So I wanted to wait a day or two to sort of reflect and sum up the whole freighter thing before I answered the question .

..was it worth it ?

and 

would I do it again ?
Was it worth it ?
Absolutely The trip was illuminating, boring,exhilarating,lonely and challenging. The isolation while really challenging also gave me a distance from my life to reflect on things and think about what …now that I’m a retiree..what I will do next. I think I may not have answered that question but I think I know the direction I will take to answer it . Spending real time with people who I normally would never interact with and listening to them helped me maybe think about some things I know are priorities but haven’t focused on. I’m really excited about some of the things I’m going to try now and accomplish…none of it involves a corporate 9to 5 job 🤓
I also think disconnecting from social media and 24/7 news and constant digital stimulation was a really heathy thing.  

I read more, thought more and walked more…I think I’m going try and reduce my digital exposure a bit 

I also loved meeting the crew and hearing their stories. I’m going to write some of them up and share them in next weeks but it got me thinking about how we all have stories and how we all want to share them or hear other people’s stories. I’ve started a project to do that and I’m going to work on it the next few months 

I think I got on that ship a bit burned out and bit disillusioned with things but got off feeling a bit recharged and thinking of creative things I’ve put on the back burner for too long So overall really positive experience 
Would I do it again ?
Are you Mad!! Absolutely Not!   

Certainly not by myself and not unless I brought my own chef ! It was an amazing bucket list experience but I feel once was enough. The first 10 days where we would stop and hit a Port were interesting but that last trek across the sea was a bit like being in exile and that’s not really me In the end I actually enjoyed the isolation but I missed my family and friends and the world as well. I think I could get the same isolation on land and in a different setting I was a bit overwhelmed by the physical distance and isolation on a sea in the middle of nowhere that I couldn’t leave. At least at a monastery I could get in the car and go for a spin lol.   

Seriously it was an amazing experience and the crew were so friendly They have a tough job I felt isolated and disconnected for 18 days these guys spend 6 months like that. I could see how much they missed families and friends and most of all home. I missed home too. 

Since getting to NZ those feelings have essentially disappeared. I see John and all you crazies on Facebook and see what your doing. I am back to zipping around exploring Auckland and planning my sojourn to the South Island I don’t feel disconnected or displaced I feel excited and rejuvenated. I promise the rest of my posts will be more travel and less ramble 

Someone asked me what was the worst thing about the trip ?

The Food.    

It wasnt horrible …it was just boring and institutional and reinforced the isolation monotony and schedule of the ship.
The best thing
The crew. Their stories their willingness to make you a friend and share their space with you . I think the saddest thing is that I will never see any of them again but grateful for the sliver of life they shared
The stars

I can’t articulate to you what the night sky looked like and how amazing it was. Only that it gave me enormous comfort and reaffirmed my sense of wonder and exploration…and isn’t that why we travel to begin with 

A lot of water 
When I planned the trip I had visions of endless seas filled with dolphins and whales and amazing vistas 

Well, I got the endless seas but haven’t seen a dolphin since the Caribbean.   

I find myself gazing out looking for something but it’s just endless blue 

Of course what I hadn’t thought about was the night sky I wish I could describe it in an articulate way. In my entire life I’ve never seen anything like it. I tried to take pictures so I could share the incredible starry nights but it doesn’t turn out. So many nights I walk up to the bow and sit in my special plastic lounge chair and just watch the sky. The ship is totally dark and I find myself drifting off a bit overwhelmed by it all I get how our ancestors used the stars to find their way. It truly is like a map and the stars are so bright out here. I can see how following the various constellations could take you anywhere 

The pictures I took didn’t do it justice so I stole this one as it really shows the incredible light and clarity of the Southern Sky. I will think of those night skies the rest of my life 

I came expecting the endless sea but was blown away but the Southern night skies 

Over the next few days I’ll sum up my freighter trip and then move on to NZ. Don’t forget I love the comments 

I’m sure many of you wonder why I haven’t been put away long before now but my days  on the boat did feel a bit like I had been  institutionalized .  I could go anywhere but off the ship and could come and go as long as I made those meals   

When I booked my passage on the Bernhard S I had envisioned total freedom. I could wander where and when I wanted to. Talk to the crew or be a total recluse 

However, what I discovered is life aboard is very regimented, which, now of course makes perfect sense. Cause it doesn’t revolve around me ..sadly..but around the work they are doing. I am essentially a high maintenance human container they are transporting. 😇 It’s a working ship and it keeps working hours and if your on it you need to follow that regiment at least when it comes to meals.  

We eat ‪at 7:30 am‬.  Then ‪11:30 am‬ and then ‪5:30‬. If you don’t make those hours you miss a hot meal and end up sorting through the walk in fridge looking at god knows what for dinner.  Ive tended to just eat lunch and then do a sandwich at night.  John would be proud of my PBJ dinners. Meals are quite heavy and bland ….definitely not Queen Mary fare. It’s like your eating at your elementary school cafeteria with large portions …everyday. It’s the worse part of the experience. To be honest as the days have dragged on I’ve come to dread the meals. The lack of variety and the strict time schedules make me feel a bit like I’m in an institution. Everyday some kind of frozen meat with some kind of frozen veggies with some canned fruit! Lol. We don’t appreciate the choice we have ! The first part of the trip people were very chatty and friendly but now the closer we get to shore the more withdrawn we all seem to be. Of my 5 constant dinner companions three will leave the ship when I do and head home after months at sea. Their thoughts are definitely turning to home and family and my mind is drifting to my friends I miss and my husband who I love and the excitement of getting to New Zealand . I’ve missed a lot of meals just walking on the deck or reading on the bridge and while no one says anything I think my absence is noted. In a way I’m the entertainment! I’ve enjoyed the solitude to be honest but I do feel the pressure to follow the regiment more closely especially because these guys are really nice and friendly and good company when we are engaged. I’ve particularly enjoyed the conversation especially with the captain and the chief engineering officer. Good guys with lots of seafaring stories.  

So when I get to NZ on the 9th I’m going to have a big Latte followed by the largest salad I can find and then a wonderful steak with perfectly cooked broccoli and a baked potato and I’m going to eat it at noon or at 2 or at 9 pm or whenever I feel !  

It was an amazing experience and I’ll write more in next few days but the food was not the highlight ! 

Was really surprised by Panama City. We got a surprise day there two weeks ago when we couldn’t get in our berth . I had never been there so not sure what I expected but found a really interesting mix of old and new. With a great mall that sold Oreos! The skyline looks like Miami but still lots of colonial architecture especially in the old town section.  

I might need a second look here in the future 


You watch a lot of DVDs and read a lot of books when you’re the only passenger on a freighter. When I was in high school I read a lot of James Michener. I liked the way he used intensive research to sort of tell a story about a place and its history. I got he wasn’t Tolstoy but hey I learned a lot. Besides South Pacific is based on a collection of his stories so you know he was doing something right when they take something you wrote and make it into a big musical lol. I remember being at the Iowa Writers Workshop in the 80s and they used to put Michener down as sort of a writer for the masses and not a real writer…until he donated a few million to the program then they fell all over themselves calling him a writer for the people lol Anyhow I digress.   

As I was preparing for the trip I came across the box set of dvds for the 1978 mini series Centennial based on Michener’s novel. Now the novel takes us from prehistoric times to the present of a fictional place called Centennial Colorado. As you can imagine it’s rich in its diversity of characters and situation…I mean several thousand years is a long time lol
The mini series … not so much. 25 hours of programming featuring every mediocre talent of that era. As my friend Frank Menchaca says “people who never let lack of talent get in the way of success”. 
While the roles require a large number of Native Americans there are no Native Americans in the cast. Instead these roles are played by either white guys in really bad 1960 hippie wigs or Latinos who look vaguely exotic. My favorite is Barbara Carrera (born Kingsbury but that’s not that exotic) who plays Indian maiden clay basket . She plays the role as if she’s Miss Arapahoe 1876. Working the campfire like it’s a runway..and looking fierce which since she was an Eileen Ford model and Bond Girl seems natural 

Also featured is the king of 80s mini series Richard Chamberlain as the Scottish mountain man… Now Chamberlain can actually act so between looking smoldering at Babs who he can’t have (or as we found out later maybe he was really checking out Robert Conrad ) he is actually passable . 

However, Raymond Burr , Chad Everett, Andy Griffith, David Janssen, Gregory Harrison, Pernell Roberts , Stephanie Zimbalist and countless other 70 tv stars aren’t. Mostly they look confused or amused 

I have to save special mention for Robert Conrad. Remember him from the Wild Wild West? In Centennial he plays Pasquinell the French Canadian Mountain man with an accent so amazing I had to replay the first episode to really enjoy it. It’s sort of a cross between Celine Dion and a villain from Dudley DoRight ! “We go zee rivar to trap le beaver” 

Yet I found the whole thing totally compelling I dashed down from dinner each night to watch at least one new episode each evening. I found myself not reading or watching Dvds with great films so I could watch another installment of this series. I think it was Noel Coward who said “strange how potent cheap music is”. It applies to bad tv too! I have to say if you find yourself on a freighter with 17 days on your hands definitely get out the DVD player and watch Centennial! Oh I did lie about one thing. There was one Native American in it Chief Dan George For those of you who don’t remember him he was the NA Actor Hollywood always cast for authenticity regardless of the appropriateness of him in the role. He made a lot of money …good for him 

This first part follows the trench dug by the French on the first attempt. It was during this attempt that close to 60% of the workers perished. There has never been an actual count of how many workers died during this time but 20,000 is not an unrealistic number. All were victims of either Malaria or YellowFever and a few accidents thrown in .It’s odd how knowing the history makes this place so amazing and so accurately reflects a time when the “big idea” went from Europe to the States. When the French started the canal they had just finished the Suez Canal and Paris was the most beautiful and advanced engineering center of the world. The French engineering universities and architecture schools were where any serious student..British, American, German went to study

They believed they could do anything and raised millions for projects all over the globe. They believed that sheer intellectual power could overcome anything so they ignored the minority’s advice to not build a sea level Canal but use locks and create a huge lake. There was actually a French engineer who suggested just that and he was derided for not having vision.

In the end intellectual brilliance couldn’t overcome the jungle and the tiny mosquito and the venture collapsed

When Teddy Roosevelt became president common opinion was to forget Panama and build the Canal through Nicaragua using Lake Nicaragua. The reason Panama got the go ahead was that the French offered to sell what they had started for a bargain basement price. The new American engineers stressed practicality over vision and borrowed from the scoffed at French guy and created a man made lake. Of course not asking the Panamanians who would be displaced by the new lake what they thought …but hey we engineered and financed a rebellion just to take Panama away from Columbia so we could control the eventual Canal so what’s a thousand or so displacements?!

Anyhow, knowing all this and the contextual history made the journey really interesting to me Going through the Galliard Cut where first the French then the Yanks essentially cut a canyon through the mountains at a huge cost to life and endured continuos deadly landslides seemed like a minor sight unless you visualized the challenge it was in 1908. It’s funny everything I read talks about the outrageous financial costs to build the canal ….how it’s been repaid many times but few talk about the human costs. The sheer magnitude of death that went into this turn of the a Century wonder. Of course much of our understanding of tropical disease treatment came from those who died but I’m sure they don’t care ! Finally after 6 hours I could finally see a glimpse of the pacific.

Even today I was shocked at the sheer volume of traffic through the Canal 24/7 365 a year.

So I crossed a continent in 6 hours !

I really know my grandad and my pop would have loved being with me. I hope they were I took a bunch of photos in chronological order so you can go from the Atlantic to the Pacific with me.

signing off…I’ll see you in 16 days…and be full of boring stuff to read during conference calls 😎please drop me an e mail that I can access on the ship at

Donojames@aol.com

N ow on to those 99 dvds and 50 books on my iPAD

As we head through the canal I’m thinking of my grandad today but also my father. My dad loved adventure. He always put family first so other than the occasional fishing trip he didn’t get out much. When my folks had vacation it was always a family affair and usually my mom and dad made it educational . My dad was famous for long drives expounding on various geological features. My sister and I knew all about rocks and strata and seismic plates from an early age from long family vacations and my dads running educational monologue. Sometimes I hear myself sounding just like my dad ..ask John lol. If my pop did get a chance to do something daring or exciting he embraced but seldom planned it for himself I remember taking him on safari to Africa two years before we lost him. He loved that trip I’ve never seen him happier than sitting in the land rover with his silly fishing hat ready to go He was raised on a tenant farm in New Mexico to very poor parents and never thought he would see anything. I think that was something I always loved about him.. he never lost his enthusiasm for new things or experiences. He never dreamed he would get to experience much so when he did it always meant something to him. Whether it was flying in first class for the first time or tenth time or chasing cheetahs in Botswana or watching His kids catch their first fish he never lost his enthusiasm for life and for small and big experiences that shape it. Even in the end he was optimistic and wondering about tomorrow. I hope we get to have more adventures somewhere …. 

I thought about my pop a lot today 

Sent from my iPhone

Sent from my iPad

Those who have had the misfortune of working with me know how I always warble on about all crew and no passengers. So, it’s interesting to actually be a passenger and not part of the crew. I just hope they don’t make me walk the plank or put me to work ! 

Anyhow, thought I’d write a little about the crew 

The crew consists of 19 guys including Germans, Lithuanians Ukrainians and primarily Filipinos who by working on container ships are in a job that pays substantially more than jobs found at home. 

I spend a lot of time with the Filipino second and third officers. Richard and Paolo. They both have families at home and they work long contracts so don’t get to see them much. Everyone is on contract. You work a 9 month on 2 months off contract if you’re crew Think about that. If you have kids you get to see them essentially 2 months a year ! 

Junior officers work 6 months on and 2 off while senior officers work 4 and 4. It’s hard and lonely work but for the Filipinos it’s really a way to get ahead financially . In addition to this job they all were running side businesses with family back home. Every one of them told me they don’t see this as a long term thing . 20 years then home and build a business there. It made me laugh cause 20 years seems pretty long to me😟. It’s all about perspective,

For years these cargo companies have discriminated against Filipino employees in terms of advancement Captain Nelson is one of the few Filipino captains in the company. He is quite open about the disparity in terms of pay and work expectation between European Captains and Filipino ones. 

The  chief engineer is German . He works four months then is off four months but paid for the entire 8 months as he is under European working laws. Captain Nelson does the same but he is only paid for the 4 months he is working. That is true of all the Filipino employees. If they don’t work they don’t get paid. These Companies save a lot of money doing this. Now, certainly the Filipino employees earn well for their economy but there is no such thing as pay equality. 

Employees often extend their contracts. I met one crew member who has been on this ship for 18 months. He goes home in 17 days. He hasn’t seen his family in a year and a half. He will take 2 months off and then head out again. Not the life for a family man but some people have fewer choices . As he talked he showed me downloaded videos his wife sends of his kids That’s how he knows them .


Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPad

An unexpected day in Panama City. Up early and into a taxi to the Center. Went up in the observation platform then walked around and had coffee and then to a very upscale mall. Between “interesting ” banking and offshore business regulations and the canal Panama seems to be bustling ! And who doesn’t love a good court with a Dairy Queen ..just missing the Elvis impersonator like we have back home 

Thought I would share some details of the ship with you all ….although no one seems to know who Bernhard S was !Length 261.1 meters (around 858 feet) 

Width. 32.25 meters (106 ft approximately) 

Not to tempt fate but roughly the size of the Titanic..luckily we don’t expect any icebergs  

4256 double containers can be transported 

We sail with 19 crew and room for 8 passengers course this trip just one passenger. ME

We consume about 160 tons per day of fuel 

Out fuel tank had 6500 tons capacity and we fill up primarily in the US as prices are lower

50k horsepower 

We actually make out own water. Using sea water we have an on board evaporator that is sampled for purity regularly 

Currently we are carrying 335 tons of water but can carry up to 430 tons when full of water and we make it from salt water

Questions? Lol ​

​