Life at Sea - Part 2

April 2nd

Oh what I wouldn't give for a juicy burger right now! Or some Fried Chicken with curry gravy! Or a piece of Easter Bun! Fried dumplings!!!!! Random choices I know, but see with me, I'm dreaming here.

April 3rd

Last night I went fishing; Or rather squidding, if that's a thing. I went up to the bridge to visit one of my officer friends on duty. He pointed out to me several lines cast off the starboard side of the ship. I had wondered before if anyone actually did any fishing; there was my answer. Some guys actually caught some!

I doubt they will go to waste. I strongly suspect they might turn up in a meal somewhere. I didn't stay long as I hadn't planned to be there and had some other things to do, but I think I'll go back some other night.

April 6th

The days tend to blur here. It hardly matters what day of the week it is. What is a weekend? lol. There's work to be done and so it's done. The only marked difference is that there is a little extra at Sunday dinner (the coca-cola, beer and extra dish I mentioned).

This Sunday dinner was a disaster for me, even with the extra dish, there was nothing, nothing that I wanted to eat. My chef friend was most distressed on my behalf.
I then had a brainwave and remembered that I had had the good sense to nab a bag of pasta in Mauritius. So I asked my friend to ask the chef to boil that for me, and I added some sauce I had bought. Thank goodness. I think we are starting to get on the same page though. The day before at lunch time, he didn't even wait to be asked, he just cooked something different for Tiphaine and I entirely. Even today when some very untasty looking chicken was on the menu, he presented us with some actual tasty looking chicken! It's the first time since I've been here that I went for seconds.

Usually during dinner we've been watching ( from somebody's hard drive) a dating show ... I quite like it actually. I've seen a show like it before when I was in the UK.... but the tweaks for the Chinese version( If you are the one) are actually more interesting. Each episode 5 single guys present themselves (one at a time) before a panel of 24 single women. At the beginning the women have the lights on their podiums on but as the show progresses, they can turn them off once they've decided that they are not interested in the guy.

Setup on  If you are the one

The Chinese girls are much more picky than the UK ones. They play 3 pre- recorded video clips where the guy talks about his life, interests, past dating history and current dating interests. There is also one video where his friends/ colleagues speak about him. Even though I can't speak Mandarin, I can get the general gist of what's going on and ever so often someone will translate the important points for me. I wonder if I can find episodes with English subtitles when I get back?

Filling my downtime is becoming a challenge sometimes. There really isn't that much to do. It's not like I can go off somewhere and have a drink or explore right? I've had to abandon one of my activities, going on deck and listening to music in the evening, because it is far too cold now to be comfortable. We're definitely not in the tropics any more. When I'm on duty and there is no work going on, I read a lot (thank goodness for the Kindle apps for PC/Android! ). Most evenings I try to go to the gym and do some basic exercises; both in order to keep up some level of fitness, as well as to simply kill time. Some evenings even that is impossible if  the weather is bad and the ship is rolling. Once in a blue moon there is karaoke; we've done that twice so far. It's also hard to find somewhere comfortable to chill. I like to curl up in a nook somewhere when reading, but that's hard to come by. Sometimes my bunk feels a little close, and there isn't enough room to sit up properly. And there are times you just don't want to be in bed; but where to go and be comfy?

On another note, I've finally gotten the chance to finish Les Miserables. Finally !!! I don't think I've struggled so much to get through a book ever. Now I can finally watch the movie! (I usually like to have read the original before watching an adaptation). Seriously, at least 1/5th of the book could have been edited out without hurting the story line one bit; maybe even as much as a 1/4. I almost feel like I don't want to bother to read The Hunchback of Notre Dame by the same author. Then I remember my experiences with War and Peace vs Anna Karenina. Both by Tolstoy, War and Peace can be a bit of a slog at times (the war parts in particular), while Anna Karenina is one of my all time favourites that I have re-read several times. So maybe I will give Victor Hugo another chance after all.

April 9th

This afternoon the wind/waves are pretty bad. We're rolling around so much I can hardly keep my balance. All scientific work has had to be postponed today. Thank goodness my duty is over so I can take to bed. Even though looking outside through my porthole is a little scary as the ship heaves. Waves are occasionally washing my window...and I'm on the 2nd storey up from the water level.  I suppose now is not the best time to start reading a book entitled " 20 000 leagues under the sea" right?

At first when I realized that the women were not really involved with deployments, my feminist instincts were ruffled a bit. However, given some of the poor weather conditions that we've had to work in, I do not envy the guys out there at all, especially during the night time deployments. We have a monitor in the observation room so we can see what was going on on the deck at any given time, and sometimes it really looks vicious out there. If I'm rolling around just lying in bed some nights, I can just imagine what it is like on deck.

I've taken to (like everyone else) doing something that I'd never do... wearing slippers and socks on a regular basis. However it is quite necessary. Especially since down in the dungeon (where I am on duty most of the time) can get quite cold. And of course it's not really a dungeon. Some of the equipment I monitor is in the bowels of the ship and far from everybody. At first, I didn't like it, being so isolated. I've gotten used to it now though and I quite like it. Only my group leader is in there with me from time to time making adjustments to some of the equipment or processing data. As a matter of fact, this one other guy seemed like he was going to take set on me in there and use it for his workspace as well;  in my little corner and everything!!!! I was not amused. To make it worse, he's one of the only ones here who doesn't communicate with me at all -_-. I couldn't run him because I wasn't sure if he was using that machine for actual work.  Seems not though, as he's moved on, it looks like. Balance is restored!.