Everybody Has a Story: Surviving rough ride in a smelly ship

We had been out for about three days, almost all of it fighting seas bigger than our 115-foot boat, the MIECO (Marshall Islands Import-Export Company) Queen. The storm hit a few hours after we left Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands.

It was spring 1973. I had been a Peace Corps volunteer in the Marshall Islands from 1968 to ’70. I returned in 1971, got a teaching job, and was now on a “field trip” for the Marshall Islands Department of Education to give entrance examinations to eighth-grade students who wanted to go to the only public high school in this easternmost part of what was then a trust territory of the United States. I was going to visit schools on four atolls — Mili, Ebon, Namdrik and Jaluit — and one island, Kili, where the people of Bikini had been moved prior to the nuclear bomb tests of 1946-1958.

The MIECO Queen was legendary — and not in a good way. Built in 1956, she was poorly equipped and indifferently maintained. Her main purpose was buying and selling in the remote outer islands — buying copra (dried coconut) in 100-pound burlap bags, and selling kerosene, TP, rice, flour, canned meat, matches, fabric and so forth. The people on these islands made and sold copra to make money to supplement the fish and fruits provided by nature. The Japanese and American influences of the past 50-plus years had added some new things to their diet and general daily existence.

Why the owners of the MIECO Queen and its Fijian captain, Moses, didn’t know about the storm remains a mystery to me. Maybe they did know and thought it wouldn’t be that bad. After all, they had a job to do, a mission to complete. Regardless, we were barely on our way when that storm hit. Making landfall at Mili, the closest atoll, was secondary. Surviving became paramount.

When confronted by big waves, accepted nautical practice is to point the bow of the boat into the waves. Big waves that hit a smallish boat broadside or from the stern put the boat in danger of capsizing. Were the MIECO Queen to sink out of sight of land in a storm in the Pacific Ocean, all of us would drown.

On the bridge, Moses had his hands lashed to the wheel; he couldn’t afford to lose control of the helm in those rough seas. He ordered everyone on deck to go below, but one look at — and smell of — the chaos down there quickly disabused me of that notion. I needed to get somewhere else quickly.

Most of the crew was in the small forecastle in the bow, so I headed for the galley. There was really no place else to go. The Queen was roller-coastering up and down the waves. I don’t get seasick. I’m very fortunate that way. If I were prone to that sort of thing, this would have been the time. Up, up and up, then down — hard. Again and again. Over and over. Whoever built this boat had done a pretty good job.

When the wind slackened and the waves abated somewhat, Moses would turn and run. Perhaps he was getting radio chatter about the storm and its path. When the wind and waves came up again, he would point and climb and drop, climb and drop, over and over. He did this for three days, never leaving the bridge, never taking his hands off that wheel. I really believe that his skills and experience saved our lives. A different Moses leading people across the seas.

In the galley, it was just the cook and myself. The cook held onto whatever he could grab and tried to keep his kitchen gear from flying around too much. I laid down on my back on one of the benches, using my shoelaces to tie my feet to the bench, my belt to strap my midsection down through the back loops on my shorts, and my small duffle bag as a pillow.

I can say that I rode the waves of the Pacific Ocean, albeit on a bench in the galley of a smelly, creaky 115-foot boat with questionable stability.

When the storm eased enough, the cook would cook and we would eat Spam and rice, washed down with cold, unsweetened tea. Somehow, the cook got food and drink up to the bridge for the captain. I don’t remember using the head. Maybe I didn’t.

I do remember feeling helpless. And very insignificant.

Eventually, we outran the storm and headed for home. No tests for eighth graders this trip. When we finally slipped through the pass and into the lagoon of the Majuro atoll — my home — I was very, very relieved, not to mention hungry and thirsty. And ever so grateful for Moses and the MIECO Queen.

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