I couldn't in good conscience leave everyone hanging for five solid months, so I've chosen an excerpt from my trip to share. Enjoy!
19 September 2011
After Marin's watch, he escorts me to the focsle, or forecastle, or that pointy front deck area. Because the weather is windy and the seas rough, we thread through the tunnels between the ship's hull and her fuel tanks. These are narrow but high ceilinged and protect those inside from the elements or pirate RPG's. Coming out into the sunlight again a few minutes later, I see the waves for the first real time. What I had been gazing down on all along from the fifth floor of the accommodation tower had seemed like the stuff of lazy rivers. In fact, this was not the kiddie pool. Undulations crested along the lip of the deck only to plummet back down into cavernous recesses. To look at them one would think they'd get air time on the crest, each wave a trampoline.
"Now we can play Leonardo," Marin instructs. We walk to the forwardmost point on the ship, peering off the edge while the freighter cut the ocean in two. The water, in protest, picks the focsle up until we can't see the horizon then drops us at terrifying speed toward the deep blackness. Marin begins to tell how dolphins play Frogger by jumping back and forth in front of the ship, when suddenly a massive sneeze of sea spray blasts over the edge and into our faces. I sputter and shake off like a Saint Bernard and we both laugh. Marin turns to me and says, "It's ok. This is baptism," and I agree.
19 September 2011
After Marin's watch, he escorts me to the focsle, or forecastle, or that pointy front deck area. Because the weather is windy and the seas rough, we thread through the tunnels between the ship's hull and her fuel tanks. These are narrow but high ceilinged and protect those inside from the elements or pirate RPG's. Coming out into the sunlight again a few minutes later, I see the waves for the first real time. What I had been gazing down on all along from the fifth floor of the accommodation tower had seemed like the stuff of lazy rivers. In fact, this was not the kiddie pool. Undulations crested along the lip of the deck only to plummet back down into cavernous recesses. To look at them one would think they'd get air time on the crest, each wave a trampoline.
"Now we can play Leonardo," Marin instructs. We walk to the forwardmost point on the ship, peering off the edge while the freighter cut the ocean in two. The water, in protest, picks the focsle up until we can't see the horizon then drops us at terrifying speed toward the deep blackness. Marin begins to tell how dolphins play Frogger by jumping back and forth in front of the ship, when suddenly a massive sneeze of sea spray blasts over the edge and into our faces. I sputter and shake off like a Saint Bernard and we both laugh. Marin turns to me and says, "It's ok. This is baptism," and I agree.
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