The dangerous journey from Brazil to Australia.
We had recently unloaded a cargo shipment from Japan, in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest port city when we were told to go to Sao Francisco do Sur for loading.
It was a small port town then, in 1965, but now an important resort in the Catarina district located in the south part of Brazil and next to the district of Rio Grande del Sur (Porto Alegre) which is located a bit more south and bordered by Uruguay. To our great surprise, we were to load logs! Specifically, Brazilian Redwood which is now forbidden to sell unless it comes from registered farms. It is the tallest tree in the country, can grow up to 40 meters in height and originates from the primeval forest. This cargo was destined for Australia!
After the short sailing from Sao Paulo, we now slowly slid into a bay called, Bahia da Babitonga, which means Bat Bay. We passed Sao Francisco do Sur to find our way to a completely insignificant village with a single loading dock where the timber cargo was expecting us. This place reminded me of the Bauxite emanating port of Br. Guyana, but this was even with smaller population. The wooden quay was long and stretched all the way into the deep green nearby forest.
Most of the crew who were given the day off went to Sao Francisco do Sur to enjoy themself. I, on the other hand, had guard duty and could not leave the port area. I went ashore to explore what was nearby when I discovered an unpainted wooden house in the area, which resembled a bar and decided to examine the building. Indeed, inside the door was a small simple bar, where a man with his two daughters welcomed me in.
The man presented himself as Raul and offered me a local beer that he had stored in a plastic barrel filled with ice. The beer was not exactly the best I ever had, but it was freezing cold. As I stood and studied the simple décor and seeped the icy beer, I heard a giggle from Raul’s daughters, whose age was 10 and 6 years. They probably had not seen so many blond sailors in this harbor, I thought. They were curious and tried to question me about where I came from and where we were going, in a mix of Portuguese and Spanish.
When we talked for a while, I saw a One Cruzeiro banknote attached to the wall and asked Raul if he wanted to sell it. He was initially reluctant when he said that the kind of banknote was unusual but had no economic value. At that time, it was only worth according to the exchange rate, 0.0003 U.S. dollars! When I showed Raul an American one dollar banknote and offering him a trade, he accepted with a smile and said that the beer was offered by the house. I became good friends with Raul and visited him several times during the short time it took to load our ship, M/s Broland. I still have after all these years the banknote preserved as a good memory.
Loading was done with old high squeaking cranes, but still very effective. The logs were huge and red where they were sawn off, I was used to Swedish spruce forest, so it was a great experience in itself. When the holds were filled, they also began to fill the entire afterdeck with logs, as high as other decks. Broland was now fully loaded.
We left the dock at sunset and steered out to sea again, Raul and the girls stood on the quay and waved. Now we had a long and dangerous journey ahead of us towards a new continent, Australia.
We took a south course towards Cape Horn on the southern tip of the South American continent. Leaving the the Bahia behind us, during this journey we passed the famous Sand Dunes, that streches several km. long and at many places more then 30 meters high. They seemed to last forever. When we finally passed this amazing coast, we were now passing Uruguay, but now further away from the coast. Later we saw the long coast of Argentina before reaching the point where Argentina and Chile meets.
We were now entering a well-known dangerous journey.
We approached now, “Tierra del Fuego”, were suddenly a fog bank turns up forward the ship! Visibility was zero and did not seem to get any better. Our captain explained the weather phenomenon that occurs during weather changes between the Atlantic, Artic and Pacific Oceans. In addition, where the tree seas meet at Cape Horn there are several meters of difference in sea level, hence a very troubled area arises.
We therefore changed the planned route to go around the southern tip and instead sought us into the Magellan strait, which divides the south of Argentina and Chile. It is a shorter but slower route but at the same time safer. When we fund the conclusion to the strait using the navigation equipment on board the fog bank lifted up. We were now sailing into a straight just 2 km wide. It was a magical sight, with high forested mountains on both sides of our ship and the water was deep green and almost mirror polished.
The Strait was discovered in the year 1520, by Ferdinand Magellan who was Portuguese and the Captain of the sailing ship La Trinidad. They, too, had sought refuge from a bad weather and discovered the strait of a pure event.
Magellan strait is almost 600 km long and has a maximum width of 30 km. We had a journey of about 26 hours ahead of us, at a speed of 12 knot, before we reached out to the Pacific Ocean. When we had made half the distance, we got into what is named Patagonia.
Here the green forests were transformed into snow and ice-covered mountains, another worth seeing! We now saw a lot of porpoises as well as killer whales around the ship and were so close, so if we were not so high up, we could almost certainly be able to touch them!
At last we were out on the Pacific Ocean, but now we were steering the route southeast to go closer to the South Artic Sea! It will be the straightest route to our ultimate destination Australia After a day, a powerful storm suddenly hit us with waves up to 20 meters and an icy strong wind from Antarctica, we really rolled! The waves were broken by the strong wind and swung all over the ship, we closed all openings and secured all the belongings. We also received a Iceberg warning on the radar!
Without warning, an enormous wave hit us and crashed all over the entire ship and the load tire began to move. M/s Broland had now a list of 30º.
My first thought was; Now we will be going under, I even brought out my diving equipment that I kept in the cabin, I was afraid! The alarm on board started to sound and from the speaker system onboard we heard our Captain giving the order to release the entire load, as well as appointed some men to perform it. I was one of those guys!!
We had to work as a team and formed a human chain. The first man was the Turner, with his welding equipment, to cut off the big chains that held the timber load together. We all crawled up on the now slippery logs equipped with ice picks to pull us forward to the chain to be cut. The salty icy water swung over us and we got soaked at the first few meters, but we had 20 left to crawl.
After almost 1 hour, our first man, Turner reached out and lit the welding flame to start the cutting attempt. It took a long time to heat the rough chain with the icy water that was constantly gushing over the flame. After a few long minutes, Turner raised his arm as a signal that now it was only a few seconds left.
I heard a hard bang and finally the chain broke, the wood started to fall overboard! In the same second, we pulled each other back to safety. It was a strange sight to see these huge logs being thrown around in the air as if they were matches, and later with a roar to be devoured by the sea.
Finally we entered the ship where we were cordially received from the rest of our crew.. Our quality work had saved an 18,000 Dwt cargo ship, with all 36 crew members on board.
It had been one of my most dangerous #Timezones, in my life. Later, I was happy to step on solid Australian soil…… We had arrived at the town of Brisbane.
Thanks for now, I will be back with more…..#Timezones .
#Windmush / #curtbergsten
