We are now just east of the Grand Banks, and South West of the Flemish Cap. It is a beautiful day and the sea is pretty calm here, a little overcast but mostly sunny. My i-pod solar panel charger is tied to one of the railings outside on the Boat Deck and I have just come inside from walking round the ship 5 times and doing yoga on the heli deck. It's the first chance I've had to get some exercise, which does not involve cleaning anything or walking up stairs.
We've had an eventful past couple of days since the weather has been pretty rough. It's been very windy, with waves smashing right across the bow. The decks outside were flooded with streams of salt water and sea spray was blowing around everywhere. Even the pigeon (which we've called "Clay") was perched above the Poop Deck where he normally lives, because that was wet too.
I noticed the ship began to move in the early hours of Monday morning. I was finding it hard to stay in the same place in my bunk as everything in the cabin began to start moving around. Jackets on pegs started to swing, books on shelves began to slide backwards and forwards, batteries in cupboards were rolling around and the entire structure of the cabin, including my bunk, softly creaked and adjusted itself every time the ship tipped to one side and then back again. At first we were rolling in the swells but then as the winds changed direction we started to pitch up and down. By wake up time (7:30), it was difficult to walk around without being forced in all directions except the one I wanted to go in. I didn't feel seasick so I went down to eat something. It was quite entertaining to watch other crew members arrive in the mess and attempt to move around normally getting breakfast. It looked as if they were all doing some sort of bizarre choreographed dance routine. Surprisingly nobody bumped into each other or spilt anything.
Normal cleaning duties commenced at 8am. I cleaned the lounge which is my favorite place to clean since you can play music in there while you sweep, mop and wipe. All the drinks cans in the sink must be crushed so that's always fun because you get to use the can crusher. This works by placing a can in a hole and pulling a leaver down, which has a round metal bottom that falls on the top of the can and crushes it with very little effort on your part but it feels incredibly satisfying to do it. I'm told this contraption was actually on the old MV Greenpeace. It's nice to see all the time, that nothing is ever wasted if it can be re-used.
So anyway, ah yes, the bad weather. Well it was quite fun really and not seriously bad. Waldemar, the captain, came up to the bridge that morning and said to me "Welcome to reality!". Unfortunately a couple of people had to stay in bed because the motion of the boat was a little too much for them, but they were soon up about about after they got used it later in the day. I learnt to stand in a doorway and look at the water whenever I felt a little weird and that really helped. However, when I tried to write on my laptop I felt queasy so I decided to keep busy some other way. Eddie, the bosun sent me to clean an area very low in the ship, which is closer to the ship's fulcrum, where you feel the motion much less. So I was very happy to be down there scrubbing away for a few hours.
I was wiping around some big red metal boxes on the wall when all of sudden this yellow flashing light went off right above my head together with a very loud alarm. I thought "$#!T, What did I do? What did I do?". I came running out of the alley way and into the engine control room to tell the engineers about the alarm but when I found Robin, the electrician he seemed not to care at all, when in response to me yelling "but the alarm is going off!!" he said "yes I know" and remained sitting down. Later I learned that this alarm goes off all the time when anything happens in the engine room, which needs the slightest attention and the engineers always here this so Robin knew someone was dealing with it.
Later that day the sea got a little calmer but we were still riding the swells like a roller-coaster. The captain announced that there were dolphins on the bow so I followed Luke out there to see how easy it would be to get to the bow without getting wet. It was OK so we went to look over the side. There were two Atlantic White Sided Dolphins riding the bow wave and the swells around the ship. Satu came to join me and Luke returned to work. We watched the dolphins playing around for a while until the ship rose into the air and collided with a big wave when it came down again, forcing the water to spray up and over the bow, soaking Satu and me in a cold spray. I thought it was fun but Satu wasn't too impressed. Once again I ended the day in wet clothes.
The fog has just crept in around us and there is a ship on the radar, 10 miles away.
