Page 206 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

sometimes changed unexpectedly; one morning, on my rounds, I found a dead
man in the first-class lounge. As nobody was around at 3am, the medical team
dealt with matters quickly and silently; nobody other than those directly involved
even knew of the event, the deceased being laid to rest ashore in Los Angeles.

The section of the voyage from Honolulu to Yokohama was somewhat
ominous. As we headed West the barometer began to drop, and we began to
receive news of a tropical storm that appeared likely to develop into a typhoon. As
before recited, severe low-pressure areas in the deep oceans can cause extremely
dangerous weather, the effect of the ‘low’ being exacerbated by Coriolis Force.
Although a complex phenomenon, the effect of which mariners are most aware is
that low-pressure areas in the Northern Hemisphere, unpredictable in their path,
turn into huge clockwise cyclonic wind-systems. A vast system was generally
headed for Eastern Japan, as was Canberra. We were to precede it to Yokohama,
but probably not by much.

Arrival in Yokohama was in mid-afternoon. The weather was nasty but
did not mean much to a ship as large as ours; the problem was the typhoon’s
unpredictability. The Captain decided that in the circumstances the passengers
should be allowed ashore, and other than doubling up the mooring ropes, little
needed to be done unless the weather deteriorated. I repaired to my bunk to get
a decent sleep.

I was awoken at 11:45 am and upon arriving on the bridge was surprised to
see that we had left our secure berth and were anchored in Tokyo Bay. All was
calm and normal … in fact, strangely so, the sea being flat calm and with no
wind, a very eerie calm. Rushan, the navigator, was already up there with the
captain, and he briefed Christey and me with the fact that we had encountered
the edge of the typhoon and had left the berth for the safety of the comparatively
wide Bay, and were then in the eye of the storm, riding it out with both anchors
down. It seemed that I had missed any excitement.

But I hadn’t. In about an hour the wind began to rise, and we put the engine-
room on stand-by. I could not immediately see why we did this, but I soon found
out. The wind increased alarmingly quickly to such an extent that it was difficult
to hear orders being given. And I soon realised why the engines and bow thruster
were ready; the Captain had to use them for what seemed like hours – but wasn’t
– to keep the anchors from dragging. If any passengers had been about on deck in
that screaming wind, it would for them undoubtedly have been quite frightening,
but both Captain and Navigator knew what they were about (though I doubt that
either had been in such a situation before) and by the time my watch was over,
although I did not leave the bridge, the question was one of how quickly we could
get back to the berth, the wind by then being relatively normal; necessarily, for we
still had quite a number of passengers ashore.

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