- The crane is still broken
- We pass Bu Island
- Dinner discussion of home ownership, and Harvey's cottage
- Talking with the crew on the bridge
Pictures:
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| Bu Island |
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| Reeferman |
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| Electrician, chief engineer, and reeferman |
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| It's a long way from the top of the crane to the deck, and there are wind and waves to deal with. |
I wake at 0630, having snoozed my alarm since 0600. In the shower, I marvel at how commonplace the "navy shower" has become. It's just part of my routine now. I dress in jeans and a t-shirt. The jeans are tight. I need to quit eating so much. Also, where the hell did I put the pair that fit comfortably, and why did I pack these instead?
I meet with Reusora on the way to the mess for breakfast. He bids me, "good morning." "Magandang umaga," I reply. He laughs, "good appetite," as he enters the crew's mess. They've been saying that at every meal since we left Savannah, and I don't have the heart to tell them that nobody uses the literal English translation, but sticks to the French, "bon appétit."
Sipping my coffee and staring out the window, an idea strikes me, and I step out onto the deck to finish my cup, leaning against the rail and watching the waves pass by. Somewhere in the middle of the ship, I hear the sound of a grinder working a piece of metal, and I try to imagine who is cutting what.
I return to my cabin to update my journal. At 0820, Roman appears with a vacuum. "I cleaning, sir?" "Yes, please." He sees the background on my computer and turns to me. "Your wife, sir?" I laugh. "Nope. Just a girl on Mo'orea, when we were in Tahiti. She made me a drink and I asked if I could take her picture. 'With you?' she asked, and I said, 'Why not?' I got a drink and a picture, and that's it. I don't even know her name." "Was this on the beach?" he asks. "Nope, up in the mountains," I respond, "and it's a hell of a long walk."
The day passes, more or less uneventful. I take a couple pictures of the electrician and the chief engineer atop the number two crane. At lunch, the second officer announces another 1 hour retard of the ship's clock, and a 1 day advance. It's gonna be the future soon.
I sit quietly on the deck reading, and around 1430, I look up from my novel to see land to our south. I snap a couple pictures and climb the stairs to the bridge. "Bu Island," the second officer tells me. He looks forward through his binoculars and, pointing, hands them to me. "A sailboat, just a little starboard." I see it, way off in the distance, but it is too far to get a picture.
At dinner, Eric asks about buying a house. He says that in Switzerland, people never pay off their houses because there is a very high tax on it, and they want to keep all the property in the hands of the banks. Harvey says that in the UK, it is common to purchase a 99-year loan. I tell them about Dad's farm, and Harvey mentions a cottage in the woods, which he lost to his wife in the divorce. "We'd spend our sumers there when the kids were young. It was on a lake, maybe ten acres. I spent close to three years building a snake fence around it. There was a well for getting fresh water, and an outhouse. In the winter, the well would freeze and you'd have to carry water from a nearby spring. I let my ex-wife have it in the divorce, but if I'd known she was going to sell it..."
Eric looks very sad. He has said before that his wife had asked for a divorce. The last two nights, he has been asking Harvey about how he lives as a divorcee. He sounds lost, confused, like he's not sure what his next step is going to be. I feel very sorry for him.
After dinner, I go up to the bridge. It's too cloudy to see the night sky though. The third officer and Reusora are on watch. They are very friendly, and ask a lot of questions, which I am happy to answer, but what I really want is to hear their stories, not tell my own.
The AB seaman tells me that before he became a seaman, he tried to study computer science. He had no one to teach him, and he found it too difficult to learn on his own. I can't imagine trying to learn programming without someone to teach me. He likes action movies and owns a collection of Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Bruce Lee movies. I mention Stephen Chow, and they both laugh. "I have seen Shaolin Soccer many times," the third officer tells me. He says he likes anime, and on his last vessel, they watched Lost every day. I ask if he has seen Battlestar Galactica. Neither of them has heard of it, and Mr. Yap hands me a pencil and paper, asking me to write down the name of the show. He confesses that he doesn't get to watch movies as much on this ship, because he does not have time. Being the third officer, and the youngest by far (perhaps the youngest person on the ship), he gets stuck with a lot of the boring work, I've noticed.
There will be no journal entry for the 23rd, because there is no 23rd of June for us. We go straight to the 24th when we cross the International Date Line tonight.
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