<p>For those with an interest in the Matson GCX (Guam China Express) run the link below will give you a little flavor of what we experience. The videos are time lapse (with one exception) of a typical voyage of my ship from Long Beach to Long Beach through 35 days. The vids are in no particular order. The run is Long Beach, Honolulu, Guam, Xiamen, Ningbo, Shanghai (Pudong/Waigaoqiao) and back to Long Beach.</p>
<p>Deepdraft1,
Thank you for the link, the videos are amazing. It is a real treat to get a peek into some of the things our kids see and do while they are at sea. This summer we had the wonderful experience of touring the HAPAG-LLOYD ship our son was on. We were very impressed and thankful for the opportunity, I highly recommend it to anyone who can!</p>
<p>^^^Youre welcome! Im glad you liked them! The time lapse feature on the Minolta digital camera is really pretty cool. I even put the vids of Xiamen in the turnover notes to my relief to give him an idea of what the inbound and outbound transit was like. He had never been to Xiamen before and I thought it would be a good way to show him what he’d be looking at. At the beginning of the inbound video I only wish it could have shown a little better the WICKED easterly set we experienced (setting us to the right) as we passed the anchored ships to starboard.</p>
<p>Yes, thank you for sharing DD - very good. For us landlubbers, it is fascinating to get glimpses of the mysterious world of mariners and the entire science of shipping. Like KPMom, we too were able to visit DS’s container ship last summer in port (after passing through intense security - btw we were not allowed to photo). We watched this process and I was impressed at the orchestration and speed. I know your video was time elapsed, but they do manuever those cranes, containers and trucks pretty darn quickly. Very efficient, and again, fascinating.</p>
<p>On this run, what type of cell phone/phone communication did you have with family back home? or internet? Thanks!</p>
<p>I have Verizon and it worked fine in Honolulu and of course Long Beach. I called once from Guam using my personal cell phone and the bill was not good. I only made that mistake one time. After Guam, if I called home in Shanghai or Ningbo China I would just buy a 100 minute phone card for $5 and use the Captains local China cell phone. (as I recall AT&T was the provider). The vendors that sold the phone cards came aboard the ship and they also had phones available to use. Matson shipboard computers are on the WiFi in both Long Beach and Honolulu. When on Wifi the email exchange is normally set to automatically run about every 15 minutes. (the Captain switches from satellite to WiFi and sets the exchange time interval after docking) While the ship is on the WiFi is when you would want to send emails with attachments. Once at sea we switch back to the satellite link and attachments are verboden. At sea, email exchanges are general done twice a day at around 0900 hours and 1530 hours. Many times email is done more often, particularly as the ship nears arrival. That’s generally how it goes… but check first as YMMV… As they say out in the Merchant Marine, “different ships, different long splices” :)</p>
<p>Were you on the Pfeiffer? Thanks so much for the info.</p>
<p>
Nope…</p>
<p>How does one get permission to see the ship come in to port? My son’s Maersk container ship is due in to New Jersey on Monday, and I would love to see it.</p>
<p>USMMAMom12 - a year ago my DS returned from his sea year to Newark and we got to tour his Maersk ship. DS arranged all of the security passes on board ahead of time so that when we arrived, we had the clearances we needed to get on the shipyard. At the shipyard, we happened upon another KP grad who gave us a personal tour. It was AWESOME. Make sure you wear sneakers - getting on those ships is daunting.</p>
<p>mom12, Our DS got permission from the ship’s captain and then put us on a list at the guard station so we were allowed into the port. Also, something important to remember is to bring some sort of ID, drivers license etc. It might sound obvious but not wanting to carry a purse around a ship might make it easy to forget that ID. Hope you get to have the experience, it is great!!</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the advice! I hope I reach him in time. Those videos just made me want to see it all in person. And seeing my son for the first time in three plus months would be nice too! :)</p>
<p>Was it the Maersk Georgia that your mid was on? My son is B split and was on her from last July to November 2009. He goes off for 8 months this time and will be on a Military Sealift Command ship for the first part of his tour.</p>
<p>No, he is on the Maersk Georgia’s sister ship, the Maersk Virginia. I believe they do the same routes.
How exciting for your son! Is he deck or engine? And is he considering the service after graduation?
(And by the way, I wasn’t able to connect with mine after all - he wasn’t sure of his availablility so I didn’t make the trip. Kicking myself now - I should have gone anyway, but we had a storm headed our way…maybe next tour)</p>