Advertisement
Talking about dolphins, and other marine life, yesterdays post closed out early because I took an available opportunity to get email sent from the Chief Officer’s cabin this time. I think it helped that a shot a cool still sequence of the Second Officer’s wife, Sonya, so I got to use the system early. The Fuji 6.02 still cam is impressive and I’ve been getting cool shots. Besides this, we were
8 miles off Dakar earlier and I was told that you can get cellphone reception for 20 minutes so I got the chance to phone home from '
Monkey Island', the
highest point you can safely get to on the ship. This was a
supremely surrealistic moment. Crouched behind a metal stantion to minimise wind noise, I spoke to whoever I could get hold of until we were once again outside cellphone range. This trip is the very essence of ‘getting away’, isn’t it? After this I uploaded Sonya and Andre’s stills to their laptop then emailed my last piece to the mainland. I hung out in my cabin, looking out the window for hours. Later, after the usual 6.30 PM supper, I went up to the bow. It is very quiet there with
no container refrigeration noises and very little throb from the ship's huge engines. I spot a school of porpoises pacing the ship and shoot off a few shaky seconds on the vidcam. I always take both cams and the tripod when going up front. I hump them in an excellent Lowenpro photographic backpack I got back in Cape Town. It’s just the trick for the job as you can carry spare clips, batteries, and even a soft drink, with the tripod lashed to its side. There are always excellent photo opportunities up at the bow so one needs to be prepared.
Check sunset through my UV glasses. After the sun has set, at about 8.45 PM, I head back to my cabin and watch half of ‘The Shipping News’, which the First Officer tells me he enjoyed. Although it is excellent, I’m too tired to finish the movie, promising myself I’ll finish it in the morning.
Tuesday 16th June 2004 Day 10: I guess I’m starting to think about dry land again, today being my last full day at sea. I’ll do my take on passengers and crew after disembarking so as to make my conclusions on a complete data bank, but right now I’m convinced that Mavis Kennedy is the weirdest person on board, and not me. I saw something big and grey jump out of the water this morning before lunch but couldn’t identify the species. There are
ships all around us, sometimes big ones. They come by a few miles off, but one still feels that they are sometimes too close. Radar can only take you so far. It can’t think, at least the
ageing radar on this ship can’t. It was state of the art once. Today should be a big day because I’m disembarking tomorrow sometime so this means that I have to pack all my belongings coherently today. However, at the time of writing, 2.29 PM, I do not feel inclined to do anything so am delaying this for tonight, after which I aim to finish watching ‘The Shipping News’. The last few days I’ve only been listening to Weather Report, Airto Moreira, Chick Corea and Flora Purim. Stuff like ‘Light as a Feather’, ‘Return to Forever’ and ‘Birdland’, has ruled over the Drums’n Bass, House and Rap Pop I brought along. The little Sony speakers (SRS-T55) I got patched into the laptop’s headphone output sound much better than the trashy speakers that come with the Sony Vaio TR3-AP3 laptop I’m using, even though they chew batteries like crazy. The Fuji is also battery crazed, so I’m constantly recharging NIMH batteries, which take like forever to recharge.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 13; qc: 54; dbt: 0.0421s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb