The Outlaw Sea

Just before I pulled a Houdini and neatly disappeared from under your very fingertips, I finished a book.  Reading one, that is, not writing one (unfortunately, I have yet to climb that mountain).  The interesting part in that statement is the fact that I was actually re-reading the book … a very rare occurrence for this word-addict.  Even rarer yet, I was re-reading it immediately after finishing it the first time.  After reading the last line and letting the whole of the volume sink in, only two other books in this world have prompted me to turn back to the first page and begin again.  In the same order in which they were read, the three books were as follows:  1) Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith (fiction, young adult), my favorite book in grade school; 2) The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger (non-fiction), my favorite book in college; and 3) The Outlaw Sea by William Langewiesche (non-fiction), an amazing book I just discovered.

Actually, I “discovered” it in a discount bin at a local bookstore late last winter.  I muddled through a few other tomes before his turn came round and actually skipped ahead to him because I had tired of a procession of mediocre novels.  I needed something to sink my teeth into, something interesting and intelligently written and real.  And I certainly found it in William Langewiesche’s latest work.  The subtitle on his book reads “A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime” and he bares it all in six chapters spanning 239 pages.

The first line, an inestimably important introduction to the myriad paragraphs to follow, pushes off with a statement almost reproachful, or perhaps merely lamenting, that we are so ill-educated on our own world.  “Since we live on land, and are usually beyond sight of the sea, it is easy to forget that our world is an ocean world, and to ignore what in practice that means.”  It is an astute observation – and an accurate one – that, for all the beach fanfare and ocean-view palaver, we pay very little heed to what is actually taking place in, on, and around the ocean.  Of course we watch the weather to see if that tropical depression off Jamaica will turn into a hurricane and head in our direction, and some even worry about the future of the whales and fishes (as we rightly should) … but who stops to think about constant parade of great ships into and out of our ports every hour of the day and night?

A few years ago there was some attention paid to national security when ownership of several large ports changed hands to a middle-eastern company but I’ve heard little since.  An occasional newscaster mentions something of the contents of containers arriving from overseas and the impossible duty of trying to secure them, but most often it is mentioned in passing only.  Coast Guard commercials – and a vast majority of other government-funded propaganda – try to assure the American public that all is well on the high seas and we are well-protected by our trillion-dollar defense budgets.  Langewiesche offers another perspective.

“ … The ocean is a realm that remains radically free.  Expressing that freedom are more than forty thousand large merchant ships that wander the world with little or no regulation… ”  Not quite so quaint and peaceful a picture as Washington paints.  And it gets a whole lot worse.  Bidding wars between poor nations to draw in shipping business.  Ships with fresh paint and regular third-party inspections rusting away beneath their paperwork and sinking in light weather.  Pollution, politics, and piracy; regulations, reality, and recklessness; profit, panic, and poverty … Langewiesche neglects nothing.  The result is a fascinating peek at a whole other world.  With beautiful language and amazing objectivity, William Langewiesche serves as interpreter and guide to this strange new dimension parallel to the one we currently live in.

Toward the end of the book, he makes another observation that has rung in my thoughts since my first reading:  “In practice, the world is as much a human construct as a natural one.  The people who inhabit it have such radically different experiences in life that it can be almost surprising that they share the same air.”

For instance, I felt very small compared to the desperate plight of the crew of the tanker Kristal, which broke in two in a storm off Spain in 2001.  A third of the crew died while trying to escape the slowly foundering ship as I sat warm and safe and dry in my room.

Similarly remote to my patch of air was the disaster of the Estonia in the Baltic Sea.  In late September of 1994, the Estonia began a journey across the sea it would never complete, loaded not with oil or containers or even molasses as the Kristal had been but with people.  Langewiesche describes the ship as “ …a massive vessel, 510 feet long and nine decks high, with accommodations for up to two thousand people… ”  Well into its voyage, the ferry started to list.  In roughly fifteen minutes time it became an inescapable deathtrap.  It rolled, inverted, and sank shortly thereafter.  Of the approximately 1000 people on board, only 137 survived.  “Something had gone monstrously wrong,” Langewiesche wrote.  And while the terrified passengers of Estonia looked Death in the face amid thirty-foot waves and tropical storm-force winds, I was settling into the routine of another year in high school.  I was probably lamenting the late summer heat and a new batch of homework.

I find it equally incredible that I share the same air as the shipbreakers in India and Bangladesh who work days much longer than mine for next to nothing, surrounded by dangers I cannot even imagine.  I bitch about gas and taxes and the scrapes, bruises, bloodlettings of my job while they live in poisoned slums and breathe filthy air and risk their lives every day to earn a few coins.   Amazing indeed.

And while these may seem bleak overtures to a book, make no mistake that it is an extraordinary book nonetheless.  It is full of real people, glimpses of real lives we too often do not see.  I strongly recommend this book, even to those without an interest in shipping or things maritime.  Excellence transcends genre.  If you can’t find it at a local library, buy it.  And the next time you visit the ocean or try on a pair of imported shoes you’ll see them in a very different light.

“At the torn bow [of a ship in the process of being scrapped], I climbed through the broken bilge into the huge forward cargo hold, now open to the sky.  The ship was mine to wander…  I felt a sort of awe…  It was eerie and dim on the inside, an immense man-made cavern…  Toward the stern, where sunlight streamed through rough-cut ventilation holes and struck the oil-blackened walls, the towering engine room had the Gothic beauty of a cathedral – a monument to the forces of a new world.”     — William Langewiesche, The Outlaw Sea