OAKLAND, Calif. -- The priest walked up the gangplank, a bag of magazines in one hand and black case filled with wafers, wine and a crucifix in the other.

Some people make house calls. The Rev. Joseph Duong Phan makes ship calls.

As part of the International Maritime Center, the Catholic priest regularly scans the crew lists at the Port of Oakland, looking for Catholic seamen who have been riding the ocean waves for months, far from land, family and their local parishes.

"It's an invisible ministry," Father Phan said of the 38-year old chaplaincy, "for invisible people."

Being a commercial seaman is rough work -- spending 9 to 12 months crisscrossing the ocean, staying at any given port just a few hours to a few days. And the demands are increasing as international trade intensifies.

"It's not hard, but it's lonely," said Able Seaman Andres Jacutin III, a 40-year-old father of three who figures he'll spend Christmas on the Pacific Ocean. "We call it 'prisoner of the sea.' "

Father Phan, 49, offers solace while the men are docked in Oakland, the nation's fourth-busiest port, which for the past two years has broken its own container record and is set to do it again. He eats lunch in the mess hall with the crews. In a soft voice, rising and falling in the cadence of his native Vietnamese, he asks the seamen whether they are having any problems -- be it an unreasonable boss, an irregular paycheck or a wife who's too far away.

If there's time, seamen can visit the modest Maritime Center, a brown, modular building paid for by the International Transport Workers' Federation, the seamen's union. Four denominations -- American Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian and Catholic -- staff the center, offering counseling, prayer, rides and recreation.

An estimated 85,000 seamen are expected to enter the Bay Area's ports this year. At the center, they can buy calling cards to phone home, or shoot pool -- though the game tables must be moved aside for Saturday prayer meetings.

Clergy scan the crew rosters to decide who should board which ship. Filipino surnames typically indicate Catholics. If the names are predominantly Chinese, they send a Presbyterian minister who knows a little of the language.

Through the years, clergy and volunteers have noticed other cultural tendencies: Officers rarely attend services. Indians are drawn to novels on the center's bookshelves. A Chinese captain might ask for directions to the nearest casino. And, on several occasions, Filipino crewmen have asked Father Phan to drive them to Victoria's Secret so they can buy lingerie for their wives. Father Phan always obliges, though he doesn't enter the store himself.

Other special requests have included blessing new ships, engines and, in one case, an officer's epaulets.

Ministering to seamen can be hard on chaplains, said Father Phan, who was appointed by the Diocese of Oakland; each denomination selects and pays its own chaplain. Father Phan started here in December and admitted the first months were lonely. The San Leandro, Calif., man was used to a large parish, familiar faces and more than a handful of people at Mass.

It rained the first time he walked up the steep gangway. "I was so scared," he recalled.

Today, he quickly navigates the angled steps. He recognizes some of the port staff and a few of the nearly 2,000 ships that dock in Oakland annually. He's now visiting the parishes in the diocese to promote the work, hoping to inspire volunteers and donations for the men.

Port chaplains receive extra training to cope with their specialized ministry, said the Rev. John Jamnicky with the Apostleship of the Sea. Across the nation, 65 ports have chaplains, he said, who deal with everything from seamen's loneliness to maritime codes to language barriers within their international ministry.

On a recent Wednesday, Father Phan visited the NYK Libra, which had stopped in Oakland for a day before heading off to Tokyo. As the mostly Filipino crew polished off a lunch of rice, fish and sausages, talk veered to theological matters, of a sort. They had seen a National Geographic special on the Gospel of Judas. What was that about? And what did Father, as the men respectfully called Father Phan, think of the movie The Da Vinci Code? They couldn't comprehend the bootleg copy they bought in China because the first 20 minutes were in Chinese.

The afternoon's highlight was Mass. Two men excused themselves to change their clothes first; gym shorts seemed inappropriate for a religious service, even one held in the lounge beside the drum set and karaoke machine. On some ships, volunteers have celebrated communion in rooms where crewmen's Playboy posters stared from the walls.

Father Phan laid a linen square on the coffee table and set wafers, wine, a chalice and crucifix upon it. From his case, he pulled out white and green vestments and reverently put them on.

Before the service, he handed out song sheets with the "Entrance Song" in Tagalog. Ten men participated, including one who ate lunch through half the service, explaining to Father Phan that a busy day meant he had already missed breakfast.

As the Mass ended, the men crowded around to thank Father Phan. Some checked the calendar to see when they would be back in port. He patted them, tossing an arm around one seaman's shoulders.

"Good to see you guys," he said. "Be safe and sound."