The continuing saga of what the watchkeeper sees...

Polaris. Dim, oft-mistaken Polaris was finally visible during my midnight
bridge watch- I don't think I knew how colorful a star it actually is.
Mostly green with flashes of red and orange- very cool. I have yet to get
the opportunity to check out the Three Sisters with the bridge binoculars,
but it's tonight's mission. And I've decided the name the "Milky Way"
offends me for its trite undertone connotating "no big deal," as casual as a
trip to Dairy Queen for a high fructose corn syrup sundae. It's so bright
over the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Oman, that I honestly couldn't find
Orion last night for several minutes. Nor Sirius. And if Venus hadn't been
orange when she rose I'd have never seen her, either. The Milky Way should
have a better name, that's all I'm sayin'... something fit for consumption
for people greater than six years old.

And more phosphorescence in the bow wave and wake this morning on the
stern... I've seen some spectacular phosphorescence in the Puget Sound, but
the sheer scope of this (gigantic, of course) is amazing... 2 meter wake
obliquely hammering 2 meter waves at 21 knots makes a hell of a splash! We
could have been in the Atlantic after the sun rose and lit the gulf but for
the pale aquamarine of the churned waters- a surprisingly cold color (which
brings to mind peppermint toothpaste) in a remarkably warm climate. Today
was nice, flat, motorboat waters good for fishermen and pirates alike- I
have seen many military vessels of all nationalities out here, however, and
the recent activities are minimal to non-existent, at least in these waters.
That isn't to say that we aren't very serious about it- quite the contrary,
just that the volume of European, Asian, and US warships protecting commerce
is justifiably high. I, for one, think it's a great use for military
vessels.

I forgot to mention the small fishing skiffs I've spotted which have a sail
that is a spitting image of the Polynesian "crab claw" shunting rigs used on
the South Pacific proas (outrigged canoes). Hopefully I will remember to do
an internet search for "Somalian fishing sailing skiff," or variations
thereof, and discover what it was I was looking at in greater detail. All
these boats were a good 2 nm distance, minimum, so it could turn out that
they don't resemble a crab claw sail at all on closer inspection... but I
saw four or five of them and they were consistent in their shape and their
aspect (to my eye). I have the sneaking suspicion that search will be one
of those fruitless needle-in-a-haystack series of windows and clicks that
ends on a page featuring videos of cats. If I remember to search at all...
often I find myself on the videos of cats and wonder how I got there. Not
having internets out here is a real deprivation.

This morning I also saw dozens of giant mackerel leaping a good 6 feet out
of the water when I was on the stern... it reminded me to mention the school
of unidentified fish I saw in the Atlantic that I mistook for an incredibly
dense flock of birds skimming low over the water at high speed until I
looked at them with the binoculars and realized it was a fast moving school
of large, leaping fish being pursued by the ever-present Atlantic dolphin.
Academy Boy wasn't impressed and talked-over the Chief Mate and I (about
banal shit, at that) when we were wide-eyed with amazement and would have
liked a moment to merely share a momentary "holy crap!"

In these waters every movement from the house onto the deck is coordinated
and tracked by the bridge, so my department has taken to calling-in their
every movement, no matter how mundane. Very hard to keep from laughing out
loud when I hear "Bridge, this is AB so-and-so moving from the starboard
deck to the port deck" (not a required communication) over the radio and
Academy Boy forced to scurry across the bridge to reply into the handset, in
his bored, condescending tone, "Roger that," and then ten seconds later
hearing "Bridge, this is AB so-and-so going into the house," with the
resulting "Roger that" and tallying required by the third mate. They time
their activity to top-of-the-hour and shift changes when he's busiest, and
space the calls to greatest affect. I have heard the Reefer, the
Electrician, and five sailors going in and out for a solid half hour and
been unable to contain my glee and been forced to retreat to the head to
laugh out loud and have warm feelings toward the unlicensed crew aboard. I
privately (well... here in blogger land) refer to him as Academy Boy, but
they refer to him as "that little fucker."

Some days I actually sympathize with him (we can talk video games and
Southpark and we're 5 by 5), but then he'll do or say something where
calling him "Academy Boy" just won't cut it, and then he's "that little
fucker" to me, too. Today he was OK.