[We were about to publish Mir's weblog on the day that we tracked down the bottom trawler Anuva - so it got delayed until now!]
Life on board the Esperanza is actually very simple, most of the time. Today, Maite was in my cabin listening to some CDs belonging to François - his entire Mano Negra collection. We are talking about the beaches in Majorca, about how as tourists, humans always end up wrecking beautiful places, and about not letting love pass when you find it. On the ship, you know, after work and after dinner there is not much to do - at the end of the day we are all still here, so we get together and have conversations, or read books - there is an awful lot of book reading going on, which turns into newspaper reading if we stop for a couple of days in some port and manage to get the Guardian or whatever (especially now, as the ship's network to Linux is undergoing some upgrades, and we are not getting the awful (but OK) daily news digest we usually get, so newspapers are really hot). And then there's the Mexican poker group playing almost every night using nails instead of real money. The point I'm trying to make is that the ships's population is small, life is simple, and in times like this, roaming about in huge ocean spaces looking for trawlers, not much happens.
Then (Action) Dave comes into the cabin: Maite, I've been looking for you all over, I saw two people in here through the open door and finally I find you. Can you be in the boat tomorrow?
It turns out that yesterday we found these really dodgy trawlers and have been waiting for the right weather to go and check them out. Dave says, there might be a very early wake-up call, get your stuff ready, and arrange some food also. You might end up being out there all day.
Then Maite's sleepy face is gone, the sleepy face she perfected the last couple of days listening to flamenco in the mess while working with the sewing machine (when the sea is very rough the deckhands would rather do inside work, such as repairing boat suits and overalls in the mess room or installing new cupboards), she is now slightly tense and serious-looking. She suddenly looks at the clock, it's twenty-one thirty-five, and I can see Mano Negra and lost love are not that important anymore.
- Mir
Comments
Mir - thanks for writing this excellent post! It was really cute if you don't mind me saying. I was just with you chilling on the ship and I laughed out loud about the nails.
L.
Posted by: The Lorax at November 19, 2004 03:06 AM
