Port chaplain Rev Marie Gilpin boards a ship. Photo/George Novak
Inside the security gate guarding the entrance to Tauranga's thriving port sits a humble organisation that welcomes thousands of international sailors and ships' crew a year.
To most of the outside world the volunteers who staff the United Seafarers' Mission play an invisible role, known only to foreigners who come looking for a place to relax after the rigours of life at sea.
"Last year, we hosted 14,371 seafarers," says the mission's Anglican chaplain Marie Gilpin.
"Years ago, these guys would've been in the brothels and town causing havoc."
Now the mission is seeking more volunteers to help provide support to the growing number of seafarers who use its services every year.
Years ago, these guys would've been in the brothels and town causing havoc.
Worldwide, seafarers face a variety of threats to their wellbeing, including piracy, tough (sometimes sub-standard) working conditions, and isolation from family and friends.
Often, they spend months at sea with only sporadic contact with loved ones and it is not uncommon for them to miss the birth of children.
Sometimes they are cruise ship crew, just wanting a change of scene from the busy cruise decks for the few hours they are off-duty in port.
"It's just somewhere they can come and chill out," mission manager Murray Smith says.
Murray, 69, is a retired medical scientist who has worked in Bangladesh and Africa, and took over as mission manager in January from the organisation's founder Ken Camp.
He hadn't planned to take on the role, but feels an affinity with the seafarers, having lived overseas for more than 15 years.
"It's because I've been a foreigner and I travel a lot and the first thing I'm looking for is free wi-fi," Murray says.
Murray says not all seafarers' missions offer free internet access, which the seafarers value for their ability to contact family at home.
He gives examples of recent visitors to the mission, including a Ukrainian sailor who sat at one of the computers for four hours without moving and a Filipino sailor who came in twice a day for the three days his ship was in port to Skype his wife.
Aboard the ships, the cost of calls on satellite phones are high.
"They're sending most of their income straight back to their home country."
The mission also operates a courtesy van and makes regular trips to the Bayfair shopping mall and supermarkets, often returning crammed with banana boxes of fruit, vegetables and meat.
Marie once had her car boot packed to the top with watermelons bought by sailors from a roadside stall, while Murray arrived at a supermarket one Sunday afternoon to find a group with five trolleys of groceries " and that was before they had bought their vegetables.
A home away from home
Most seafarers stay only a day or two in port, some just a few hours, and the mission building is the first place many head.
In contrast to the logging trucks thundering into the port outside, it is a quiet, homely space lined with comfy sofas, a TV, piano, maps of New Zealand and the world.
Other rooms house a chapel, ping-pong and pool tables, computers and phones. A mural in one says "God is love" in an array of languages, including Korean, French and Thai.
You hear them calling me Mum
Marie says most of the overseas sailors speak a degree of English, but language is not a barrier to hospitality. "What we offer that is universal is the language of love."
A small shop sells phone cards, snacks, fishing lines and sinkers, and exchanges currency for the seafarers.
The seafarers can get a free cup of coffee and use the wi-fi for no charge during the mission's opening hours: 11am to 9pm on week days and 2pm to 9pm on weekends.
In addition to Marie, Rosa Caldwell, 84, and Robyn Robinson, 67, are working the early shift on the day we visit.
Rosa has been a volunteer for seafarers at Tauranga for 30 years, initially belonging to the Galilee Mission with her husband (who passed away three years ago).
"You hear them calling me Mum," she says. " I always ask about their children. They just love it."
Rosa works from 11am to 2.30pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, and empathises with the distance the sailors feel from their loved ones.
She has a son who has been working as a missionary in Uganda for the last five years, and says she worries about his safety.
Robyn has been a volunteer for 13 years, working three times a week, and shares Rosa's sentiments about the role.
"I love it," she says, "Just meeting the seafarers themselves.
"They're lovely to talk to and they're very interesting people.
"If we didn't have them coming into the port, we wouldn't have the products coming into the shops."
First visitors
Until then, the mission has been quiet, but at 11.30am, the first visitors file through the door - two Filipino sailors off a bulk carrier that docked during the night.
They receive warm welcomes from the volunteers and are all smiles in a chat with Bay of Plenty Times.
"The most important thing for us is the computer," says Aldrin Sonez, 30.
"Oh really? Not us," jokes Rosa.
Aldrin laughs, but there is a serious side to what he says:
"It's the number one way for us to communicate with our loved ones."
Aldrin is six months into a nine-month stint at sea and only gets to talk to his wife about once every 17 days.
He does not have children, but the emotion is obvious in the eyes of Arnel Palisoc, 30, who has a wife and two sons aged 7 and 4, whom he says he misses greatly.
"But we need to earn money for them, for their future," he says.
The two men have two days in port and say it is a nice break from their days of heavy lifting, painting, sweeping, and removing dust and rust on the ship.
They value the "pleasures" of playing billiards and ping-pong at the mission and say when they have long enough in a port they like to sightsee.
As we finish talking, Aldrin says, "Thank you for the happy conversation."
Murray says this is typical of the reaction volunteers receive from their seafarer visitors and it is what makes the job so rewarding.
Boarding
By this time, Marie is gearing up to begin ship visits, another role the volunteers carry out.
She dons a hi-vis vest and helmet, and is also wearing running shoes - for a good reason.
Climbing the gangplanks of the multi-storey ships is not for the fainthearted, or the unfit.
If the tide is high, it can be an almost vertical climb up the runged metal stairs to the deck, and Marie says high winds can make it challenging.
She often returns dirty, covered in grease or dust, particularly on ships carrying palm kernel.
Because of the physicality of the ship visits, this is an area in which the mission is particularly keen to recruit younger volunteers, says Marie.
For her, each climb up a gangplank is also tinged with anxiety, after she badly skinned her shin climbing the gangplank to a brand new ship. She had contemplated turning back, such was the incline of the gangplank that day, but says the crew were excited to show her around the vessel during its maiden voyage.
"There were five seafarers and they all took a piece of me, but we slipped and I grazed my leg. They were very upset but we christened their first aid kit."
The experience put Marie off ship visits for a while, but this week we watched as the 71-year-old grandmother-of-nine made her way deftly to meet the captain of a large log carrier manned by a Filipino crew.
Seventy per cent of the seafarers who come to Tauranga are Filipino, and Marie says boarding the ships is a special experience.
"It's a very privileged role. We go there and it's their home."
She has been doing the chaplain's role for five years since she retired as vicar of Mt Maunganui's Anglican church.
She describes being a chaplain as "loitering with intent" rather than pushing any social or religious agenda.
"The agenda of any conversation belongs to the seafarers. We don't initiate conversations. We are just there as people to love them."
The mission volunteers never tired of helping us
Marie had never worn a priest's collar in her career as a vicar, but bought one after a Russian crew could not understand her presence on their ship.
"When I first went on with my grey hair, I think they were a bit staggered there was a woman doing it. But grey hair, they think motherly figures, and one lot said, 'You're very beautiful'.
"I said, 'How long have you been at sea?'," she joked.
A grateful crew
Late last year, the mission played host to the crew of the troubled Vega Auriga, the Liberian-flagged vessel that was detained at Tauranga after it was deemed unfit to sail.
In a thank you letter shown to Bay of Plenty Times, one of the Filipino crew said the United Seafarers' Mission was the best in the world.
"The mission volunteers never tired of helping us," the letter said. "The biggest surprise of all was when one day a van stopped just next to our gangway loaded with provisions - enough for several days for 17 crew members. "We didn't know they had been raising funds from different churches for us and we felt so humbled."
The crew member ends by saying, "I can't thank you enough for the kindness you showed us all during our stay in Tauranga."
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