New Zealand Trip

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18 Dec 2003 -  Eleventh day at sea

0806 - We're at 25.44S and 169.45W.  Mostly overcast.  The weather's cooler.   Sea's are about the same.

2025 - We're at 28.22S and 172.26W.   Nice sunset.  A hard warm wind coming from the south from just about the direction we're going.   Had rain on and off today and it was mostly overcast getting pretty just at the end.  I went up on the bow to watch the ends of the sunset.

I haven't written much today at all.  Most of the day I spend programming with the occasional walk around the ship.   I got up at 0600 and spent nearly and hour and a half on the bridge talking with Emil.

Around 1720, Antoni, the Chief Engineer came around.   I've had his name wrong all of this time.   I've been thinking it was Anatoly.   Jeez, how embarrassing.

He went through the photos I took the other day and helped me put names on the various pieces of equipment I photographed.   He also spent a good deal of time explaining to me how various pieces of equipment worked.   And much of it is very different that the engines I've worked on (other than the obvious size factor).

After dinner, I went up on the bridge to see if Emil would be up for seeing the second of the Lord of the Rings DVDs.  He wasn't.  His sleeping hours are pretty restrictive with two watches a day.   I took off to visit the bow for the sunset and he said I should come by his cabin afterwards and he'd loan me some movie DVDs.

He had some good stuff.  I've pretty much watched everything I brought except the Harry Potter and Matrix stuff - and the second Lord of the Rings.  I ended up borrowing 10 DVDs from him.   Then he came down to my cabin and I loaned him some of the stuff I had.  I noted that he's very careful the way he handles stuff so I feel confident that it will all return to me in excellent condition.  He also loaned me some Romanian music.   I'm going to copy it onto my hard disk and give it a try.   I also gave him the two MP3 CDs I made for the trip.   I've duplicated them onto my hard disk and I can always burn them again at home.

The Captain posted the schedule for the rest of the voyage today.   It is as follows:

Antoni told me that the schedule has extra time built into it so there's a good possibility that after we leave Fiji, we may just stop and bob around and drift with the current until we slip enough time to get back on time.

Tomorrow, we're going to pass over a place on the ocean floor named the Kermadec Trench which is 10047 meters deep - that's 32,962 feet deep!   I'm not sure that I will be able to resist throwing something or other overboard just to know that a piece of something I own is going to be down there waiting for eternity to pass.

I'm starting to get excited about the next part of this adventure - New Zealand!

2355 - Just came in from up top side.   Wow, is all I can say.  There's no moon and only a few clouds and the stars are burning.   I doubt I've ever seen more stars than that.  The Russian ship I was on ran a lot of lights at night.   This one runs virtually none.   Once your eyes adjust, it is quite unbelievable. 

I originally went outside because I'd noticed that the ship was shaking around a lot more than before I sat down to watch a movie (Blow with Johnny Depp).   It wasn't rolling or pitching like we were hitting big swells.   It was more of a constant shaking and rumbling.   After I went out on the small deck beside my cabin, which is shielded from the wind by the superstructure, and admired the stars, I decide to put on my knit cap and gray coat and go topside.

Once I went back out and started to climb the stairs, I realized we've got a 40 or 50 mile and hour headwind.   I can't recall being in such a strong wind since Sharon and I were on the Columbia River back in November of 2000.    I got up to the top deck and before more than a minute had passed, my blue knit cap left and hasn't been seen since.

Looking over the side, I could see from the amount and size of the white froth that the ship is generating with its passage that we must be hitting a lot of chaotic and choppy waves driven by the wind.  I considered walking up to the bow but there's no lights and it seemed too spooky.  It's like a no-man's-land of wind and steel and darkness up there now with the black sea of sudden death surging just beyond the rail where the wind screams.

But the sky....   The galaxy's body spanned it all from side to side.   The greater and smaller Magellanic Clouds are high like clouds of white smoke that you can see better it you look all around them.    Orion, which has risen higher and higher as the ship has gone further south, has now flipped over for me and the jewels below Orion's belt are now suspended over it.   And the number and intensity of stars is amazing.   So much so that Orion doesn't jump out to you as it does at home.   here you have to see its brighter pattern against all the second rank embers behind and around it.

To the south toward Antarctica, there are stars and patterns I don't know.   When I look that way, its like I could be on a world going around another star with a brand new sky.  And the sky is so clear, that really bright stars blaze down to within 5 degrees of where the sky meets the sea.  

Everything I see away from the ship itself, is illuminated by solely by starlight.  The sky everywhere is definitely lighter than black because I can see the sea below and it  is black while the sky above is lighter than that - the palest pearl of the great bowl of stars.

I rather like that the sea is coming up.   Should be interesting to sleep tonight.