Our World Trip: Nagasaki

With one sea day between Osaka and Nagasaki we had been treated to an excellent Port Talk (one of a very few good ones!), thus deciding to do our own thing and explore this famous City independently, handing back our Tour tickets in the early afternoon. Within a few minutes reports were coming in of the dreadful earthquake and tsunami which had struck northern Japan. Rumour spread rapidly through the ship and it soon became apparent that our stop would be cancelled or severely limited. How could it be acceptable to be tourists in a traumatized Country? Many guests had family or friends in the North and the ship had over 30 guests on an overland tour to Tokyo.

No instructions had been issued overnight, so it was up with the lark that we watched the sail-in at 06:00 – something was not right, the Sun was on the port quarter so we were sailing away from Nagasaki, leaving a gently curving anti-clockwise wake. At 07:00 the Commodore announced that all Japanese ports were closed pending structural and depth surveys, so the call was cancelled. However, because of the overland guests and the need to embark Chinese Customs Officials, the ship would cruise the bay until the guests had arrived in Nagasaki and could board a tug for the 5-mile trip to QM2. In the meantime more rumour and an update from the resident Oceanographer about tsunamis. Interesting to reflect that this speaker had given talks on:

Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Volcanoes, Whales, The Deep Seas, Coral Reefs -so we have only to run aground and all his work will have been relevant! Suffice to say that the seabed off Japan has lifted by 10m in places, so a depth survey would be a good idea.

As we cruised about we could see the famous bridge and the Mitsubishi cranes in the distance, being the only evidence of the heavy industry which made the city a target in August 1945. Eventually the tug came alongside and with much cheering the overlanders and officials were welcomed aboard before we turned to starboard and set a course to clear the many islands to the South before turning Northwest into the South China Sea.

We are now steaming up the Yellow Sea towards Xingang for Beijing in a pea-soup fog (viz < 50m, foghorn blowing) and a mere 70m of water. Fact of the day – it’s called the Yellow Sea because the yellow dust blown from the Gobi Desert leaves a scum on the water.

A full 12 hours in China tomorrow to see the Great Wall and some of Beijing, some by bullet train. Let’s hope there are no more natural disasters before we leave the Far East and head Southwards to Asia.