- Eric's elephant story
- I help the captain take some files off the navigation computer
- The captain sets up my email account on the ship
- We pass the equator
- We celebrate Eric's and my first crossing of the equator at sea
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- This entry also has some "sailors' stories," which some may find inappropriate. I have included them in the interest of providing an accurate depiction of life at sea.
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| Turns out, the equator really is a big black line across the ocean. Who knew? |
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| The equator |
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| Some info about the ship |
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| Flowchart for responding to a distress call |
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| Sunset over the equator |
Crossing the Equator
I wake at 0620 and break fast with a bowl of cereal (Muselix), being still full from dinner. I sit out on the port side F deck reading until lunch. I finish Swiss Family Robinson and with it, my collection of shipwreck novels, and move on to Elmore Leonard. At lunch, Harvey tells us that the ship is expected to cross the equator this evening, some time after 1700. The captain asks if it's anyone's first time crossing, and I alone raise my hand. I learn that my fellow passengers are well-seasoned world travelers - their conversation turns to various places, especially in Africa, where each of them has been, and they compare notes.
Eric tells a story about a time when he and his girlfriend were in a city and accidentally spooked an elephant walking down the street. The elephant charged them, and they hopped a fence to avoid it. This fence happened to encircle a bank, and they were immediately met by a security guard, drawing his gun at them. However, he soon saw the elephant, reholstered his weapon, and ushered them inside.
The captain instructs the messman to fetch some papers from his office - cash advances for the crew, for the months of June and July. The messman returning, the captain instructs him to bring out half portions of food for himself and the chief engineer until further notice. They are trying to lose weight.
I am feeling invigorated after lunch and, changing into my workout clothes, I head don to the gym and spend an hour or so on the treadmill. Following a quick shower, I make my way up to the bridge, around 1600, as the 2nd officer is relieved from his watch by the chief officer. Soon after, the captain arrives on the bridge, and asks me to assist him in retrieving some screenshots from the navigation computer, taken in and around New York harbor. With my help, he is able to recover the images, and he beckons me to follow him down to the administrative office on F deck, where he shows me the pictures, explaining that he is sending them off with comments, so they can be distributed to other captains, that they might know where to meet the pilot boat, where the channels are, and so forth.
Harvey is there as well, catching up on the news of the day, but excuses himself soon after we arrive. I ask the captain if this is where we send emails. He gives me a puzzled look. "Nobody set up your email?" I answer that it was not set up, and he walks me through setting up an account and shows me the ship's webmail system, explaining that it syncs with the outside world once every hour. I sit down and type up an email to my family, with whom I have had no correspondence since Kingston, 6 days ago, and even then only briefly.
Following my correspondence, I make my way back up to the bridge, joined soon after by Harvey. The chief officer tells me a story about when he was a cadet. They were sailing in Turkey, and passing under a large suspension bridge. Some of the older cadets assembled a few of the younger guys on the bridge, handed them binoculars, and told that one of the bolts on the bridge was made of gold, and said they'd give a prize to the first one who found it. He swears up and down that he didn't fall for it, but says a couple of the other guys walked away with black rings around their eyes, from the ink the older cadets had rubbed on the eyepieces.
The chief officer announces to us, "20 minutes to the equator."Then, "10 minutes to the equator." Finally, "within one minute of latitude." He grants me permission to record a video of the radar screen as we cross, at 1750. I take a picture of the sun moving behind some clouds and, thanking the chief officer once again, return to my cabin. I pop open a Corona and, seeing Eric coming out of his cabin, invite him to drink to our crossing. He politely declines (he's not a beer drinker) and runs up to the bridge, "to see what's going on."
Dinner is a lively affair. I make a joke at the chief engineer's expense, asking him to send someone up to fix my sink, which has been draining backwards this evening. He tells me he'll send someone right away, then catches himself, laughin, and invites us all up to the master's office after dinner.
We arrive there to find the captain, 2nd engineer, and the reeferman sipping rum cocktails, which the chief engineer prepares for us. Eric and I are presented with diplomas for our first equator crossing at sea (Harvey does not receive one, as he has made the crossing several times before). The men swap stories and tell jokes. The 2nd engineer tells us about when he was in Bangkok on a bulk carrier (explaining that they take longer to load and unload, and therefore stay in port longer than container ships) and the pilot brought some girls on board with him. When he left, he presented the captain with an invoice for services rendered, itemized for each man aboard the ship. Eric asks what happens if the men don't have the money afterward. The captain answers him simply - "Can't pay, don't fuck." "No money, no honey, " adds the 2nd engineer.
The chief engineer tells a joke: "A seaman, a blonde, and a homosexual are shipwrecked on a deserted island. The first day, the homosexual approaches the seaman and says, 'Let's kill the blonde and eat her, and after we can have a normal sexual life.' The second day, the blonde comes up to the seaman and says, 'Let's kill the homosexual, eat him, and after we can have a normal sexual life.' The seaman thinks to himself, 'Kill both. Eat both. And after, I will have a normal sexual life.'"
The captain puts on some Romanian music videos, showing off how beautiful Romanian women are. The reeferman excuses himself and is soon replaced by the chief officer, coming off his shift. The chief engineer hangs a poster advertising the rum we are drinking - it is a picture of two women in a boxing ring with gloves on. A third stands between them - the referee. The chief engineer points out to us that the girls are all naked, and the clothes we think we see are really body paint. Everyone goes in for a closer look. I take a picture.
The rest of the night is somewhat of a blur. The chief engineer refuses to let me sit with an empty glass, and insists on refilling it. What I remember later are the captain showing me some pictures of his wife and son on vacation in Dubai. He mentions that he has more on his other computer, which will not boot, and I offer to try and recover the files. He says yes, but not tonight.
All in all, a rather enjoyable day at sea.
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