Tuesday 26 January 2010

ओं american

On Americam shore

the sirens were hailin
It was a lovely day in the Coos Bay; the air transparent and bright likes a crystal. By the night it went off and then there was the bad weather with rain and wind. It lasted all the night and the next day along. The weather seemed changed. No matter since we were washing the super structure of amidships using strong caustic soda mixed with brown soap and by aid of the heavy rain.
In the evening I got washed my clothes, too.
The good weather was back on Wednesday.
Regulus was a ship as a tramp of the ocean with her capacity of nearly seven thousand tons. She was called as a Canadian’s liberty by her sheer lines and was flaying Panamian flag and owned by some company of the refugee of Estonian. The interior of the sailors’ quarter was Spartan, the bulkheads being build of a naked iron and there was not a proper heater to be warm the cabins. The wages were in the lowest English tariff. I have been said up myself and I wanted paid-off in the Coos Bay on the last day of December.
There is a saying among the seafarers: ‘When the shore people have their regular fest as the midnight summer, or the feast of the New Year, at same time every year, the sailors will have their holiday and feast every time when they are going to sign on board a ship and when they are signing off the ship.
I was signing off with an ordinary seaman named Sven.
We remained aboard till the next morning, which was Tuesday, and when the sun rose we were well shaved and well attired and we said good-bye to our shipmates and friends aboard. Then we landed along the gangway carrying our gears on our shoulders.
There we were, on the shore of America, two young sunburned sailors, I was nineteen, and Sven was twenty. Been service for six months at the Ocean trade I had hundred and twenty dollars in my pocket. We felt free and relieved and relaxed thought there was a faint feeling of sad to leave our watery home once again. With our money we went spending the wholly afternoon watching the shop fronts and shopping around. I bought a new hat and Sven wanted have the wholly new silk khaki uniform. There were many strange things advertised but we couldn’t afford all them.
Looking no more backward we set off on foot to the Raymond Lodge. The road ran along the Pacific shore then through nice woodland, over the green hillocks. That new setting was welcoming alternation to hour eyes since we were so long accustomed to see the bare watery world round the ship. A first the walking was wonderful, to walking along the road on the steady soil.
It was afternoon of the next day when we arrived in the Gold Beach and was walking to Raymond Lodge where we picked up n a room. The room was costly, four dollars was pretty much money for couple hour of doze, but the modern convenience of the room was worth of it. As the Pistol River was distance of thirteen miles from Gold Beach, we kept moving after the short break and walked five of it.
Then there was long lift to the Brookfield, past the Ceresin City. The redwood looked good. It was really something.

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