The Old Man and the Beer Can

The Old Man recommended three books to me today: "Hawley's Storm," "Adrift,"
by Steven Callahan, and "Ship of Gold," after telling me about a storm he
was in running from Alaska to Hawaii in a large tanker- waves were breaking
over her stern and over the entire wheelhouse. Waves ripped lifeboats,
rails, cranes, valve wheels, and anything not part of the hull itself right
off the ship, and stove in the big thick lights (windows) on the after part
of the wheelhouse.

Captain said his most memorable moment of that trip was when investigating
one of the numerous and ongoing disasters taking place all over the ship, he
radioed the bridge and said "Bridge, the emergency generator room is
flooded, and I think it's on fire. I'll get back to you." The tanker's
house wasn't as tall as ours (which is 158 feet), but it was more than 100
feet. Now think about those waves. He said he had never seen anything like
it and he hasn't seen anything like it since. After the worst of it the
seas subsided to 60 - 70 feet.

I need to remember to do a google search for the fishing vessels operating
off the coast of Oman and Iran- they have a curvaceous sheer, with a high
bow sweeping back dramatically to a moderate freeboard then back up in a
hurry to a generous transom. Their stem's have a gentle rake- they were too
far away to see things like tumblehome, though.

The Indian Ocean south of Pakistan today was the color of the sky, and there
was no discernible horizon, just a smudged haze where the two blended. It
reminded me of C.S. Lewis' description of the end of the world in "Voyage of
the Dawn Treader," right before Reepicheep vaingloriously went to his own
demise (disguised as "the next adventure" so as not to piss off the kiddies-
I still can't believe he killed Reep!). That sea, however, was ankle deep
and covered in pale flowers floating on the top of the water- this was the
full-on ocean, flat as glass and the palest of sky blue (from the palest of
blue skies). Until you looked into the water itself, which was a dark teal
until churned, which I can only describe as the color of wedgewood china
(the blue, not the green), complete with the brilliant white glazing (in
this case, sea foam).

There were birds I wish I could identify (um... more call for the google-
one of the things we take for granted when we're ashore but miss like hell
when it's not available). They're white with a black following edge on
their wings, their bodies are short and stocky, with boomerang shaped wings
that remind me of loons for some reason. These were fast flyers, diving for
food from about 10 meters, tucking and diving much in the same manner as the
pelicans in the SE US, only much quicker about the entire affair.

I saw 1 floating beer can.

And I'm doing laundry- which as I've mentioned in previous posts, is a bit
of a chore.