Were the "good old days" really good?

By Captain Ricardo Caballero
Panama Canal Pilot



Were "the good old days" really good? (seafarers version)

I remember going to sea for the first time as a deck officer. It was not easy to adjust myself to working on a ship with a group of people from different nationalities and cultures. The Captain was Greek, and the Officers, except me, were also Greek. The rest of the crew was a mix of filipinos, sailors from 4 latin American countries, a couple of Canadian cadets, two Egyptians, and a few others from I can't remember which countries.  I do remember the Greeks complained about the present, saying that things were better in the past, saying that I had missed " the good old days". They did not specify what was good about those days. But I figured it would be the food aboard, the amount of crew, and the pay, which to me, was very decent.

I recall that there was no time limit in my contract. I could stay for as long as I wanted. And I did stay for as long as I could because there was no guarantee that the company would ever call me back. It was hard to find a steady job if you were from a third world country. I see seafarers from the Philippines and other places working on steady contracts these days on almost every single ship.

Being young, single and eager to learn the job while visiting other countries never made me think of those days as bad. I had friends working for better companies, under excelent working conditions ( steady contracts with regular on/off periods), aboard impeccable modern ships, but they referred to those days as very bad.  To them there are not "good old days"

The ship I worked on was an old bulk carrier  which could not hide its age. It had five cargo holds and it was fitted with derricks. The Macgregor hatch covers needed constant maintenance and sometimes we all had to get our hands busy to prepare the holds to pass cargo inspections. Closing and opening those covers was a chaotic operation. It was also a dangerous one. I once witnessed how a sailor lost a finger when his hand got trapped between the wire and the winch. But a Greek boatswain told me that it was more difficult and dangerous in the past. Sailors not only would lose a limb, but many times their lives too. Was that good? I very much doubt it.

There are very few ships these days that have those old systems to load and discharge a ship. Nowadays most bulkers have cranes which are very safe to operate. Of course there must be a few accidents, but without having the statistics I am sure the rate is very low.

We sailed between U.S. and Latin American ports. Mainly carrying grain from the Mississippi river banks silos to Latin American. Loading was always fast, a day or two, but discharging would  take anywhere from a week to a month. Enough to spend a good deal of time ashore sightseeing, walking around the port towns, and of course, having a beer or two with a girl, or two. ( Remember, I said I was single) 

That was great, but it was great only because I was young and starting my career. I remember that senior sailors would not care  much about shore leave all the time, not in the way I did. And when they did, they would come back intoxicated taking the chance to being sent back home.  

They surely missed their wives and children, and their contracts, just like mine, had not an ending date. They had to work for many months in order to save enough money to take back home. Non sailors used to think that it was fun, like taking a cruise. But it was  fun for me back then, though I would probably had gotten fed up in a few years from living an erratic life.  

While we were out in the middle of the ocean, weather permitting, the Captain would let us make  a barbecue. Even if the weather wasn't so good, he would adjust the course to minimize rolling and pitching so we still could have our barbecue. I don't know if the company knew, besides it was not easy for them to track the ship since the gps was still in its craddle. It was probably wrong to do that, but I think it was harmless, and it was a  break for the crew. That was good too.

Today not only shipping companies, but everybody with the right app, knows where a ship is. No more course changing to relax or make a barbecue. Most companies have an alcohol free policy on their ships, so for those who love beer or whiskey the fun is gone. 

Who ever sailed during those days remember the navigation equipment: a couple of radars with a poor display, a satellite receiver that provided us with a position sometimes after 4 hours from the last fix, 2 vhf radios and the short wave radio. In Europe they had Decca which was highly accurate but it was restricted to some regions. We were basically deck reckoning half of the way, or asking ships in the vicinity their position so we could have our own. That was if they responded. One of the company ships ran aground in Quita Sueño Bank in the Caribbean Sea after its satellite receiver broke down.

There was no internet and the only way we kept up with what was going on back home was thanks to the letters we received from our relatives and friends through the ship's agent. The letters sometimes reached our hands many weeks after they had been written. If someone you loved had gotten badly ill, he/her had probably died by the time you got the letter.

Phone calls were expensive and sometimes impossible to make. In my case it depended on the mood of the radio officer. The quality of the call was, most of the time, very poor.  

With today's technology sailors can call home from almost anywhere in the ocean. And, when in port, they just grab a cellphone and can make a video call. I mean, in real time they can watch their children on the little screen. In the past, their kids did not even recognized them when they went back home. Their dogs did, however. Sometimes they went back and someone had stolen his wife already.

 Today, some Captains claim that they have lost power to people ashore and that they have now more responsibilities yet less help. The reduction in crew contravene the intentions of having less fatigued seafarers. That is so true. I see these everyday in my job. Crews going through long intermittent on/off periods of duty while the ship transits the canal. But, do they get a break at sea? In my days there was a lot of maintenance work carried on while the ship was underway out in the ocean. I mean, you could see sailors painting the hull of the ship! 

Today most maintenance  is mainly done at the shipyard. There are not that many crappy boats out there. 

 Now, I think that when a sailor refers to the "good old days" he is just going through a nostalgic mood in which he only values what was good in the past. He is probably ignoring some other facts that were not that good. 

But, is it really like that for everybody? Or could it be that, in spite of today's complaints about working conditions and environment, some senior sailors admit that they have been significant improvements for them? 

I can understand that compensation these days is an issue, especially if the sailor comes from a country where living is expensive. Which is the reason why very few sailors from expensive countries do not feel motivated to work on ships these days. They are the few ones, I believe, that undoubtedly can talk about "the good old days". I do not think we are living in an era in which things are good for German seafarers, for instance.

But, were the old days really good? And in which sense were they good or better than today? Could it be that who ever refers to the past as "the good old days" is being deceived by the fact that he was young, and being young is always good.

I guess that the answer to this question will depend to whom it is asked. Or should I just rephrase the question:

 Were the old days good for you or not?

Mine were great, though not better than today.