THE VIEW FROM one of the log ships that visit the Port of Port Angeles is certainly different onboard.
I had the privilege of visiting the 580-foot STX Pioneer as she took logs aboard at the port’s Terminal 3 last week.
The Panamanian-flagged vessel was in port until early Wednesday morning, taking on 2.5 million board feet of debarked logs for delivery to the port city of Lanshan, China.
But first the log ship made her way to Tacoma, where her Port Angeles cargo was topped off with an additional 2 million board feet or more of logs bound for the Far East.
Grant Munro, known to many as a former member of the Port Angeles City Council, has worn many hats in the timber industry since he received his master’s degree in forest management from the University of Washington in 1971.
In 2003, Grant formed a company, Munro LLC, which purchased the logs that were loaded onto Pioneer.
Grant said according to state and federal law, logs for export must come off private lands.
Munro LLC acquires its logs through a number of sources that runs the gamut from timber sales and tribal lands to the landscaper who calls in a self-loading log truck to remove a small stand of trees from a client’s front yard.
Pioneer is operated by STX Pan Ocean, a company that owns 86 ships and charters an additional 308 vessels for its worldwide sea transportation business that is overseen from offices in Seoul, South Korea.
On Tuesday morning, I went aboard the log ship with Grant, and he introduced me to the third officer, Chol SooJong, who took us on a tour of the ship.
Chol is 23 and has been aboard Pioneer just shy of a year.
He said that for the entire time he has been assigned to the ship, Pioneer has been transporting logs from the Pacific Northwest to various ports in China.
Chol took us up through the interior of the superstructure until we reached the bridge.
From there, Grant and I got an eagle’s view of Port Angeles and witnessed from above the hubbub around the port that goes along with a ship being loaded with cargo.
We spied logging trucks running a loop from Peninsula Plywood to the docks, where the debarked logs were lifted off by the port’s log loaders and nested in log bunks adjacent to the ship while the trucks returned to PenPly for another load.
Longshoremen set the rigging around the nested logs, which were then hoisted aboard ship and stowed into her holds.
This process went on hundreds of times until all of the contracted logs were loaded.
We spent a few minutes on the bridge where Chol — who no doubt at times wished Grant or I spoke a little Korean, the working language aboard ship — explained that although the ship has billets for 25 officers and crew, the ship was currently being operated with a complement of 21 — 15 Korean and six Chinese.
At some point Grant drifted off to take care of business, and Chol and I wandered through the different spaces.
We went through the galley which separated two dining areas, one for the crew and the other for the officers.
Preparations for the noon meal were under way, and looking at the various items laid out on the work surfaces, I was mystified as to what was on the menu.
After a visit to the engine room, the main engine control room — and yes, the bilges — we ended up in the ship’s office where Arney Williams, the foreman for the longshoreman, and Rich Runkle, the superintendent for SSA, which provided the stevedoring services, had set up shop to manage the endeavor of loading the ship.
A couple of things worthy of note:
■ Within the ship’s office is a well-used bulletin board — and the first two items listed were the phone numbers of two Port Angeles pizza parlors.
■ I also found it interesting that the crew members adhered to the Asian custom of not wearing shoes inside residences.
In roaming about the ship it was easy to pick out the berthing compartments — they had shoes sitting in front of the door of the occupant’s home away from home.
Anchor testing
Elsewhere in the Port of Port Angeles, Kodiak, the 869-foot crude oil tanker that was formerly named Tonsina, moored to Port of Port Angeles’ Terminal 1 North on Tuesday.
Chandra “Hollywood” McGoff of Washington Marine Repair, the topside ship repair company at the foot of Cedar Street, said the ship, which is now on her way to Valdez, Alaska, was in for 48 hours to have her anchors tested.
Chandra also said the 126-foot K-Sea tug, Adriatic Sea, and her tow, the DBL 77, a petroleum products tank barge, moored to Terminal 1 shortly after Kodiak departed.
The tug-barge combo were dockside for only 24 hours while a couple of minor welding tasks were done.
On the hard
Platypus Marine Inc. at Cedar Street and Marine Drive in Port Angeles has Onward, a Horizon 82 sitting on the hard at their yard.
According to Charlie Crane, director of marketing and sales, the yacht is having her props tuned, the shafts realigned and new cutlass bearings installed.
Crews will also be installing new line cutters on the props, paint the bottom and install new zincs.
Seasoned Salt, a 34-foot Tollycraft owned by Ron Marx of Port Angeles, is in Platypus’ Commander Building.
She will be there for about three weeks to have all her running gear inspected and to have her props sent out to North Harbor Propeller in Anacortes to be refurbished.
New dripless seals will be installed, and she, too, will have her bottom painted.
The road to Zanzibar
Skagit and Kalama, the former state passenger ferries that have been moored to the transient dock in the Port Angeles Boat Haven for the past week, are scheduled to be loaded aboard a Yacht Path Pacific ship in Victoria this weekend for transport to Tanzania, where they will provide passenger service to Zanzibar.
Aboard that same transport ship will be an 85-foot Pacific Mariner by Westport that was built in the Grays Harbor County town of Westport.
Katie Wakefield of Westport Shipyard in Port Angeles said the yacht will be delivered to a client in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Bunkering down
On Tuesday, Tesoro Petroleum refueled the articulated tug, Commitment, in Port Angeles Harbor.
The next day, Tesoro provided bunkers to Evergreen State, a 617-foot tanker.
Omega Lady Miriam was bunkered on Thursday.
She is a 748-foot petroleum products tanker that is flagged in the Marshall Islands.
On Friday, Tesoro refueled the 941-foot Alaskan Navigator, after which she got under way for Valdez.
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David G. Sellars is a Port Angeles resident and former Navy boatswain’s mate who enjoys boats and strolling the waterfront.
Items involving boating, port activities and the North Olympic Peninsula waterfronts are always welcome. Email dgsellars@hotmail.com or phone him at 360-808-3202.
