“CLEARED FOR GUAM”

Hokitika Guardian, 19 September 1929, Page 7

“CLEARED FOR GUAM”

THE MYSTERIOUS PORT. “Guam” is the destination of the motorship King William which sailed from Auckland last week, hut seeing that it is, for all practical purposes, quite a mythical port, it is pretty certain that the wandering tramp will turn up at some better-known place. During the war period quite a lot of vessels cleared for “Guam” when they left Auckland, but in the piping times of peace there is generally a et destination. There is an island called Guam out East, ono of the Ladrome group, and in the passage of time it has been adopted as a suitable name for insertion :n shipping papers when for any reason there is a desire not to disclose the port of destination. Fifty years ago it was more common for vessels to clear for an unnamed port, than it is to-day. In the days of sail several months would elapse between the date of shipping and the date of arrival at the port of discharge, so that markets might in the interim undergo a complete change, and the owners of the cm go might want their cargo delivered in a different port, or even a different country.' This was often the case with wheat cargoes when carried by sailing ships. “Sailed for Falmouth for erde'''!,’’ was often to be mot with after the name of a ship fifty years back, and even loss, Falmouth being one of the first down Channel ports. It was frequently the custom for vessels in ballast to sail for some Channel port for orders. Wireless l’.as changed all that. The owner can communicate with his ship at any spot in the ocean, and no doubt the King William will, in a day or 1 wo, receive a message directing her to some likely port where she can pick up a cargo. .

Like so many of the old sea customs and savings the origin of the expression “cleared for Guam,” is lost in the mists of antiquity. The most probable explanation is that in the old days Guam, one of the Ladrone Islands, was also one of the most remote spots on the face of the Seven Seas. If a ship cleared for. say, Jamaica, or Cuba, and then turned up at some other port without her clearance papers from noil tier of those two islands questions would ho asked. But Guam, n the old days, was in the natuical world very much liko Timbuetoo before tbe advent of the caterpillar motor car—-

to tell a- man to go to Timbuetoo—was to suggest him going to the most inaccessible spot on the globe. So for many years a vessel whose destination was not fixed, “cleared for Guam.” The expression has survived until this day. The expression also nnssed into currency as an alternative for saying that a man had ‘•levanted’’ or done the “Pacific Slope,” both of which meant that his creditors would very much like to know his address. “ ‘Romance is dead,’ the caveman said, with hone well-carved, he went away,” and people say that to-day steam has robbed the sea of all the pjkimour with which it was once invested. But surely there is slid a touch of romance about the King William, tramping round the world picking up a cargo here and discharging it half-way round the globe, and probably nosing her way into a dozen different ports, with perhaps as many climates, before she gets back to Home waters. And then, the picking u;p of a message from her owners when a thousand miles or so from land—surely there is a bit .of romanco still hanging round these matter of fact tramp ships?