Last one on stars. Promise.

I have seen 41 years of fantastic night skies- crystal clear winter nights
on the southeastern coast and clear summer nights out on the Puget Sound-
but nothing I have seen compares to the night skies above the Red Sea. We
steamed northwest during the night bearing straight at Cassiopeia and I
spent a couple hours admiring the galaxy in Andromeda, which is the only
galaxy visible to the naked eye (as I understand it). Then I went aft to do
my watch on the stern and there is really little else to do BUT gaze at the
stars during those hours. So yeah... I really don't have much else to talk
about.

Through the binoculars there is a depth to the sky that gives a three
dimensional, vertigo-inducing effect. Of course the meteors were stunning,
too, and I saw two at once that crossed each others' paths perfectly
perpendicularly... I haven't ever seen that before! The clarity is just
stupefying- the unobstructed view of stars spinning around, night after
night, clearly illustrates the mechanics of a spinning earth hanging
suspended in our particular corner of the galaxy like no planetarium could
ever dream of reproducing. Don't let the song "Wheel In The Sky" get stuck
in your head... that sucks.

So it's no wonder the Arab World developed celestial navigation thousands of
years ago... with a sky like this it makes perfect sense. I also wonder if
perhaps the Jews wandering in the wilderness couldn't be a perfect metaphore
of the transition from pre-to-post celestial mathematical society: Clearly
it is far too sophisticated to be just the work of bored shepherds
scratching equations in the sand- perhaps it did take 40 years of investment
by wandering, nomadic tribes who needed the ability to navigate the deserts
for trade to observe, accumulate data, develop the formulas, and test the
results. This is certainly the sky for it.

Right at this moment (0800) we are slowly making way through the Suez Canal,
again. We have taken on the "linemen," electrician, and pilot. I made the
mistake of drinking coffee before learning that we're doing 3-man rotations,
the long and short of which is that I need to sleep for the next 4 hours
(after working 14 hours yesterday and 6 already today), but that isn't going
to happen. Dammit.

In 4 hours I will be steering this boat through the canal, and one item of
interest about steering a ship through a ditch: Cushion- the effect of water
bouncing off the bank and pushing the boat one way or the other. It feels
like a cross current to the helmsman (me). In calm waters I "set up the
swing" of the bow, and once she goes, she keeps swinging until I stop her
with a reverse rudder. With cushion effect, even though the boat is pointed
exactly where you want her to be pointed, the whole ship moves sideways
toward one bank or the other regardless of swing... a little bit of a
problem, no? The only way to compensate is to go just fast enough to steer,
but not fast enough to create a lot of cushion. That is 12 knots for us.
There is also "squat," in shallow water, but this here ditch is deep enough
to not have to deal with that, too (If you thought of "squat" as the boat
squatting in the water and hitting the bottom then give yourself a gold
star).

And I suspect "channel" and "canal" are derivatives of a common ancestor.
Damned without google. Simply damned.

Righteo. Must try to sleep, at least.