I had a peculiar dream last night, in which all of the people I met in Australia were exact copies of the people I left behind in the US, so I could accurately predict their behaviors, and we all got along as if we were old friends, though we'd only just met.
It is too windy to hang the hammock this morning - gusts up to 20 miles per hour. The temperature is 11.77 °C (53 °F) when I visit the bridge at 0900, where I speak with James and 3rd Officer Yap. The former was in the Royal Navy for 9 years; he worked in the engine room. He asks Yap if he wants to be a captain some day. "No," he answers. "I am just trying to make money. I want to work maybe 5 years and then go home." It turns out, he is interested in art, but wants to teach at the sailing academy.
James has a GPS, a Garmin Nuvi 40, which he bought to get around Australia. He offers to sell it to me for half the price he paid (which he doesn't remember), but doesn't want more than $80 for it. At lunch, he suggests that if I can pay him in US dollars, it would be even better, since he will stop there on his way home, and he'd like a little spending money. I return to my cabin and tally up my remaining cash. $82.50. I give it to him a couple hours later, when he pokes his head into my open doorway as he's coming in off the deck. He tells me he is planning to get off in Melbourne to get some beer. He drinks, on average, four cans a day, so a case won't even last him a week, and the ship's store doesn't open nearly that often.
I go up to the bridge around 1430 and the 2nd Mate introduces me to the new 2nd Mate, who we'd taken on in Sydney. He is also Filipino, in his mid 30s. Our old 2nd is getting off in Melbourne with us, to fly back to the Philippines.
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