Around the North Pacific I Go

I landed a relief gig on an APL ship doing the west coast run to the Far East.  She’s a little bit smaller than my last real ship (I’ll pretend that weeklong mistake I just mentioned didn’t happen) but she’s a big ship, regardless, and better designed in a myriad of ways, not least of which is separate licensed and unlicensed mess halls.

I will appreciate that when I’m licensed, too, I bet.

I’ll only be on here for one voyage - about 42 days - which I’m rather pleased about… I will go home when it’s all said and done, reregister in the Seattle hall, and be home to avoid trick-or-treaters by leaving the lights off and hiding in the back room.  Bah Humbug.

I got here last night at 2000, unpacked, then gave myself a self-guided tour of the house, including my lifeboat and damage control locker.  I was asleep by 2330.

At 0400 I was called out to let go.  I am the 12x4 watchstander so I am on the stern, and let go was an uncomplicated affair.  We stowed the gangway, then I went to the bow and for the next hour I stared into the darkness and the fog, shivering in the wind-driven damp.

I made sure to have change in my pocket (a 1969 silver half-dollar and a dollar coin) when we went under the Golden Gate Bridge based on a tradition that probably predates the bridge itself.  I only knew when we went under that iconic span because the lights on the top of the bridge structure were above the fog and cast a red glow all about.

That marine layer was remarkably thick, too.  I could hear the bow bulb pushing through the water, but I couldn’t see it, when I first started my watch.  It thinned towards the end, as the sky lightened, and I got a nice good view of a pod of sperm whales from my perch up on the foc'sle head before they disappeared in the mist behind as we passed them on our port side.  

A good ship just feels right- a departure like that doesn’t hurt.

I forgot my cetacean and seabird identification books, however - a gross oversight on a voyage that circles the entire North Pacific.  Dahl’s porpoises, spinner dolphins, and the most common whales I know- but I’ve seen some oddballs out here that even my guide doesn’t have.  With any luck there’s a book on the bridge. I know there won't be a seabird book- ask any sailor what a gannet or booby might be and they invariably answer "seagull."

And now we are underway, making way.  We are steaming parallel to the 3.5 meter swells that are slapping this girl’s flanks, and every third of fourth one hits in such a way that it sends reverberations fore and aft in about a 1 second cycle.  There’s also a slow, lumbering roll, like I’m being rocked to sleep, and it feels good to be at sea.

Which, speaking of sleep, I should be.  We retard clocks 1 hour tonight in a game of spin the clock that will span 12 time zones, cross the international date line, and take 14 days to play.  Coincidentally, that’s the same amount of time it takes to transit to Yokohama.

And you'd better believe- it’s best done well rested.

*note: very slow interwebs- photos forthcoming.