Container-Land

In 1502 Christopher Columbus sailed up to Limon and dropped anchor, right here, on his fourth and final voyage to the New World. For all the mythology, hagiography and legend surrounding Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Jesus Christ and St. Nick, there are some things that actually happened, and this is one of them. Columbus dropped anchor here, right here, in Limon. You can take that to the bank.

It’s a crap of a place, and I’m sure Columbus would agree, though for different reasons. For him, and any contemporary mariner, there is no natural harbor. We have Isla Uvita, a wee island half a mile offshore. But a wee island half a mile offshore, a harbor does not make. For anything resembling a proper harbor you have to go 70 miles south to Panama or twice that far to Nicaragua. The surfing is good, but this coast was not made for the nautically inclined. Fortunately, the prevailing conditions are mild so that ships can lay at anchor for extended periods despite no protection whatsoever. Extended periods are required because the port facilities are “underdeveloped”, a white-folks term for “poor”. They don’t have shore-based cargo gear and they don’t have adequate berthing. So the ships wait. As a result there is a regular village of ships swinging at anchor just off the beach.

One thing that distinguishes a modern port from an “underdeveloped” one is whether the cargo gear is on the ship, or on the dock. Most people don’t think of this because they spare no thought for how the things they buy, own and enjoy, arrive. Farmer’s Markets excluded. But in terms of nuts and bolts commerce, the cargo gear is fundamental. A ship that loads and unloads itself must be equipped with cranes, gantries or derricks. These are expensive yet they only earn their keep a few days a year in port. All through the long ocean passages they are encrusted with salt and streaked with rust. They are costly dead weight that must be maintained by the crew with primer, paint, grease and chipping hammers.

Cargo gear that is based on the dock can earn its keep every day, so long as there is a ship to serve. Better still, the gear is not subject to the risks and punishment of passage-making. But this investment is huge. Who shall bear the cost? Well, if the volume and value of cargo is sufficient, the price of the infrastructure can be justified on the shoreside end. It can be purchased with port fees and taxes, much like having taxpayers foot the bill for a stadium. If the investment in cargo gear cannot be met ashore, then the ship must provide the equipment, which is folded into the tab for loading and unloading. This keeps those ashore just a little bit poorer because they must pay more for their imports, and they receive a little less for their exports. Nobody cheers for a crane but I would argue that the activity that surrounds a port makes for a sturdier economic engine than a sports team that can move to Vegas at the drop of a hat.

If the economics aren’t there, the shoreside investment won’t happen. People invest for profit - that’s the whole idea. More’s the pity for the port trying shed diapers and grow up. Nearly all the ships that call at Limon are self-loading. That includes the cruise ships, which roll their cargo down the gangway.

The reason Limon is a crap of a place right now is the commerce that Christopher Columbus’s discovery begot, and the criminal lack of public planning. Public planning doesn’t come cheap so be sure to thank your neighborhood public planner if your town runs anything close to efficiently and has enforceable zoning. And when you see those guys leaning on their shovels next summer, give them the benefit of the doubt – they may be thinking deep thoughts about public planning.

A container sorting yard. You’ve all seen a container go by on a highway or a train, or sitting in someone’s yard, someone who has visions of revolutionizing the use of unneeded containers, or someone who simply needs extra storage space, or someone with a particular need to piss-off his neighbor by depositing a container in plain view.

Route 32 runs right through the heart of Limon. Starting several miles out of town, and extending deep into the heart of it, are privately owned container sorting yards. Basically, this is real estate given over to laying out the containers and figuring out which ones need to be sent inland where the contents are wanted, and which ones need to go to the port to be loaded onto departing ships. Given the nature of the human condition, this simple concept does not always go according to plan. My colleague here in Limon, Capitan Professor Caballero de Espana Jose Maria Silos Rodriguez, Ph.D, a Spaniard lately of Madrid, reports that it cost him more to get his Spanish possessions moved a mile from the dock to his house here in Limon than across the entire Atlantic Ocean. Once the stuff was here, it had to be moved three times by truck. So that’s the situation. It takes a lot of land and a lot of trucks. The same thing is happening in the United States, probably more efficiently, and you, dear reader, are mercifully oblivious.

Route 32 is a two and half lane road with homes, shops, restaurants, gas stations, car washes, supermarkets and schools. And, I kid you not, the truck traffic on Route 32 is no less than I-95 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The sensation is that of a continuous earth tremor in a thunder storm, combined with NASCAR, un-mufflered motor-cross, and a demolition derby. I kid you not. And the horns? Oh, the horns! The gin-swizzles, the wack-poozles, the sneezles, and befoodles! Oh, the horns, the horns, the horns!

In a different world this commerce would follow a carefully-considered, purpose-built route: a railway spur, an interstate highway, or it would be moved coastwise by barge. Here, it is in your neighborhood, it is in your wheelhouse, it is on your sidewalk, it is in your face. The sheer tonnage of traffic punishes the roads and the ears. The swirling wheels produce a peculiar model of motorized etiquette whereby 18 wheelers, city buses, cars and taxis all take chances on edging each other out, while selectively giving way in a nod to some possible future karma involving an airbag and a blow-up doll.

In case you’re interested, the container revolution was spawned by Malcolm McLean, an American trucking magnate. The date given for the first container ship voyage is 1956, but it took awhile for the idea to gather steam. To give perspective to this innovation, if Edison invented the lightbulb, McLean invented electricity. (Blatant poetic license – everyone knows that Benjamin Franklin, another white-male-legend whose actual existence is questioned, though never in the form of a C-note, invented electricity.)

At the time, the cost of handling general cargo was $5.68 cents per ton. Doesn’t sound so bad. By container, the same ton cost 16 cents. Please, please let me know if any of you come up with a comparable concept. Retirement is looming.

Containerization underpins the entire world order for oceanic commerce, leaving out only oil, automobiles, and other bulk items such as wood chips, coal and iron ore. If you are into glorifying American innovators and you are coming up short lately, this guy did something so simple, so obvious, so revolutionary yet most school kids and adults have never heard of him. It might be the name: Malcolm McLean. It just doesn’t have the same ring as, say, Elvis. Anyway, if imitation is the greatest form of flattery, the whole world lives by containers. That includes you, dear reader.

In case you’re still interested, nearly every major city in the world was founded around a port. Ships inhabited the downtowns, causing fathers to discourage their daughters from going “downtown”. That’s where sailors were swearing like sailors, drinking like sailors, eating spinach like sailors, and doing other things, like sailors. No one uses these phrases anymore because that world has faded from daily experience. The only ships that dock downtown now are cruise ships. The rest have moved closer to the sea to find more depth for the keel and more land for the containers.

Hasta La Vista , Baby