On linguistic confusion

I've been noticing lately that, while my foreign language skills are definitely improving (never have I actually spoken this much Hindi, and I even revived some very long lost Italian today!), my command of the English language has steadily declined since I began working for SCI. This is, in large part, because it's often necessary to speak very simplified English to communicate basic information with seafarers. Sentences like "What time are you sailing?" and "Do you have shore leave?" get reduced to "When sailing?" and "have shore pass?"(sometimes with accompanying hand gestures that probably confuse the poor mariners even more). It's always very embarrassing when I go back into the real world, forget where I am, and talk to adult, native English speakers like they're toddlers.

All that said, I was on a ship today that settled any doubts in my mind as to whether I need remedial English classes. I boarded the River Elegance knowing that it had an all Chinese crew and that they probably didn't have shore leave. I was armed with phones, which I was ready to leave on board for them to use, and innumberable phone cards. At the top of my gangway, I handed over my business card, proclaimed "From Seamen's Club!" (throwing in the word 'church' in those situations tends to be a bad, bad move, as causing people to think I'm there to proselytize is very near the bottom of my wish list), and waited for them to give me a visitor's pass. Which they didn't. Instead, they just looked exceedingly confused. So I tried again. "I'm here from Seamen's Club. I've come to see if you need anything." At this point, I took the phones and phone cards out of my bag, and physically handed them over to the perplexed gangway officers for inspection. No luck. They exchanged a few sentences in Chinese and puzzled over the phone cards as though I had just handed them moon rocks. I launched a new tactic. "How....many....crew?" I said, as slowly and clearly as I could manage.

The unbelievable response from the gangway officer, who was, by then, looking at me as though I myself had just landed on the deck in a spaceship: "Do...you...speak...English?" Needless to say, that was the point at which I deemed any hope of effective communication absolutely hopeless, turned around, and went right back down the gangway. What I really want to know is what the hell language he thought I was speaking! Is my Wisconsin accent really that incomprehensible?