Day 32

4 October, 2003

A very long night. The late comedian, Sam Kinison, came to visit with a bad tempered eye to redecorate my cabin. “I think your books will look much better IF I THROW THEM OFF THE WALL INTO A PILE... THERE!” (bam! in the dark night) “oh, this lovely fruit bowl... SMASHSHATTER... tinkletinkle.... There, that’s better. NO IT’S NOT! ALL THIS SHIT HERE!” anyway, you get the picture. My cabin looked like my apartment in Santa Monica after the 7.3 1994(?) earthquake. Thank god all the drawers, doors and furniture are latched or tied down. I cleaned up, but it was hard as the ship was violently jerking from side to side. I turn the lights back off and get back into bed, VAVAMMM back out of bed but not of my own volition, back into bed on my stomach, holding on to the four corners. It resented my imposition, bucked and arched but I rode ‘er hard. No matter how she tried to throw me, I was not getting off. This strong will could be because all of a sudden my back won’t let me even if I wanted to. In the darkness, everything else I hadn’t secured or even thought might need securing is flying around the room, rolling back and forth across the floor. It is not stopping (although it likes to play with me and fool me into thinking it might). I (and my back) decide everything on the floor can damn well stay there on the floor until tomorrow. I keep trying to get some blanket on as I am cold but it won’t stay on and she waits for me to reach for it and then tries to throw me out. An hour or more of this, I am tired. Finally, I am warm and comfy. Curled up to sleep... I have just gone to sleep? On the WALL?????!!!!! WHOOAAAAAAAA crash.

It is not, so much, the fifteen to twenty degrees of roll (in each direction) as much as the velocity and erratic timing of the rolls. Instead of a lack of gravity, it is the sudden switching of it’s strength and direction. Why am I being pulled/sucked, inextricably, towards a wall? What ever happened to hammocks? The steward tells me that the bed in the infirmary is on gimbals. Maybe I’ll report in sick. I saw a document (required for port) that says the ship is carrying forty-five ampules of dilauded in the captains safe. Oooohhhh baby don’t- even -go-there. The officers all look normal, well what did I expect. This is about normal for the beginning of winter in the Pacific they say. The third just always rumbles something about his last ship in the winter, north Atlantic.

The weather has improved, even gotten warmer. But still a lot of roll as these really big swells come chasing us out of the west-north-west as we go east. They stop the ship for four hours (in the middle of nowhere, about 177 degrees east and 40 north) repairing something in the engine. In spite of the ship dancing the frug, we have been speeding along at around twenty-five knots, with winds and swells out of the westerly area. There isn’t another ship within the hundred mile or more range of the radar.

A beautiful sunset. Here comes ground hogs day. This hour forward pushes us over the international date line. My first crossing I am embarrassed to say. The fact that it means one day longer before I get home is irritating. I know we arrive on Thursday the 9th, now we have to live Saturday over again. I hope it doesn’t mean “binhoff” again.(soup and sausage lunch, although I like the french bread that comes with it).

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