So I abandon all that - the day of a deckie involves lots of abandoned tasks - and go to see if "my" railings want another coat of paint, which they do. When I first got aboard, I referred in the crew video to "this crummy railings painting job". Now I patrol the ship night and day, looking for miscreants putting dirty hands on my beautiful precious railings. At teabreak there is a jostling scrum, composed mainly of engineers, jockeying for position around the 'snacks' fridge. What could be the reason for this excitement?

Well, after a little while at sea, your world shrinks to roughly the size of the ship, so things like tiny fluctuations in food availability assume massive importance. For instance this morning the headline news in the mess was that we were on our last bottle of the yummy lemon yoghurt, but this blow was eclipsed by mid-morning with the unveiling of The New Cheese - a subtle creamy delicacy from the Azores; this was the reason for the desperate throng around the fridge.

After lunch I pose in the sunshine in nothing but cut-off denim shorts, and a life-jacket, as I am painting an open gate two decks above the sea. But I am safe, because I am near Yellow Thing, on the heli-deck where she sits in state, perched atop her throne of trestles. For the uninitiated, Yellow Thing is Adam's oceanic plastics sampling catamaran, and there is a cult surrounding her that worships and reveres her. New converts join almost daily, once they realise that Yellow Thing knows everything, and would tell us all if only we were evolved enough to hear her. For instance, when we were still south of St Helena, was it not Yellow Thing that risked personal injury to alert us to the evil cable that was tangled round the port propellor by deliberately snarling her own sacred bridle around that same prop? I think you will find that it was. I rest my case.

By afternoon teabreak all of The New Cheese has been wolfed and so with a safely empty stomach I seek nocturnal Nadia, our second mate, who is blinking in the sunshine on the bridge deck. I need an empty stomach because her cabin mate has been seasick, and there is a bag of vomit that needs dealing with. Since I used to be a doctor before I graduated to deckie, I feel it is my duty to dispose of it. Nadia however has more decency than I realised and is bravely offering to undertake the task. Our exchange goes thus:

Me: Okay where's the vomit?
Nadia: Whoah! Are you sure you want to do it? After all she is my cabin mate.
Me: Look, I've got more experience in body fluids disposal
Nadia: I really don't see why...
Ilai [chipping in]: Well it's her puke, just get her to do it
Me: Just gimme the vomit okay?

The things I hear myself saying on this ship... but it is by now time to go and inhale some more paint thinners so I demur, and go and lovingly finish off the railings, which are looking rather smart, though inexplicably no-one has commented yet on their brilliance. Could it be that all but me are blind to the shimmering beauty of freshly painted railings? So after work I pray to Yellow Thing for guidance, and she whispers to me to go and wrestle the sickbag from Nadia, which I do without encountering too much resistance. I proceed to execute a professional disposal job, with wind assistance, off the stern of the poop deck into the sea beneath the setting sun, where the nutritious vomitus will make a fine meal for a few fish, and go off to eat something myself.

- Moff