- Bust another coke
- I fast today
- Fire alarm test
- I get to steer the ship
- Eric tells a story about partying with cops in Australia
A loud explosion rouses me out of slumber. Disoriented, I check the clock. 0530. I notice the refrigerator door is swinging open. Darn, I think to myself. Another one. I pull out the good ones. None of the cans are swollen, save for the one that busted, but I decide to wipe them off with the hand towel (which I'd used to clean up yesterday's mess and left soaking in the sink last night) and leave them sitting on top of the fridge from now on. I've gotten used to room-temperature soft drinks over the last few months anyway, and now that it's not hot as hell, I'm not looking for something to cool me off.
Still groggy after my shower, I head to the mess for coffee and milk. I guess this is going to be a "no solids" type of fast. Harvey is in there and tells me he saw some dolphins around 0630. I ask if he got any pictures. He shakes his head. "I didn't have time to run in and get my camera." After breakfast, I sit on the deck , with my camera but not my kindle or iPod, until lunch. The waves are much choppier than yesterday (or at any point on our voyage). The only thing worth shooting is a flock of little white birds - no dolphins, turtles, sharks, or whales.
Lunch is steak with potatoes and corn, with ice cream for dessert. It's tempting, but I maintain my discipline and settle on a bowl of broth. "It's a special soup," the chief officer tells me. "Romanian. It's best with garlic and sour cream." I haven't told anyone about my fast and I haven't decided what to tell them at dinner, which (today being Sunday) should be pizza. I excuse myself from the table and head to the administrative office to send Dad an email, wishing him a happy Fathers' Day. After, I return to my cabin for more prayer and a nap.
I awaken around 1600 and discover that I am quite sunburnt from this morning. I dress, make the bed, and fix myself a cup of tea. A dark spot creeps from the refrigerator door on the carpet. I check it, afraid that one of the beers might have suffered the same fate as those two cokes, but am relieved to find it's only melted ice from the freezer. I turn the dial back up some more.
A little while later, the third officer announces over the intercom that they will be teting the fire alarm. It's very loud, since the box sits outside my door, and I am relieved when they turn it off after a minute or two. The captain may love to have a good time, but he takes the safety of the ship and all those on board very seriously.
At 1800, I find myself on the bridge as we pass between a pair of islands. The chief officer says we must change course and asks if I would like to do the honors. I tell him that I would be very excited to steer the ship. Our present heading is 238 degrees, and we must come to 248 once we are clear of the islands. He asks me to turn 3 degrees to starboard, and points to the dial. "It is a very fine adjustment," he advises me. Slowly, we begin to turn. "Okay, four more degrees." We continue to turn. "Now, the final turn." I dial it in. He goes back to mark it in the log book. As the numbers reach the desired value, I call out, "Course 248," as if I was an AB seaman. He checks one of the navigation computers. "Wrong," he says. "Heading is 248. Course over ground is 246." The difference, he explains, is that heading is the direction the ship is pointed, while course is the actual direction of the ship's motion. So, the course vector is the sum of the ship's propulsion, ocean current, and wind vectors.
At dinner, Harvey and Eric ask why I'm not eating. It's Sunday - pizza day. I explain to them that I decided to fast today, to remind myself of what it's like to go without. Eric says that the main island of Tahiti is nothing special - just another town, but the nearby island has more of the tropical island feel. "The ferry runs until 6 pm and it takes maybe one and a half hours to get there, so we can go in the morning and be back in the evening." Our conversation turns to Australia, and Eric tells a story about driving in the Northern Territory with his girlfriend at the time.
"We had rented a car, but it was raining and we couldn't cross the water. There was a hotel but we could not afford it, so we decided to sleep in our car. The police saw us and stopped to ask what we were doing, and we told them we were waiting until the rains stopped, and we could not afford the hotel. About an hour later they came back and saw that we were still there. They asked us if we wanted to go to a party, and we said okay. We went to a policeman's house and there were a lot of people there. They let us have anything we wanted from the bar. When it was all gone, we all went to another policeman's house and did it all over again."
I think I'm going to like Australia.
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