1. Gloomy day as I embarked across the high seas into the port of San Francisco. Rain peppering the salt streaked double paned viewing windows, the ferry crawled, through the channel past a trio of container ships. Colossal structures, metallic, Lego trojan horses, hovered over the dock removing and loading containers, blue, forest green, yellow, with names like Hajin, or China stamped on the side, precision choreographed movement I could have watched all day. Legend is that when container shipping was just a gleam in some Daddy Warbuck's eye, the concept was offered to the port of SF, who flipped off the idea. But that's an Oakland tale. The real skinny: depth and navigation regulations doomed the port of SF. Oakland was the first port to build for container shipping, and is now the 5th busiest port in the nation.
2. The Lurline. The Matsonia. The Mahimahi. Once part of the great Matson fleet, cruise liners which crossed from California to Hawaii carrying tourists to the island ports, in the 40's and 50's, and unrefined sugar in the hold on return voyages...in it's heyday, greeted by boats of savvy wahines laden with fragrant leis, and enterprising beach boys diving for coins tossed by passengers from the pristine white ships as they glided into Honolulu harbor, the quintessential transportation of the day, done in by aviation. The Pan Am clippers. Faster. Better. Uh-huh. If you happen to cross the Bay, you might get a glimpse of the once fabled Matson liners. They hover there in the water, stacked with containers, battleship gray, unrecognizable shells of the past. Yesterday etched in fading blue, the name, Lurline on the last freighter before we broke for open water.
3. The Hunger Games raking in the dough. Is it or is it not a 'Battle Royale' knock off?
4. Best damn tapioca sold by 'Donna's Tamales.' Off the truck. Vegan. Made with coconut milk.
Willyce -- where were you going on the ferry?
ReplyDeleteI was a passenger on one of those Matson liners (USS Mariposa and/or USS Monterrey). En route to Auckland, New Zealand (and back), we stopped in Honolulu circa 1969 and again in 1972 (??). All expenses paid by US government transporting one of its civil servants (and his family) to a posting at the American Consulate in Auckland. At the time, there was a policy that US personnel travel via US-owned carriers and only the Matson lines travelled down under at the time. Lucky us! What a scam!
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