One of my fellow shipmates wrote of the distinct smell based memories in a piece last week about long ago port call in the Philippines.

While I am not an urban smellscape researcher, I was so genuinely struck by his turns of phrase that I started to list the dominant smell memories of the port cities this old mariner’s nose had detected and still associates with these port calls.

It must have been the deep lizard part of my brain that formed and now retains these port-smell associations. Almost all of them were formed very fast upon arrival. I guess that was due in large part to the fact that the entire crew hadn’t showered much due to water hours restricting fresh water use. Thus pretty grimy, none of us realized it and had become used to each other’s stench.

Each new port came with such distinct new smells. These pungencies sometimes arrived on the winds well before you could see the harbor’s outline. The fresh smells were often lush, exotic and always powerful. Once we were docked and hooked up to a reliable fresh water supply, the ship’s smell would instantly change to that of shaving cream and deodorant.

In all of these places there were highly specific but transitory smells of food both cooked and uncooked, meats, fish, baked goods, vegetables, fruits, cheeses, spices, fats and grease, coffee, wine, and beer. All had to a great degree traffic and exhaust fumes and synthetic odors like rubber, plastic, paint, cleaning products, chemicals), construction (wood, asphalt, paint) and plants (greenery, garden, grass).

Each port’s scent existed atop the background aromas of the coastal sea – subtle notes of sea salt savory and mild decay.

But each port had one dominant olfactory memory that has stood the test of time despite numerous visits to that city. These scents exist despite all our too human desires for control and order.

Le Havre smelled of French cigarettes and baguettes.

Hong Kong smelled of chaos – herbal, bitter, minty, musky aromas plus intoxicating smells of flower blooms.

Hong Kong

Key West smelled of brine and shrimp.

Commercial shrimp docks in Key West 1974

San Diego smelled of beach and Mexican food spices.

New Orleans had specific episodic neighborhood and time of day smells – of beignets near Cafe du Monde but of vomit on Bourbon Street in the dawn hours.

New Orleans

Norfolk smelled of stale beer.

Djibouti smelled of rot and burnt sand.

Djibouti

Calcutta smelled of death.

New York City smelled of money.

San Francisco smelled of pot.

San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury in the late 1970s

Subic Bay smelled of Navy Standard Fuel Oil and sex.

Dublin smelled of Guinness.

St James Brewery in Dublin

Ketchikan Alaska smelled of pine trees.

Singapore smelled freshly scrubbed.

Naples smelled of Italy’s fixation on its native food and cuisine.

Pattaya Thailand smelled of tropical flowers. Ditto for Honolulu.

Rota Spain smelled of charcoal smoke and garbage/rotting fruit.

Washington DC smelled of power. It still does, but my sources tell me that its scent is now marked by piquant hints of “unrealized dreams and schemes.”

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