November 11 – Docked in Busan New Port, South Korea

“Two, Eight, Five” says the Captain.
“Steering Two, Eight, Five.” answers the helmsman.

We reached the Korean coast early this morning, the bright floodlights of the fishing vessels like a string of pearls on the dark horizon. Short, jagged peaks appear, then a clump of skyscrapers.

“Two, Nine, Zero.” The Captain takes another drag of his cigarette.
“Two, Nine, Zero.”

Busan’s sea lanes are busy. Radar shows blips all round. I count more than three dozen cargo vessels. We also pass a new orange-painted oil drilling platform, then a small submarine.

“Two, Three, Zero. uh, I mean Three, Zero, Zero. Three, Zero, Zero.”
“Three, Zero, Zero.”

“Dead Slow Speed”
“Dead Slow”

The bridge VHF radio crackles and squawks in Korean and multinationally-accented English. A pilot boat speeds out towards us, performs a smart turn, and comes alongside. The pilot grabs the rope ladder, climbs up to the deck, then makes his way to the bridge. He’s wearing a blue uniform, shirt and tie, hardhat, yellow sunglasses, and an inflatable PFD. A handshake with the Captain and he takes command.

Hanjin Copenhagen glides past dark, moss-covered rock outcrops into a vast two-mile-long rectangle fringed with gantry cranes. A hard turn to port, then nudged dockside by a tug and our own bow-thrust engine. We’re at the Hanjin dock, with sister ships “Hanjin Miami” and “Hanjin Madrid” fore and aft, respectively. The crew replacements are waiting with their luggage. It’s not long before three massive pink-coloured cranes start slinging containers on and off. Behind them lies another vast Lego-block landscape, much bigger than Vancouver’s.

We’ll only be here for eleven hours and leave tonight at 2200, so there’s no time to go shoreside. No great loss, as the actual city is far from the port anyway. Technically, I don’t get to set foot on Korean soil, but I’ll still be able to say I’ve “been” to Korea. It’s warm and I’m sweating (Busan is roughly on the same latitude as Los Angeles); I briefly had Wifi reception on my Blackberry (thanks for the blog comments); and I’m walking funny since the ship’s dockside stability is throwing me off-balance.