Part of the first shipment of goods to the Islands in more than a week could be on store shelves today. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

It was the first shipment of goods to the Islands from the West Coast in more than a week and it was a full load, too: fresh meat, paper products, beverages.

"A lot of the cargo will go out today," said a smiling Jeff Brennan, Hawai'i port manager for CSX Lines. "It could be in the stores today."

Some of today's cargo is destined for the Neighbor Islands, with barges scheduled to arrive on Maui and the Big Island by Monday and on Kaua'i by Tuesday, Brennan said.

The Consumer arrived about 9 a.m. today and work crews began almost immediately to unload the 721-foot ship, which had containers stacked five high and 10 wide in places. The ship will sail back to the West Coast at noon tomorrow.

Dockworkers here, however, will have a busy weekend.

CSX has another container ship arriving Sunday ­ the 925-foot-long CSX Navigator ­ with a company record load of 940 containers.

Matson Navigation Co. also will have ships arriving tomorrow, Sunday and Tuesday.

The shipments come just as many shippers and businesses had started to feel the squeeze of the weeklong West Coast dock shutdown that had stopped the flow of goods to the Islands.

"We're happy to get it," said Bryan Wall, store manager of the Mililani Wal-Mart where the inventory has been getting thin on the shelves. Wal-Mart normally gets two shipments a week and, like other retailers, had stockpiled goods in anticipation of the labor problems.

"But you can't stock up on everything," Wall said yesterday.

The Consumer was only partially loaded when the second of two West Coast lockouts began Sept. 29. Brennan said CSX decided not to sail it "light" and it sat in the harbor at Los Angeles until a special exemption granted to Hawai'i allowed it to get loaded and underway Monday.

"We just put it in high gear," he said.

But customers were getting anxious. Brennan said many called to say they were just about running out of goods.

"We're excited," he said today. "For our company, we always want to have cargo coming. But for our customers, they want the cargo, too. And our longshoremen have not been working for two weeks. It's great for everybody."

Like Wal-Mart officials, Roger Godfrey, president of Times Supermarket, can hardly wait to get his shipment.

The stores' supplies of produce and meat have been running low, Godfrey said, "and going into the weekend we could sure use the replenishment."

Customers, for the most part, haven't noticed any difference, Godfrey said. But the company has had to spend extra to ship produce by air, although Godfrey had no dollar estimate on the cost yesterday.

Star Markets Ltd., which also has goods coming in on the Consumer, has canceled all advertising specials and begun offering customers 15 percent off everything in the store except tobacco, travel and pharmacy items through Tuesday.

Star President John Fujieki Jr. said yesterday that the supermarket couldn't guarantee sufficient inventory of advertised sale items, so the alternative was created to be fair to consumers.

"We're trying to give the customer a deal across the board," he said.

Fujieki said he wished he had a bigger shipment arriving today, but with more goods coming on other ships Star will be able to resume normal advertised specials next week, he said.

Matson's Kauai arrives tomorrow morning, followed by the Matsonia and Ewa on Sunday and the Chief Gadao on Tuesday.

Matson normally has four ship arrivals per week. But with 29 West Coast ports jammed with ships and tons of rotting produce, it's impossible to pinpoint an arrival schedule, said Matson spokesman Jeff Hull.

"We still have four ships arriving," he said, "it's just not a fixed day-of-the-week service that we have."

Brian Taylor, vice president and general manager for CSX Lines, said he hopes the shipping line's schedule comes closer to normal after two to 2 › weeks.

"It's just going to take that long to get through the backlog," he said.

Ships returning from Hawai'i will have to take their place in line with all of the others waiting to get loaded and unloaded along the West Coast, he said, particularly in Los Angeles and Long Beach.

For now David Palm, assistant store manager of Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse in Waikele, is just happy to get his Consumer cargo.

"If this had lasted much longer, it would have hurt the whole island."