The sun is setting over Teignmouth, but down at the docks the day is far from over.  It’s high tide, and at the narrow harbour mouth a small tug is leading a large, blue-hulled container ship into its berth.  The ship’s name – the Maria – is clearly visible on its side, and its seamen are on deck, preparing to throw ropes to the dock-hand.  When a ship arrives into port there are certain formalities that have to be gone through, and waiting on the quayside are a customs officer and someone from the harbourmaster’s office.  

But standing there too are a couple of smiling women in high-visibility jackets and white hard hats: and as the ship docks they wave to the sailors, and move closer so they can chat. The men, it turns out, are Russian: one of them calls out in his native tongue.  He looks astonished when one of the women on the quay answers in Russian, smiling broadly.  ‘Oh yes,’ says Liuba Jeffs, a stalwart of the Apostleship of the Sea here in Devon, ‘they are always pleased to know there’s someone here who speaks their language.’  

‘They are always pleased to know there’s someone here who speaks their language.’ Liuba, who moved to the UK in 1999 after meeting her British husband in Russia, has been involved in the Apostleship of the Sea for the last six years as a ship’s visitor: her role is to do what she’s about to do now, which is to board the ship and be a friendly presence to the arriving ship’s company.  The men can hardly believe their luck: thousands of miles from home, all they want to know is where they can buy phone top-up cards so they can call their wives and children back in Russia.

Oleg Kovalev, the Maria’s electrical engineer, wants to say goodnight to his daughter Alina, seven. ‘I haven’t called her for almost a week, but it’s nearly her bedtime so I need to do it quick,’ he explains.  Liuba is already on the case, exchanging his Euros for sterling and explaining how to get to the shop that sells top-up cards, and is still open.  

Liuba is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, but is clearly a godsend to the Catholic Apostleship of the Sea at Teignmouth; as too is the woman standing beside her on the harbour, the port’s chaplain Ann Donnelly.  

Ann, a mother of five children aged from 27 down to 17, has been a ship’s visitor here since 2003, and the port chaplain for the last year.  It is, she says, the best job she’s ever done.  ‘I get far more from it than I could possibly put in.  It’s filling a need; you meet so many people, most of whom are a long way from home and in need of just a bit of support and company, and you can make a real difference. It’s a privilege to be able to do this kind of  work.’

Some port chaplains, says Ann, are people with a Naval or Merchant Seaman background; for herself, she cheerfully admits, she doesn’t even know her bow from her stern. ‘I know very little about ships, though I’m learning all the time.’  But what she does know about is that most crucial attribute of all – how to extend the hand of Christian friendship.

Some of the guys (and most of them are guys, although occasionally a ship’s cook is female) haven’t been home for many months, and some of them are missing their parents, wives and children desperately; for them, explains Ann, someone who will listen is worth a lot.  ‘Sometimes I just sit with someone for an hour or so and listen to their story.  I really don’t do anything at all, but at the end they say – that helped so much.’

Ann, Liuba and the other Teignmouth Apostleship of the Sea volunteers spend a lot of time chatting to sailors on board their ships.  However the hub of the mission is a few small rooms on the quayside.   ‘It’s a bit like a sitting room by the sea,’ explains Ann, putting on the kettle and rooting around for the biscuits.  ‘There’s a TV, there are DVDs for the sailors to watch. We have a pile of newspapers and magazines, especially from Russia and the Philippines, which is where most of the seamen are originally from.’  Over in the corner is a huge pile of home-knitted hats, socks and gloves (‘there are some wonderful people out there knitting for us, and the men are always so grateful for new hats and gloves,’ says Ann) and the bookcase is full of books which can be borrowed.  

In essence, the place is a small oasis that shows the caring and friendship extended from the Christian community of Teignmouth to the world that’s passing through its docks every day.  ‘We want them to know that there are people here who really care, and who really want to extend a welcome to them as they pass along our shores,’ says Ann.

There’s also a space in the chaplaincy for prayer; beside the tiny sitting room is an even tinier room with a plaster statue of Christ, a wooden prie-dieu and prayerbooks in Russian and Filipino, as well as other languages.  ‘Many of the sailors like the chance of somewhere to go for a bit of time to think and contemplate and pray,’ says Ann.  

She herself sandwiches her time at the port into a hectic life that includes teaching clinical skills part-time to medical students, running a family home with her surgeon husband, and supporting her children through their various universities and jobs.  She’s even – though she looks too young to be one – a grandmother, and a keen sportswoman.  ‘I worry about fitting being a chaplain in, but somehow I do find the time,’ she says.

‘I get far more from it than I could possibly put in’The fact that she and Liuba do find the time, and that others find the time to support the Apostleship of the Sea to provide its port chaplaincy, is hugely appreciated by people like Andrey Voronov, the Maria’s captain.  ‘Often we’ve been at sea for a long time, and we’ve not seen people for a while,’ he says.  ‘It’s lovely to arrive somewhere and to find friendly faces waiting to greet us, who will then come on board for a cup of tea and a chat.  It’s important to be social in life, and a lot about being at sea is lonely.  We love new people to talk to!’

Like many ships that pull into Teignmouth, the Maria will only stay 24 hours.  She’s carrying a cargo of china clay, like many of the containers that arrive here: tomorrow, her hold will be loaded up with another cargo, and she’ll head off through the narrow channel that funnels into the port, and head off again onto the open sea.  

But the sailors who leave will take with them their memories of friends from England – Ann and Liuba – and, of course, they’ll cherish the opportunity to have phoned home, to have read the Russian newspapers, to have maybe watched a movie at the chaplaincy and – most of all, perhaps – to have found a friendly ear when they wanted a chat.

‘It’s a tough life, being a sailor,’ says Ann.  ‘I’m glad that we’re here for them, when they need us.’