29-th of January started on a somber note. All of us were rather sad about the impending arrival on land.
Our life in deep ocean would be over in a few hours.
Our fellow passengers would be leaving and we would be continuing.
Think of who you have lived with, in the recent past, for 3 weeks without any break – together day in and day out in close quarters. You had breakfast, lunch and dinner with them. You spent, more or less, all the day with them and separated only for a Siesta or at night to sleep…
So you can imagine, when the company turns out to be kindred spirits in unexpected ways, you are natural to feel sad about them leaving. They are sad about leaving the ship – so there is a somber atmosphere on the ship. It seemed like all of us would be mopping around the rest of the trip feeling sad. But… the ocean never lets you to dwell on ugly things for too long. It spices up your life and helps you be in the moment and now. So it filled up our day quite quickly and efficiently.
All those who know my travel well by now, know that one of the new found passions is spotting ships. So it was that I had spotted some fishing boats – this showed that we are getting closer to land. We were at 68NM and I was waiting for “Morning chant” – all of a sudden, fog descended on the ship – all around, visibility was so low, we could not even see the containers.
The Morning Chant had been expected to pass in front of us from the port side to the star board side. The sky was clear – the fog just blocked our visibility completely. We could not see the front, sides and slowly the back of the ship. All were just white – not even grey! Just the sky was blue…
P, the deck cadet and E, one of the ABs, took the flag and walked up to the radar area – I thought they were going to raise the flags and follow them. It turned out that they were only testing them. I had the pleasure of seeing them unravel the rope, unfold the flag and raise it. Each activity brought to me how close we are getting to this isolated time we had, away from the life we normally know.
Morning Chant passed at some point before I could see it. The fog lifted and there was no sign of the Morning Chant. Don’t you think it is a beautiful name for a ship? Morning chant in the morning – spotting it would have been divine! Now I would need to wait for Sea Lady.
We, then heard a helicopter, another sign that we are closer to land than we were before (except for the day when we crossed South Africa). I waited for Sea Lady to cross. She would be going to Belfast UK!
At 9 am would be further tests, the AB had informed me. The Captain would do that together with the second officer and Chief Mate. We would never have imagined what that entailed. The officer on watch had just told me that they would test the gears to see whether the manual ones work.
29-th needs multiple blogs to express the very different specialties that happened that day.
Life of P(ay)i 