Sundays

[East China Sea, 120 Nautical Miles East of Ningbo, China]  

If you’ve ever spent a lot of time walking on the beach, you may have noticed that there is often a lot of trash that washes up, especially after a storm. Quite often, it seems, there is always a disproportionate number of spheroid objects among the trash; fishing floats, mooring bouys, and basketballs.      

Yes, basketballs.      

Have you ever wondered why there are so many basketballs washed up on the beach? Well, this Sunday, I found out why, and if you promise to keep it a secret, I’ll share. But first, let’s paint the background so you can get the full effect a Sunday has on a German container ship.      

As I’ve mentioned before, the crew and officers on these ships work hard, and don’t make a whole lot of money by our standards in the United States. The long hours and hard work leave the crew looking forward to Sunday, the day of rest.      

Sunday morning arrives, and on my way back up from breakfast, I see that the officers have gathered in the officer’s lounge, and seem to be having a very serious discussion. Okay, I think, staff meeting. A little over an hour later, I pass by the lounge again, and the officers are still there, so I assume this is an important meeting. Near lunch time, I cruise by again, since the lounge is just down the hall from my cabin. The officers are still there. This must be a very important meeting. Later that afternoon, as I quickly shuffle by the doorway, not wanting to distract anyone from the important work that certainly must be happening, when the captain yells my name.      

Uh oh.      

It wasn’t me that set off the fire alarm earlier… And really, I didn’t touch the engine console, even if the warning tone did go off when I was standing right next to it. Really. I walked into the officer’s lounge like it was the principal’s office, dread dripping ice down my collar.      

“Would you like to join us for church?”, the captain asks. The next thing I know, Mr. Jatho, the ships’s mechanic has handed me a green bottle of Becks, and I’m sitting on a barstool next to the ship’s bell. I never did find out if church is actually how the day’s relaxation began, but the large carton of rattling green empties certainy implied that church at sea is rather different than the church I went to as a kid. After all, at my church, you only got one sip of the wine…      

Meanwhile, back at the stern of the ship, another gathering is starting to form.      

This afternoon, the 4 meter swell is really rolling the ship. It’s the most motion we’ve had since we’ve been at sea. With the deck wildly pitching androlling the way it is, why not join in a game of basketball? Yeah, basketball. On a cargo ship… pitching… rolling…and surrounded by water all the way to the horizon. Hmmm.        

My telephone rings, and Mr. Vigo, the ship’s cook, excitedly informs me that the basketball is the next event on the high seas, and that I’d better hurry. The mostly Philippino crew love basketball, I’m told. Who is my favorite NBA player, I’m asked, over and over again.        

I make my way back to the poop deck (yup, that’s what it’s called). The poop deck is the lowest deck on the outside of the cargo ship. It’s covered with shiping containers, which make a kind of roof above the winches, ropes, and other equipment used to secure the ship to the pier while in port. At sea, this area becomes the basketball court. When I arrive, the crew are wiping the steel deck around the basketball hoop with rags. There is a grimy film of water and soot from the engine, mixed with other detritus that has blown aboard during the last port stay.        

Once the deck is clean(er) and dri(er), the guys begin shooting. Remember, there is a rail, and unlimited sea just outside where the three point line would be. Actually, there’s a seven inch in diameter rope laying on the deck where the three point line should be. Let the bombing begin! The engine guys really like to launch the ball from as far as possible, just behind the starboard winch. Every once in a while, the ball gets rolling across the deck, and the guys make extreme attempts to stop the ball before it gets near the stern rail and the sea beyond.        

I’m thinking this is pretty much as much basketball as the ship can take, and that after a bit, we’ll end up playing a game of Horse, or something. But no, it was short work to divide up the teams, with the engine crew taking on the mess crew, plus me. Right away is was pretty clear that this was an up-tempo half court game with dubious rules. Thes guys were really good at the game, and the extra foot in height and extra 50 pounds wasn’t going to be enough to make up for the speed and agility of the engine crew. It wasn’t until after watching a behind the back give and go, leading to a perfect lay up, all done on an oily, wet steel deck pitching in a four meter swell,  that I realized that the guys were all wearing flip flops with socks.        

Flip flops with socks.      

I’m happy to let you know that the mess crew prevailed and dinner was not withheld, despite many threats during the competition. There was a lot of laughter and fun, and I was able to see a really great moral boosting activity that the crew engages in when they have a bit of rare free time.       “We’ve never lost the ball,” Mr. Vigo tells me, with a certain bit of pride, after I asked.        

As we were picking up the deck rags, I noticed a black sphereoid bobbing on the waves off to starboard.  It was a basketball, clear as day, rolling in the swell. It got me for a second before I was sure it wasn’t ours. Mr. Gamposilao, the cadet, was dribbling the one and only Hanjin Brussels basketball near the port winch.

Somewhere, across the rolling gray surface of the sea, another cargo ship lost it’s ball. And on some beach in Washington, or Oregon, or California, in a while, another basketball will come to rest, an eyesore to those who walk the beach. But on it’s way, it’s going to float out there with all the other lost basketballs in the wide open sea, acting as a mile markers between cultures who share a love of the game.          

Sunday, the day of rest.        

Even now, long after the sun has gone, the raging sounds of an emotional ping pong game drift up from the gymnasium on C deck.      

And out there in the East China Sea, lost basketballs continue the long drift to the West.