Day 15

17 September, 2003

Not even halfway on my trip. The sun comes up big and strong off the southern tip of India. Towering rain carrying monsoon clouds are here and there, but none in our immediate vicinity. The ocean is turbulent, but it is not the small local watery contretemps that have any effect on us, it is the big rolling swells. They are hard to see near the surface, but ten flights up the patterns become apparent. The CO told me that I shouldn't be fooled by the size of the ship, that in real heavy weather one can still spend a night standing between two walls holding on, as you would find it physically impossible to lie in bed without being thrown out on the floor (well, I am not so unused to that ;-).

My back is feeling a bit better, about 65%. Sometimes I think it is the constant adjusting for the ships movement, or the low soft furniture that threw an already weakened back.

The silence of the meals is eerie, except when the captain is present which is only every few days. He tends to keep his table talking, well he does monopolize it a bit. Maybe because, outside of the Captain (who has commanded her from the beginning) and the Chief Engineer, the Germans come and go on this ship per trip. Everyone is doing their time. As modern ships do not allow for anytime ashore in port, they plod on their three months, working everyday (why take a day off if you have to be at work anyway).

I have just spent three hours in heaven, and am paying for it with a complete reversal as to my back. I had actually dragged a plastic chair up to one of my more favorite perches, thinking a proper chair might be better for the back. I had missed my large doses of negatively charged ion filled air the last couple of days. I had also brought my binocs and a book I found in the ship's left library, My Secret History by Paul Theroux who I had gone off of for about the last decade. But I have always felt a strange parallel of lives with him. Whether Worlds Endwhich was a London haunt of mine, or Boston which this book is set in and which we both grew up in (albeit twelve years apart, he is the same age as the captain).

A beautiful sea and sun, I espied (outside of the usual suspect flying fish) what looked like some leaping, big game fish types. Ship traffic was getting ferocious, this southern tip of Sri Lanka being a choke point for all traffic between the Suez, the Persian gulf and the far east and the Pacific, when the captain pointed out some whales.

This captain, sixty-two years old, has eyes like a hawk (unaided), he haunts the bridge and flying bridges in baggy shorts and nothing else! No shoes, no shirt! A crazy grin like Aguirre(Klaus Kinski). He knows and remembers every ship that passes. For entertainment he compares his vision to the radar and always finds the radar wanting! He is waving and grinning at me so I race up the flight to the flying bridge which is the best view in the world. Before I knew it we were surrounded by whales. The captain says they are always here, which is curious as there are so many huge ships going in each direction, as well as countless local fishermen bobbing about. All of this, in sight of the shore of Sri Lanka, the city of Galle and Hambantota and the mountains above, wreathed with monsoon clouds.

It seems hard to believe one can get blasé about whales. But after so many for a couple of hours, so close you can count the lamprey riding along it is.. oh well. Whales are betrayed by their heavy breathing.

My back is so bad I almost give up getting up for dinner, but I did not want to worry the crew. I limp down to the mess to find dinner is oxtail, not one of my favs so I opt for a salad and crawl back up. Clock goes ahead another hour.

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