09 Dec 2003 - 3rd day at sea
0720
- Another beautiful day. We are currently at 22.17N and 130.41W.
Over night we've dropped below the Tropic of Cancer. We're 1100 miles from
Los Angeles. The ship's speed is always between 22 and 23 miles per
hour when I check it.
0930 - Went outside for a break and saw a seabird. White with black wing tips. I want to say it is an Albatross but I'll have to look it up. We're 1200 miles from the nearest land and it is here apparently by itself. I watched it swoop and fly around the ship for ten minutes. Once, it dove into the sea but I couldn't se if it caught anything. Then, after awhile, it just flew off to the east and disappeared.
It is getting warmer outside. Where the sun is coming from the east, it might be 75 or so. Definitely tee shirt weather. A few scattered clouds and a calm sea.
One
thing I didn't think about but which is obvious is that the ship will just steer
a straight course for New Zealand. Since we cleared the Channel
Islands, we've been on the same bearing night and day moving at 22 to 23 miles
an hour. On my Encarta Atlas, I've been dropping way points on the
map whenever I take a GPS fix. The track is just a line, straight as an
arrow. Beautiful.
1700 - I've been sitting up on the bow again reading and watching the ocean. Saw my first flying fish today. I also have gotten the hang of using our camera as a movie camera. It'll take a 35 second clip and record sound as well. I shot a lot of stuff today - much of it probably lame but I have a lot of time to re-shoot stuff.
| QuickTime Movie - The Bow |
| QuickTime Movie - From the Flying Bridge |
| QuickTime Movie - From the Flying Bridge II |
Our position at 1545 was 20.09N, 132.37W.
1900 - Back from supper. I was just thinking that these Eastern European officers are not a very talkative group when tonight, Anatoly, the ship's Chief Engineer opened up and he and I and John had a big talk. It's hard to understand Anatoly and the Captain but as I listen more I are parsing the input better and better.
Anatoly was discussing Poland's economy and how things were under Communism and many things. He's been a merchant seaman for thirty years and began sailing under the communists. It sounds like Poland's economy is being drained by a behind-the-scenes mafia. He says, for example, that all of the Ukraine is owned/run by just four people. He also mentioned the huge problem that Poland's debt is as well.
He asked if I was interested in the pool and I said yes. He said he would fill it tomorrow morning and I could use it in the afternoon. That was very nice of him.
2100 - I just finished a tricky it of programming and I went up top to have a look around. It is about 75 up there and the moon is blazing brightly among a few scattered clouds. They run the ship at night with the radar going and one white light atop the radar mast. Just pushing through the empty hugeness of the ocean - on and on.
2230 - It is easy to forget where I am. After awhile, you tune the ship's motion out. I watched a movie and at the end, when I stopped the DVD player, I suddenly remembered that I am sitting in a large piece of steel with thousands of feet of water beneath me and not a solid piece of land anywhere within a thousand miles. And with me, 23 other souls - and that's it. We take it for granted that there's dirt under us. And that there are people not too far away. On land, 100 miles to the next town seems like extreme isolation. This is all very strange sometimes. Beneath these steel floors for thousands of feet down, there's a primordial world. No thought as we know it or feelings. Just hunger and instinct, chance and death, darkness and the endless comings and goings of nameless unknown creatures into and out of life. Now born, now eating, now birthing and now food for another on the same journey of a billion repetitions in the dark and near eternal waters. Here, I am paper thin. There, I am meaningless.