Due to the Covid pandemic we have not been on any holidays this year so do not have any holiday stories to write about, we have been more or less in some kind or level of isolation since March. Jun has been working from home but I have not been able to get down to the port to do ship welfare visiting, we pretty much stay in most of the time. We do manage to go out riding our bikes on a morning and we have been researching and riding old railway lines on weekends collecting old photographs and taking new ones of the lines, stations, signal boxes and general history of them etc.We even bought a book on the subject which shows over a 100 of them around Britain which we are going to try and complete. 

 We did have 3 days in Edinburgh in January and decided to go by train which we really enjoyed, did a bit of sightseeing and visited museums and galleries. Also went to see the musical The Lion King which was incredible the costumes and set designs were amazing. We also took the bus out to Roslyn to see the famous chapel there that was a beautiful place full of historical significance ( quite apart from the less significant aspect of being the final scene in the film of Dan Browns book The Davinci Code).

I was supposed to be going to London at start of April for some lectures but everything was cancelled and I was refunded the tickets for the lectures and the rail fare. We also managed in early September to get away in our campervan and tent to a site on the outskirts of North Berwick Scotland to spend a few days cycling old railway paths in the area. Although we did manage to complete three the weather was not very kind and we struggled in gale force winds and at times heavy rain and on one night we were awake most of the night having to keep going outside to secure the tent as it was on the verge of being torn away due to the winds and the rain got in to the tent making many things very wet, It turned out to be a tiring trip as well as a bit of an adventure and I think we were glad to be home at the end of it.   

So I have had plenty of time for contemplation, meditation and study at home and keeping in touch with the meditation groups and Throssel Buddhist Abbey via Zoom,e mails, calls etc. I also do Zoom meeting with Stella Marris every week we have managed to help one Spanish ship stranded off the Philipine coast after I read an article about it and passed it to our Chaplain, it then went to Head Office and from there to Stella Marris in Manilla who pressured the Govt to send out supplies to it. The other one was working with ITF (International Transport Federation) after Jun and I came across a Chinese Seafarer on a ship in the UK who after talking with him about wages, conditions etc realized he was very homesick and had mental health issues possibly verging on suicidal  thoughts, so we passed all this on to ITF and they spoke with the owners to get him off the ship and repatriated home. There is an article that I wrote about myself and Jun's visits to ships which Stella Maris had asked for which I have included at the end of this blog as a way of showing some of the things we do and the impact it can have on seafarers.

We went to Redcar sea front 6th of February for a service representing The Apostleship of the Sea to mark the 50th year since the sinking of The Lairdsfield and the death of all 10 crew at the mouth of the Tees a lot of people turned out for it including relatives from Northern Ireland who along with original members of the Lifeboat crew talked about how it affected them. I actually remember it and how the newspapers called it "The ship that did not want to sail", it had loaded steel for Cork and this had not been done correctly, she sailed and a crew member broke his leg so they came back alongside, sailed again and had engine trouble came back fixed that and sailed again in to a heavy swell the pilot got off and headed back to the station the ship turned to starboard was hit by a large swell and turned completely over before the pilot had even got back to the station a real tragedy. It was a lovely service and at the end there was a poem read called The Ship which was very moving.

Well things are starting to move a bit now as I have managed to go down to Teesport in December to make a start on putting toiletries,gloves,hats,socks,chocolate etc in to bags ready to give to seafarers for Christmas and we will start to go to the ships this week.

And finally, below is an article I wrote for Stella Maris AoS as part of their centenary celebrations.

An article that was published in the Apostleship of the Sea web site in 2020 I have always had a love of the sea and went to sea at age 16 for a few years followed by working on American oil rigs. But eventually went ashore and after retraining worked in Social Services and became a Supported Housing Manager as well as being a Buddhist Chaplain in local Hospitals.

But when I retired and after 4 years living in China with my Chinese wife Jun we returned to the UK. I wanted to do some volunteer work and the opportunity came up to be a ship visitor for Stella Maris when I met with Peter Barrigan the Chaplain for Tees and Hartlepool, and my wife joined me a year later also as a ship visitor and being Chinese there have been many opportunities to meet Chinese crews and help them in so many ways.

A few examples that spring to mind are…

One Chinese ship that had spent weeks at sea sailing to the USA where the crew were not allowed ashore. Then sailing to Teesport and due to a misunderstanding, they again believed they could not go ashore. The smiles on their faces when we explained that they could go ashore and what’s more we would take them was wonderful. We took them to the local towns, shopping, visiting places even spending quite a bit of time helping them to find fishing equipment, and when a few days later it was Chinese New Year Jun and I were invited to the ship to celebrate with them. The crew still over two years later keep in contact with us.

Another Chinese ship arrived at Teesport and whilst we were visiting, we found out that a large number of the crew had been away from home for many, many months and were feeling homesick and in particular missing traditional Chinese food especially a Chinese vegetable called in English, Chinese Leek, very different from our Leeks. Now Jun had a Chinese friend who lived about 15 miles from us and we knew she loved to grow traditional Chinese plants so we phoned her, and yes she had lots of Chinese Leeks,and yes we could have some. That same day we were back on board the ship delivering a bag full of Leeks plus other foods and herbs to a very surprised and grateful crew. Many of the Officers and crew keep in regular contact with us through WeChat as they sail all around the world and they often say the welcome they get from people in the UK is the best.

We were having a busy day visiting lots of ships when we received a call from the Mission on the North side of the river to inform us that they had a Filipino family there who had drove over from the other side of the Country looking for a ship in which their brother was the Chief Engineer, and that the ship was on our side of the river. We arranged to meet the family and get permission for them to go on to the port and visit him on the ship with us. We took them to the ship and after a very tearful greeting ( they had not seen each other for over 3 years ), we arranged for him to go ashore with them, do some sightseeing then go back to the Lake District where they lived and stay overnight. The Chief Engineer had to be back at work the next morning so we had them bring him back to the Mission very early the next morning and Roger one of our ship visitors agreed to come down to the port and take him back to the ship.

These are just three of the many stories of our times visiting ships at Teesport.