We’re currently skirting Taiwan to avoid a Catagory 4 typhoon. I’ve been securing the deck for two days now. I’ve been stowing lashing gear. Securing large items. Putting leashes on anything with wheels.
Tonight we’re hitting the worst of it. We’re quartering the waves (not going directly into them, but keeping them off our beam) and there is a hurky-jerky to the rolly-poly motion that keeps swinging my office chair around while I’m trying to watch a horrible and pixilated b-grade movie.
In a couple of hours it’ll worsen, then start to slacken in the morning. By the time we anchor tomorrow evening, outside of Chiwan, the seas will be flat. That’s what the forecasting service is telling us, anyway.
The indirect path that information flows on a ship is remarkable. For two months there has been rampant speculation about the fate of this ship. While sitting at coffee this morning, one of my daymen said the mate had told him this was the last time we’re doing this run- the next voyage will see significant changes.
Then, two hours later, I come across the mate and he tells me the same- no more Pakistan. No more Shanghai. But we’re adding on two ports in India and another in Sri Lanka.
Avoiding the 5 hour transit up the Yangtze River is fine by me- we’re there so short a time that I have yet to touch that Chinese soil in almost a dozen visits, so my only real loss will be an anxious hope I’ve harbored that one day we’ll be delayed so I can go ashore. And I have nothing good to say about Pakistan at all- I’m sure there are wonderful things about the place I am too ignorant to appreciate, but I will not miss the security risk, pollution, and hostility.
I am looking forward to riding in an Indian rickshaw, then tipping the old man the equivalent to a month’s salary… adhering to the unspoken code my first Bosun likened to “paying it forward” for the next sailor, no matter the flag of their vessel. Not to mention it will be another country I will touch lightly on its fringes from the ubiquity of a container port, being exposed to it fully but retreating back to US sovereignty by the time I actually need an American toilet.
I am also excited to see another city in Sri Lanka- I have always really felt weirdly at home in Columbo, and it’ll be interesting to see if I will have the same feeling towards other parts of the country. This change only supports my initial thoughts about the effects of shipping on the once war-torn Ceylon, land of tea and gemstones- her proximity to every single trade route between Europe, Australia, and China will see her become the next Singapore. You heard it here first, years ago, and now it is becoming fact.
OK. I need to secure the crap in my quarters against these damnable waves.
Today was a good day. Now onward.
Tonight we’re hitting the worst of it. We’re quartering the waves (not going directly into them, but keeping them off our beam) and there is a hurky-jerky to the rolly-poly motion that keeps swinging my office chair around while I’m trying to watch a horrible and pixilated b-grade movie.
In a couple of hours it’ll worsen, then start to slacken in the morning. By the time we anchor tomorrow evening, outside of Chiwan, the seas will be flat. That’s what the forecasting service is telling us, anyway.
The indirect path that information flows on a ship is remarkable. For two months there has been rampant speculation about the fate of this ship. While sitting at coffee this morning, one of my daymen said the mate had told him this was the last time we’re doing this run- the next voyage will see significant changes.
Then, two hours later, I come across the mate and he tells me the same- no more Pakistan. No more Shanghai. But we’re adding on two ports in India and another in Sri Lanka.
Avoiding the 5 hour transit up the Yangtze River is fine by me- we’re there so short a time that I have yet to touch that Chinese soil in almost a dozen visits, so my only real loss will be an anxious hope I’ve harbored that one day we’ll be delayed so I can go ashore. And I have nothing good to say about Pakistan at all- I’m sure there are wonderful things about the place I am too ignorant to appreciate, but I will not miss the security risk, pollution, and hostility.
I am looking forward to riding in an Indian rickshaw, then tipping the old man the equivalent to a month’s salary… adhering to the unspoken code my first Bosun likened to “paying it forward” for the next sailor, no matter the flag of their vessel. Not to mention it will be another country I will touch lightly on its fringes from the ubiquity of a container port, being exposed to it fully but retreating back to US sovereignty by the time I actually need an American toilet.
I am also excited to see another city in Sri Lanka- I have always really felt weirdly at home in Columbo, and it’ll be interesting to see if I will have the same feeling towards other parts of the country. This change only supports my initial thoughts about the effects of shipping on the once war-torn Ceylon, land of tea and gemstones- her proximity to every single trade route between Europe, Australia, and China will see her become the next Singapore. You heard it here first, years ago, and now it is becoming fact.
OK. I need to secure the crap in my quarters against these damnable waves.
Today was a good day. Now onward.
I like the flat seas tomorrow part of this one.
ReplyDeleteStay safe,
Momster
I like the flat seas tomorrow part of this one.
ReplyDeleteStay safe,
Momster