Tuning In as Ship Gears Up to Face Gilbert

With Hurricane Gilbert bearing down on the Texas coast Thursday, the crew of the medical missionary ship Anastasis had battened down the hatches, sailed up the channel from Corpus Christi Bay and prepared for the worst.

Half a continent away, in a small room on the second floor of the Los Angeles Maritime Museum in San Pedro, Otto Dedrick spun the dials on his ham radio.

“KA6ANM, KA6ANM, KA6ANM,” Dedrick said into the microphone. “Calling KA6ANM on the Anastasis.”

KA6ANM replied, with Gene Tromblin’s voice crackling over the speaker.

“We’ve evacuated a third of the ship’s crew to San Antonio,” Tromblin reported. “An additional portion had already gone to the Red Cross shelter. . . .

“There’s no telling in which direction the storm is going to come. Right now it’s south of (its expected) track and it still hasn’t turned north yet, so we’re just waiting to see what will happen with that. Everyone else is busy basically sealing doorways and hatches and taking all the antennas down. . . .”

This conversation was more than just a chance meeting of ham radio operators. It was a prearranged phone call of sorts that enabled Dedrick to relay information about Tromblin and the rest of the ship’s crew to the administrators of Mercy Ships, an international, nonprofit Christian organization based in San Pedro, just a few blocks from the maritime museum.

Mercy Ships runs medical and religious missions to underdeveloped nations from the the 522-foot Anastasis and another ship, the Good Samaritan. The Anastasis is in Corpus Christi gathering supplies and donations after a two-month mission to Jamaica, during which the ship’s doctors treated patients on land and in the ship’s hospital, according to Mercy Ships spokesman Phil Herzog.

Wednesday, when it appeared that the Anastasis might lose its ability to communicate by phone as a result of the coming storm, Tromblin suggested that he and Dedrick--who have known one another for years through radio conversations and in-person meetings--set up a communications schedule.

The ship has cellular telephones, but Herzog said those connections are not as reliable as radio frequencies.

So at 1 p.m. Thursday, Dedrick and several other members of the United Radio Amateurs’ Club clustered in the radio room they have been operating at the maritime museum since March. The club, which has about 100 members in the harbor area and is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, staffs the station every day except Monday, when the museum is closed.

During the course of their chatter about the weather and the ship’s preparations for the storm, Tromblin told Dedrick that the Anastasis is tied down in the Tule Lake Channel, which goes inland from the harbor at Corpus Christi. He said most of the 280-member crew would be off the ship by today, when the hurricane is expected to hit the Texas coast.

The ship’s radio operator then stood by while Dedrick phoned the Mercy Ships staff, who told Dedrick that they might have some messages for the Anastasis later in the day.

The two men agreed to connect on the same frequency Thursday evening and again this afternoon.

“I guess that’s it from here, Otto,” Tromblin said. “Thanks for coming out, Otto. We appreciate all your help on that end and we’ll look forward to talking with you again tonight. . . . KA6ANM. This is KA6ANM.”