St. Elmo's Fire. For Real.

More fishing boats caught my eye, this time between Malaysia and Indonesia.
These are larger than the Somalian and Iranian fishing boats that captured
my fancy in earlier posts- probably in the realm of 17 - 20 meters in
length, with a dramatic shear at the bow, the stem of which has substantial
rake and the stem board stands proud of the gunnels about a foot. The houses
are all two story at the stern. The transoms are low and wide, which makes
the high-swept and pointed bow look even more dramatic.

The seas approaching the Straits of Malacca were the color of slate, the
water that of used motor oil, and- when churned- looked a dirty moss green.
Not nearly what one would expect from a place as exotic-sounding as
"Malacca." The heat was such that the dust from the chipping I did during
the morning shift (my 5 hours of daily overtime) left me absolutely pitch
black with the iron oxide and paint dust fused to my skin, bonded with
sweat, and even as utterly fouled as I was, the seas didn't look like an
inviting alternative to my filthy state.

During my next watch (midnight - 0400) the morning started out with
lightning on the horizon at all quarters, ranging in color from orange, to
yellow, amber to white, with a frequency of about every 10 seconds. The
full moon was visible directly overhead. Not much longer afterward the
chain lightning started- each display began with a single, slow-moving
tendril that doubled and branched every quarter second until it looked like
a deciduous tree in the winter, made of light, barren of leaves. Within an
hour we were in the midst of one of those lightning storms you never forget-
it strobed like a rhythmically-challenged disco, blinding and deafening and
awing and scaring the shit out of highly-static-electrically-attractive
people like me...

The traffic during all this, of course, had funneled down into the Straits
of Malacca itself and can only be accurately termed "busy."
I have heard of Saint Elmo's Fire before, but only in the same tones as
other, unfamiliar phenomenon (like water spiraling down the toilet in the
opposite direction south of the equator). I can now confirm that the fire
is definitely a real event. We noticed it on the antenna whips, first: from
the tip of the port side whip was a forked, blue flame that looked like a
propane fire with blue, lamp-lit streamers that flowed from the back of the
aerial, running up and down its length randomly; and on the starboard side
whip was a solid, torch-like blue flame from the tip of the aerial, more
pronounced than the fork on the port side, but with no streamers.

Standing out on the bridge-wings, lightning exploding every 2 seconds all
around, with so much electricity in the air that my hair was standing
straight up was a surreal experience that made me think of one of my heroes-
Nicola Tesla. Maybe I was high on ozone, but after being so exhausted that
I struggled to stay awake only a short time earlier (the only true constant
at sea), I found myself completely jacked-up and (ahem) wired for sound. At
one point the second mate joined us on the bridge and I pointed to the blue
fire at the top of the whip and the fire erupted from my finger tip.

It started flaming up from the steel of the bridge wing, and when I stuck my
hand into the flame fire would erupt from the tips of my fingers. As I
rolled my hand around the fire would move- from my fingertips to my thumb to
my knuckles, emitting a flutter that even sounds like a propane flame. The
third mate suffered a slight burn on one of his fingers but I proved to be
made of stronger stuff than that. Not smarter stuff, just stronger- we were
playing with lightning and tall electrically active masts, after all... it
might be said that we were "asking for it," but it was so amazing we pranced
around like chimpanzees, hooting and sticking our body parts into St. Elmo's
fire, staring at untold thousands of volts pouring from the tips of all the
fingers of one hand, mesmerized... it was pretty friggin' rad.

We went on the hook in Sinki at 0800 and then Bozie and I caught a launch
into Singapore. Like Tortuga 260 years ago, Singapore is a place of
legendary quality amongst modern sailors and caters to the most libertarian
of moral compasses, albeit with a draconian intolerance for filth of any
sort. It is, without question, the cleanest city I've been to (sorry,
Vancouver, BC), where gum is illegal and littering will get you publically
caned, but if you're a dirty Caucasian sailor you are swarmed by Vietnamese,
Thai, and Phillipino prostitutes to the point of exhaustion- which delighted
Bozie, who could not say "no" to the frequent requests of "buy a girl a
drink, sailor?" Yes, they actually do say that.

As entertaining a situation as it initially proved to be as a spectator, at
once removed and yet in the midst of, it did grow tiresome. The constant
personal awkwardness did have its rewards, though- he was the proverbial
drunken sailor, spending at a rate that left me stunned, but amidst our
conversations about ship-board personalities and events I came to realize I
have an ally on the ship, which brings with it no small manner of comfort
here in this hard-eyed, hard-talking, dangerous and intense place with
shifting political under-currents that seem could erupt into open hostility
at any second (and will, soon enough, based on the experiences of those
around me); it is a place that seizes up with a jerk each time I think
things are finally relaxing a bit.

And of course, Chinatown (as the Great Dane put it), "...is Chinatown, no
matter what." Whether it's New York, San Francisco, or Singapore- you know
where you are: You're in Chinatown. I sat in one place eating BBQ'ed bacon
and a strange, white, meat-filled, semi-sweet pastry while drinking iced
coffee and coconut water (from the coconut, of course) and enjoyed: Not
chipping rust scale, not painting chipped steel, and not craning loads of
awkward crap; not strategizing how to accomplish the daily trifecta (without
having to exclude one of them) of food, shower, and sleep; of not spending
30 minutes with gojo, pumice, sinus washes, ear irrigations, and eye-grit
removal that makes up my often twice-daily showers; and not trying to insert
myself into the machinery of personalities that don't necessarily fit but
must necessarily do so in order to move this boat from point A to point B.

I dragged a besotted boatswain back to Leo Launch, Marina Drive, in time for
an absolute deluge and lightning spectacular, which featured 9 sailors on an
empty pier standing in the gale-blown liquid sky like so many lightning rods
waiting for the lone launch to arrive at 0030, and not a nanosecond sooner.
Once aboard the ship and changed into dry clothes, we hoisted anchor and
yours truly drove this big-ass ship to dock at the busiest port in the
world. The tugs, damn them all to hell, decided to just drag along where
they'd made up to the starboard side, so I kept losing steerage at about 7.5
knots and I was left wondering what in the hell was wrong- I'd be hard over
(30 degrees rudder) to port and swinging 5 degrees per minute to starboard.

The Old Man and the Pilot figured it out before I did (probably did the
entire time), I just struggled and tried not to look overly incompetent as
they were doubling up the commands "Steady!" and louder, "Steady on
one-two-one!" I was forced to reply, "Pilot, the helm is hard to port and
we're still swinging 5 degrees to starboard..."

When we were at last up against the dock the Old Man said to the Pilot, with
a dry smirk, "Finally.... no thanks to our new helmsman," which made me
chuckle but caused the Pilot to protest and come to my defense, until he
caught on that it was the only "atta-boy" I was going to get for my
struggles. I'll take it.

I went to the bow, we tied up, and since then (20 hours ago) I have had two
hours of sleep, untied one bunker barge, tied up another, did sanitary on
the bridge, performed 6 crane lifts- including hoisting out one of the
ship's pistons and hoisting on a new one- missed two meals, and cranked out
a whopping 18 hours on the clock so far today (all but 4 of it overtime).
I'm looking at the Singapore skyline through the container cranes as I type,
knowing that there are 4 teeshirts, 6 postcards, some thin socks, and
assorted other necessary goods upon which I will fail to spend any of the
sing for which I exchanged my precious dollars (at a rate of 1.217). Oh,
and the internet SIM for which I paid 90 sing and can't get working- yeah...
therein lies the rub for the lack of photos I so carefully took for this
post. As general blog eye-candy, but more specifically for the selfish task
of luring Laura to put Singapore on our top 5 list of must-do's... Prague,
New York, and Rio have just suffered an equatorial smack-down.

Whelp- the bunker barge we tied up at 1900 just blew her whistle. Time for
me to go back to it. See if I can't get another two hours of overtime
before the 24 hours in a day times me out. So much work, so little day...