Day 12

14 September, 2003

Ahaaaa!!! On the staircase, which really is the central artery of the ship, I run into pal Ernesto on the way to breakfast. During the night the ship really started the r & r business. “The SW monsoon I was telling you about”. So the big current, the gulf stream of the Indian Ocean comes bombing northwards along the coast of Somalia, squeezes through the gaps among the islands off the horn (which is what was pushing us northward yesterday, and then hangs a big right, ie. our direction ESE (towards the southern tip of Sri Lanka), just having passed Socotra this morning. It has been pushing us along at a blazing twenty-five knots, woo-hoo! But meanwhile, that ol’ monsoon is pushing big rollers and wind to the NE. The sky is still cloudless, but the decks are wet with spray even ten stories up, the air is fresh but the sun strong. We have passed the border of Yemen (where the girls all say.... ) and now we are passing Oman (where the girls all say.... ).

The ship moves familiarly to an old drunk. It yawwww-yaaaROLL.. (stagger) ROLLLHARDER-Yaaaaaw. Predictable in its unpredictableness. Yeehaw!! Ride em cowboy. It makes the whole world seem like a big comedy routine. In the worst of it, feeling the slightest queasiness in the ol’ stomach, I slap my wrist bands back on and voila! After an hour I take them off again and all is fine.

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