Water! Water Everywhere! But Not A Drop To Drink...

Two weeks of cargo were uneventful. No parted lines, no more frozen plumbing. The 27-foot tide came in, the 27-foot tide went out. The ramp went down, the ramp came back up. In rolled the cargo. On went the lashings. Tallies were taken. Drafts were recorded. 

My ambivalence toward going ashore was, in part, due to scheduling: I worked overtime from noon to 1600, then stood a gangway watch from 1600 to 2000, and then tended lines and supervised cargo from 2000 until midnight. 

It didn't leave much opportunity for going ashore. 

I did get one day off. The chief mate had watchstanders take a day off one day and day workers the next, so on my day off, I went with the captain, the chief engineer, the second mate, and the third mate to the local military base.

The entire process to get there required 5 taxis, two forms of ID, photos, fingerprints, and time.

Why? Why did I go to a military base PX and commissary? 

For coconut oil. And baking soda.

The coconut oil is to soothe the irritation caused by my wool base layers when the temperature was below zero (before the anchorage), which, as of this writing, is still irritated.

And the baking soda is for the plants on the bridge, which have a mild fungal infection that my plant app diagnosed as brown spot, to be treated with a mild solution of baking soda once a week.

I also splurged and bought a rechargeable flashlight for use on the deck - my tiny bridge light is simply too weak for use in spotting the anchor at night or seeing in a dark hold.

The apprentice came aboard after a day ashore with a gift for me: a noisy, foot-long, rubber chicken.

I promptly stuck it in my jacket and began playing it everywhere I went, quoting "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" to any and all.  To disabuse you of thinking I'm more cultured than I am, I was quoting the song by Iron Maiden, not the poem by Samuel Coleridge.

When cargo was finally finished and we had the green light to depart, we departed, exhausted and with relieved urgency. 

It felt overdue to be off.

I took the tug line on the stern, brought in our mooring lines, and stowed the big soft-line we'd added to our standard mooring lines as insurance in case the tides had bested us, then I relieved the helmsman and drove us the rest of the way out of Peyongtek.

I arrived on watch that first night to find us adrift. The engineers were rebuilding 3 fuel injectors. We were dead in the water.

The problem? They didn't actually know, but there was an unacceptable temperature differential between cylinders. 

In the most basic sense: The mass of engine metal will warp and crack if the temperature within it varies too greatly from one spot to the next.

Mid-watch, we were back underway. The temperatures still didn't look good, but seemingly good enough.

Mid-watch that first night out, the fire alarm went off, too. Thankfully, it was a false alarm set off by an engineer opening a steam valve that shouldn't be opened... But all the sleeping watchstanders were rudely awakened and mustered at fire stations before being dismissed.

Our watch was relieved by groggy and unhappy people, people whose only solace was knowing someone's head was rolling down in the engine room.

The next morning, we started washing off the grime of Chinese pollution that blankets all of SE Asia and coated the ship from stem to stern. I spent 8 hours of my day with a hose, a squeegee, a brush, or a broom in my hand trying to remove the filth.

I played my rubber chicken as I walked fore and aft, once into my handheld radio, but mostly in the echoing vastness of the cargo spaces or ladder wells.

I arrived on watch tonight to find the ship adrift, again. 

The engineers are rebuilding the exhaust valves... 10 hours of downtime.

The calculus is to do it now, while we're off the coast of Japan where this ship was birthed, in case we need hard-to-get engine parts; it won't do us any good to suffer catastrophic engine failure 2000 miles from anywhere.

There was much speculation about our next cargo run - the winner was looking like a route through the Panama Canal, one of the last items on a personal list of checked-off sea-going experiences and accomplishments still left unchecked (it's right alongside Antarctica).

When asked, I opted to stay aboard one more port... Just in case.

Sadly, that no longer looks likely, so today I had the captain make arrangements to find my relief at the next port when we arrive stateside. It prompted an immediate case of Channel Fever - the restlessness that afflicts "short-timers" who know their time aboard is coming to an end.

The engine issues are but one thing that could delay us (hell... ARE delaying us)... Weather is another very real concern. The route planners have us taking a southern route again, south of Hawaii, thankfully. 

I'm curious if we'll be treated to the strange lights in the sky on our eastward transit, or not. On the way over, they were always in the vicinity of Saturn... But with Saturn on our stern, if we're to see them, will they be astern of us?

And will I have to wear my rubber chicken around my neck like an albatross to stave off curses and bad luck? For penance to some esoteric violation of sea lore committed unknowingly, the details of a crime against Neptunus Rex and the kingdom of The Raging Main, lost to time?

"How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the [...] Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country."*

I guess we're going to find out. 

*The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere by Samuel Taylor Coleridge