Random and Unidentifiable Detritus

My first day watch out of Long Beach was through gray waters where several blue whale plumes were visible on all quarters at any given time, some as far as 6 miles away.  There had to be dozens about not blowing, cruising the unseen highways beneath the placid surface, their respiratory cycles marked in minutes and hours, not in mere seconds.  The one whale that came down the side of the ship, however, had a considerably lower and wider plume (not the 50 foot geysers of the blue whales everywhere) and the skin coloration and dorsal of a fin whale.  

I am reading “The Devil’s Teeth,” a book about great white sharks that Laura recommended and it mentions the variety and numbers of whales in these cold Californian waters, grays and the great blues, in particular.  I didn’t see any humpbacks, but they’re apparently in these waters, too.  I can still see them in my mind, breaching off the coast of Sri Lanka two years ago, their great pectoral fins raised high as they came splashing down sideways in tens of tons of displaced and scattered seawater.  I was hoping to see some of them amidst this current profusion… but no such luck.  

I just learned that tuna, mako sharks, and great white sharks are warm-blooded… how did I not know that!?

On my first ship, it took 180 days to reach a point where I no longer felt constrained by societal niceties and I became free to say exactly what I was thinking while mired in coworker interactions.  All filters were stripped away, and my inner self- the one not marred by manners and politeness- was free to be confrontational with anyone and everyone whose personal narrative mistook my congeniality for timidity or weakness.  On my second ship, it took about 120 days to hit that mark.  I have reached that point in only 70 days here on my third ship.  Doing the math, that means this erosion will occur in only 30 days on my next ship, and after that I will start all my future voyages with no constraints.  

Fair weather sailing

2 Days Out of Hono

The amount of garbage floating in the indigo calm today was remarkable.  Much of it was fishing gear, but other stuff was incongruously mixed in- water bottles, food containers, tires- and I suspected it was, taken in its entirety, a raft of debris from Japan’s Fukushima-related tsunamis.  According to the general ocean current map in Bowdich, the currents are exactly right for a large debris field to have migrated to a gyre north of Hawaii and to be circulating still to this day.

As if to serve as a reminder that nature wastes no opportunity at life, dorado hung like shadows under every free-floating buoy, cooler, balled-up fishing net, and other random and unidentifiable detritus that came down our sides.  The submariners occasionally erupted from under the surface after the flying fish scattered by our bow wake.  Dorado are called Mahi Mahi in Hawaiian, which means "very strong." It reminds me of the George Carlin rant about humanity’s hubris, and how- once we get over our self-importance- we might simply be nothing more than nature’s way of injecting plastic into the world before we snuff ourselves out while the world keeps chugging along, oblivious to our absence.  

1 Day Out of Hono

Brown Boobies!  Red Footed Boobies!  Masked Boobies!  In Hawaiian they are all known as ‘A.  The Wedge-Tailed Shearwaters are known as Ua’u Kani, and I have probably called many of them “Brown Boobies” through misidentification (their coloration is similar- their faces are not).

Those albatross I keep seeing are Laysan Albatross, or Moli, and I mistakenly thought of them as being larger than the Great Frigate Bird, or ‘Iwa, but they have a wingspan of only 78 inches, compared to the Frigate Bird’s whopping 90 inches (that’s 7.5 feet, yo).

You guessed it- I found a bird book aboard.  Not as good as mine, but I’m happy to have it, nonetheless.  The Royal Terns I grew up with are absent here, but there is a Sooty Tern (‘Ewa’Ewa) that has the telltale deep-V tail like its cousin.  The Frigate bird has a very similar tail, but a noticeable size difference and jet-fighter wings prevent any confusion.

Anyway, flying fish and shearwaters (both the wedge-tailed and the christmas) here 500 miles from land as I make plans to go ashore and pretend I am human for a brief spell.  I’m going snorkelling at a haole-beach close to Diamondhead, then meeting a couple shipmates for sushi lunch, then going snorkelling again.  If I can, I’ll replenish my kombucha supply (I lost a glass gallon jug of it to type-A driving in my rental in Long Beach).  

And I will officially be 2/3rds of the way through my time aboard this, as her name translates, “Bird of the Oceans.”  

Southern North Pacific - Hawaiian

Southern North Pacific - Guamanian

South China Sea

Sea of Japan

North Pacific- Japan's Kuroshio "black current"

North Pacific - South of the Aleutians 

Day of Arrival

The Hawaiian Islands breached like sea turtles as we did port prep, but we’re still nowhere near cellphone range.  Port prep involves faking out the mooring lines on the decks fore and aft, taking their tag lines (on this ship they don’t use messenger lines, just really long tag lines) and leading them to the rail near the heaving line, and getting all the rat-guards in place.  When it’s time, we throw the heaving line to the line handlers on the dock below, who use it to bring the tag lines to them so they can pull the actual dock lines to the bollards.  

We also have a single “soft-line” on the bow and stern- a heavy, thick line that doesn’t go under tension that’s used as a backup should the winches fail.  It gets pulled up on the drum through a scuttle from below decks and then flaked out.  When we take it off, it gets three round turns around the bits, three figure-eights, and the rest is “stove-piped” on one of the bits.

We also rig the gangway.  It partially disassembles and folds up on the main deck while underway, so rigging it consists of pretty much the opposite: paying out the winch cables, putting on a harness and walking out onto the horizontal stairs and assembling the handrails, and then throwing a strap on the stringer so if the winch fails it doesn’t drop into the water.

The anchors get readied to drop should we lose propulsion.  Interestingly (to people who like words, anyway), “anchors aweigh” means the opposite of what most people assume it does, mistaking it for “anchors away:” It means it is no longer on the seafloor and the ship is “underway.”  Underway, not making way, actually… once the anchor is clear of the water the conning officer can put the ship under propulsion and we are then underway, making way.  We either drop anchor by letting the chain run, or we “walk them out” by paying out the windlass… there is a video of an anchor chain running in a 2012 post here on this blog.

Ha!  I have cell signal!  Emergency calls, only, but we’re that much closer!  That, and it’s time for me to drive this big ol' girl...  Meaning we’re done here.

Oahu broad to starboard

"Taking on" the tug

My first Bos'n's ship... we ALMOST got to hang out but they were sailing soon