Advancing Clocks and Lost Sleep

2 DAYS AGO
The moon was out when I started my watch last night (midnight). First time
I've seen it in the evening sky since the Med, but dropped like a stone
within an hour and the stars began to blaze. Rigel, Algernon, Betelgeuse...
but not too blazing- the Milky Way didn't backlight Gemini into oblivion. I
did, however, decide that Taurus isn't really a bull. No matter how hard I
try to not see it, when I look at Taurus, I see a rat. I keep remembering
more and more of the stars that I've forgotten in the last 14 years that
I've been in Seattle (yes, stars really are that rare in the Emerald
City)... I can't wait to find a star chart.

With the deeper darkness the bioluminescence really stood out. I got to
thinking- if there was one single-celled glow bug per inch, how many of
these things have we pushed in just one day? This ship displaces
approximately 5 million cubic feet of water, which is 8.6 billion cubic
inches. Traveling at 18 knots, we cover 423 nautical miles per day. Even
more interestingly, I lose all motivation to run the math when I realize I
need to hunt the entirety of the ship, from top to bottom, for the number of
inches in a nautical mile (I know exactly where that is in my office, but
alas...). I think Google is the new Library of Alexandria- and sorely
missed out here. Facebook and 24/7 news aren't missed one little bit, but
Google is priceless.

We're now at GMT +5, which means I am 13 hours ahead of Seattle... so 8 at
night there is 9 in the morning, here.

I got to thinking about containers in relationship to this boat. It holds
roughly 2,600 TEU (containers in the lingo, yo). When I am doing my stern
watch, there are 16 containers wide, by 6 containers high, over the fantail
where I pace back and forth counting shooting stars (21 tonight, one slow
with an amazing flaming tail that was stunning) trying to stay awake.
Forward, they stack 14 wide by 8 high below the hatch covers, and 16 wide by
6 high above the hatch covers. From the bridge, all I see are containers
laid wide and far ahead and astern of my vantage point. They come in two
basic colors, blue and red, but you see all the various shades of these
colors as the paint ages and oxidizes to a lighter tone than where it
started its colored life.

And there is one white one. It is two rows forward, two over from the
centerline. It collects and then reflects any and all light at night, aimed
directly at my eyes. I resent that box.

Finally, today the Indian Ocean was a color I refer to as "generic Atlantic
sunny-day blue," but the water (when looked into) was a dark teal, again.
When churned, however, it was no longer the wedgewood blue of yesterday, but
more of a tiffany's blue.

YESTERDAY
Now in the Northern Lakshadweep Sea, at 10 degrees North and we advanced
clocks again last night (I lost another hour of my already limited sleep,
again). The Ocean was silver to what little horizon we have, the water was
obsidian in its depths, and back to the color of wedgewood china when
churned. Even with the smudged, low-pressure haze the visibility was up to
about 10 nm (It's been 6-7 nm for days now).

MIDNIGHT TO 0600
Talk about dreary work. No stars, 6 miles of visibility, heat lightning all
around, and fishing vessels everywhere. Somewhere off our starboard quarter
the moon was hidden behind the cumulous cover which made the entirety of the
sea and sky the same dull grey and washed out the dim lights of the fishing
vessels... I could only pick them out at about 5 nm.

TODAY 1200 - 1600
In the Maldives, approaching Sri Lanka at about 6 degrees north and another
time zone further east. Advancing the clocks keeps robbing me and I look
forward to the retarding clocks and extra sleep once we leave Singapore.

The ocean today was grey to the smudged horizon, a deep onyx in its depths,
and churned to a color somewhere between the blues of wedgewood and
tiffany's I've been recording, but today it somehow reminds me more of an
Art Deco glass color on Miami's South Beach than anything else.
Up ahead of us today is a ship I've been seeing repeatedly on the AIS since
we were south of Greece named the Agamemnon. Fitting, no?

And dolphin. People pay cash to see them jump at Sea World, but I have
never seen them jump like that in either the waters that run from the
Chesapeake Bay to Florida, or the Salish Sea in the Pacific Northwest. They
just don't do it. Well, today I saw thousands of dolphin- from horizon to
horizon- playing in the wake of the ship here in the Maldives, doing front
flips, doing back flips, entire herds jumping in unison to and from the
waves of our wake... I was transfixed (while Academy Boy droned on to the
2nd Mate about partying with his King's Point Academy bro's- what a puke he
is- have I mentioned how much I dislike him?). Videographers work
tirelessly to make a launched, air-born and flipping dolphin look graceful-
which few things can appear as graceful as dolphin leaping from wave to
wave, as anyone can attest- but flipping dolphin do NOT look graceful. They
look like stiff wooden toys thrown by a child. They look positively
comical. I could watch them all day and not tire, but just because they can
swim 18 knots doesn't mean they do, and soon we left them behind, still
playing in our wake that runs for as far as the eye can see.