Slow wrap up – deep ocean travel

The Captain loves to explain everything. This time he had people who were all ears – curiosity was our middle name. So, while waiting for the pre-arrival tests to start, he told us what the tests are about.

The manual gears have not been used during the time on the sea – we have been all on electronic gear. Now it needs to be tested before the pilot comes on board – we might need it to ease into the port. He then went on to explain what are the backups in case this one fails at any time. We would be coming to dead slow and not move – we would then do all necessary tests for smooth arrival. Ri, the passenger who was most in love with the travel and the one who would be getting off would have loved to just stay on board as we were doing.

So he started by reducing the speed to stop.

Though the ship was reduced to speed, it took sometime for it to come to a full stop. The manual gear would be tested and normally it should work but one can never say. He tested the movements so slightly.

Later, he led me to the balcony of the bridge, as I call it, and showed me the trail at the back – the ship had zig zagged. Unfortunately, that photo is in my camera and hence I cannot upload it.

We then came back in… and I continued my normal activities on the bridge, doing nothing, while the different departments doing tests elsewhere communicated with the Captain on the handheld device. We had read somewhere that the best passengers are the ones who stay out of the way. I looked outside – Ri, A and M were outside peering down.

I thought to myself – crazy people when suddenly Ri came running and told me I have to come and come quickly. We had been waiting to spot whales and I thought it was to spot whales. We had already spotted a school of dolphins and flying fish earlier. This urgency could only be for whales. I went out and realized that they were looking too close to the ship. Ri pointed …

“Look!” She said. “Can you spot the pattern?”

There were several things. All of a sudden, I noticed that there was no breaking of the waves anymore. There were no waves. There was no white foam. The sea was deep blue. … the deep blue formed an amazing backdrop to the containers – the colours of the containers stood out. One can only imagine this much beauty from rectangular man made metallic beauty! What struck me the most of the radiating lines in the water – what was that? Was it some kind of current hole into water was getting sucked? We discussed this phenomena – are we seeing this only because the water stopped? The water was sooo still near our ship – it has to be seen to be believed. We continued to gaze at it. It was difficult to capture on the camera.

I looked to the other side, to the front of the ship and there too the waves were missing. The breaking of the waves was missing. This effect was also not too prominent.

The sea had a strange quality – but we were completely stopped. The captain explained that due to the current and wind, he still needed to be ready to react and we might feel some slight movements. We felt nothing – we are after all on a very huge cargo ship. On looking back, I realized that there was no trail none at all. Trails are created by the force of the propeller and could stay upto 5 miles even after we have passed – one of my favorite photo subject was this trail – now, there was none – just still waters.