officers, and higher ranking engineers are white men from Eastern and Southern Europe. All of the other seamen are from the Philippines. On average, the Filipino workers go nine months without vacation whereas their European superiors usually have contracts that last four months. The two groups eat in separate messes and sleep on different floors. In Filipino Crosscurrents, a book dedicated to the lives of Philippine sailors, Scholar Kale Bantigue Fajardo describes these practices appropriately as segregation by “rank and occupation but also ultimately by nationality, race, and class.”
All the men, regardless of nationality, are here because the wages on sea are higher than at home. Most of them send money to their families. Marek has several grandchildren–he smiles happily when he speaks of them. Paterno’s three children are already grown, but his wages still pay for the treatment of his youngest daughter’s chronic kidney disease. Glen shows me pictures of his wife and two young kids playing at a beach. He is saving and hopes to open a restaurant in his hometown soon. Speaking to me, the men do not comment on the obvious racial divide on board. Maybe the power imbalances are too obvious and too far-reaching to surface in the personal tales I listen to. The neocolonial labor exploitation I see on the ship is reflected in larger economic contexts: The Philippine state uses the taxes it collects on Oversea Filipino/a Workers’ incomes to pay its massive international debts. With this money going to institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, part of the men’s hard-earned money circles right back to the Global North. Take a nutshell and put the economical relationship between the Global North and South in it. Place it into a bowl of water. And what you get is a cargo ship.
I may not be rich and I may not be on vacation, but Glen is right when he points at the stark difference between our experiences: my presence on the vessel ties into structures of race, nationality, and class privilege. And just as I cannot undo that, no form of transportation can erase the environmental cost of long-distance traveling. Despite these lessons learned, my fourteen days on the Independent Venture leave me in awe. The world I experience is small, large, perplexing. At one point, Dominik calls the vessel “a floating prison.” A prison that passes under breathtaking night skies and is at times followed by birds, dolphins, and whales. Exposed to the power of the elements, it often shakes forcefully. There are only 21 of us out here, zigzagging between the continents. Together we bear witness to racial division, wealth imbalance, and the burning of crude oil. But we also bear witness to the often forgotten two thirds of our planet: our oceans.
