Waiting and Watching

Monday, January 12, 2009
We are still on DP, holding position a few miles from Barbados. The Alpine has gone to the island to refuel and replenish. The plan is that we will not take on fuel ourselves until we get to the equator, where it is supposedly going to be calmer waters. We’ll take on fuel from each of the tow vessels. The BCO has ballasted the 7500 down in the water to 36 feet of draft, and the ride is much smoother here, since there is much less surface interference. However, Barbados will not allow us to exchange fuel within 12 miles of their island. Can’t say I blame them—some outfit will surely have a spill someday. I am ready to get under way again, but there is one advantage to being close to land: telephones. For now, the island is close, and we can use cell phones for something like $4 a minute. I called Mom and asked her to relay to Cali to pay rent, AMEX, gasoline, and so forth—a thing she’s never done and which she may muff.

Pitch and roll are two axes about which the ship is disturbed along its long axis and its lateral axis, and the ocean gives us lots of it. I have some bathroom scales in my state room, so this morning after my run, I weighed. The scales moved from 197 to 209, right along with the ship’s motion. I presume that I weigh the mid-point of that range, about 203. The new year’s resolution I set last year was to lose 20 pounds, and I weighed 200 at the time. I managed to gain 22 pounds and then lose 19 pounds of that, but my resolution was shot. This year, my resolution is more modest: I am not goings toi mak ani corrctions to eny typos/bicayse thot wyls sav smcuch timef. And maybe lose that 20 pounds from last year. My exercise regimen is good, and breath and heart are responding nicely. In fact, I am running up to half mile at 8.5-minute/mile, and it has been a long time since I have done that. My goal is to “race” a 5k in 28 minutes this year. Never again shall I see a six-minute mile on this old body: old, but good, reliable, still among the living.

Outside this evening, it is brewing up a Caribbean squall north of the island. It is pretty and non-threatening. The sun is setting beneath the surface and night coming on fast. We are only 13 degrees north, virtually atop the Tropic of Cancer. Night comes on quickly. The second tow vessel, Alpine, should be alongside in an hour or two. We’ll attach it and then leave. Barbados is the last land we’ll see for nearly 6000 nautical miles. We still have no phones or internet, no marisat, and we are launching. It makes me really quite angry. In a thousand miles, there can be absolutely no help, and probably no way to let anyone know that we are in trouble.

Practical jokes are not unknown out here. One lad was bald. Someone chalked the liner of his hard hat with blue chalk. We had some VIPs out when the victim came into the room and removed his hat. This, of course, left the blue outline of his webbing on his shiny pate. Everybody had a laugh, but our victim was not one to take it lying down. He found a photo of a .45 pistol in a magazine and cut it out. He traced the outline onto a piece of aluminum foil and cut it out. Then he placed the cutout between the shell and the bottom of the other man’s carry-on bag. The man flew back and forth to work, and when he had his baggage x-rayed, they naturally saw a pistol. They took him into custody and searched high and low for the gun, of which the new victim was totally unaware. The gun had been cleverly taped to the bottom of the bag’s floor, so when they pulled the bottom up, they could see only fabric of the bag. They finally found the silhouette taped and then presumed that the passenger was a practical joker and hauled him off. He finally convinced the gendarmes of his innocence. When he returned to the rig, he managed to slip a pork chop into the back pocket of the first victim, who then put his going-home clothes in the downstairs locker. Three weeks later, he opened the locker…

Our voyage is about to begin again. Both tows are fueled, and we are attaching the Alpine to the tow line. In a short while, before I come back at noon, we shall have navigated around the south side of the island and taken up a southeasterly course into the open Atlantic Ocean. There will be no more land for thirty days, or so. Brazil juts out into the Atlantic to about 35° west. We are currently at 59° 46.5’ west, so almost 24 degrees east of here, we can take up our great circle route and finish the trip. That is over 1800 nautical miles from here. That gives some idea how big Brazil is. When we are safely past Brazil, we’ll only have 3880 more miles to go.

I went outside just now (2315 hours) to look once more upon Bridgetown, the city on the island. Across eight miles of black water, she is filled with diamonds, rubies, amethysts, topaz…stars. It is our own little milky way over there, and the last of its kind for these eyes for a long time. I wish I could have gone ashore. Maybe someday.