All closing
closing down
the light
and the seaways
the space and the great night
closing
closing down
the first thing built
walls
to keep out
to contain
and the roads
that contain
where you can go
it's all closing
closing down
The borders
all closing
closing down
and the light.
Heading up channel
it became obvious
that all the other ships
were heading home as empty as we were.
Crews discovered the pleasures
of deck plains rather
than container mountains
oily fitters discovered that
their poops had ports.
It should be called the English Funnel
everything heading to a point of crisis
the dire straits of Dover
to split like dying atoms
into the North Sea
Thames Estuary
Rotterdam
Antwerp
Hamburg
Hull
Skagerrack
Kiel Kanal
Pentland Firth
Oslo
the North Pole and South Shields
but first this coming together
as if all ships might fuse
one day too many fare into the forge
cruise into the crucible
motor into the mould
and there will be
Uberschiff
crammed up Calais to Deal
buckling for the Goodwin Sands
tearing into the Little Downs
furrowed up against North Foreland
and we can walk from shore to shore
no longer an island
but a cul de sac
with nets, en suite, underfloor and fully fitted
Blairland.
The ship's bow throws aside
spittles of spray which it pulverises to mist; the product
of a channel lop rather than
the surging masses of the full
ocean swells.
A Russian sailor walks up the port side deck in a bright red, but dirty, anorak and carrying a plastic detergent container cut down to make a bucket. From this angle he looks every bit like an old Cornishman going up Spar.
Later:
A long day's haul, with the ship overhauling everything in sight. I did limited filming with the damaged camera. There was a French or Breton beamer trawling right across the middle of the fairway!
Eventually there was mobile contact with French networks. Peter told me he was receiving a multitude of French and English radio stations, but of course my radio ist ja kaput. I got a text message from Mark saying he had finished New Reed but I could not send a reply.
I asked the Second Officer for an ETA at Dover and he said we should be berthing around 1800. I called Faversham and told them this.
Meanwhile work continued on deck under the grey skies and above the newly green sea. As it grew dark we could see yellow lights on the British shore and we turned northwards.
We approached Dover harbour with the town lights behind and to the south and west. We were on time but then the propeller blades were feathered and we started to drift off the cliffs for more than 2 hours. I discovered that while BT Mobile had enabled my phone to operate on French providers it was still blocked, incoming and outgoing, on their own network. So to contact the family who were waiting somewhere near the entrance to the Eastern Docks I had to 'hide' from the BT aerials so I could contact them through French Orange or Bouytel. Eventually we were too close to England for this to work and contact was, most frustratingly, lost. They ended up waiting 3 1/2 hours while our drifting continued. I asked the Captain the reason for the delay - apparently the port had not yet cleared our berth. The pilot came on board and I heard my first British voice since Costa Rica . It failed to give me much joy.
Eventually, shortly after 2030, we docked. I fetched my luggage and prepared to disembark. I had had enough. But Ivan told me I had to await Immigration formalities. This apparently involved the shipping agent. I waited, pack on my back, while she spoke to the Captain on various issues, making a thorough nuisance of myself. Eventually the Captain gave me my passport. Ivan was very insistent that I should get a lift out of the port with the agent and this involved another twenty-minute wait, eventually at the foot of the gangplank. I was back in Britain. It was autumn. This place had given us the first delay of the trip. Dear old officious, ignorant Blighty. But the dockworkers wore lovely fluorescent safety gear to work their worse-than-third-world equipment.
Still, I'm off. Escaped. Except for the dreams.0845: The Channel is grey. There are vessels to either side of us, all going the same way in the Shipping Lane. We must be towards the French side so technically I suppose we're in La Manche. But there is certainly no land to be seen. It is like driving on a moderately busy motorway.