Day 11 (9th of October)

The waves had died down, but a bit of my seasickness still lingered on along with an earache. We were back into our routine of breakfast (very filling potato omelette) followed by ping pong and then searching for life in the sea. It was pleasantly warm outside and rather sunny. Almost as soon as we got to the front Jenny discovered a bunch of dolphins riding on the bow wave. A bit before lunch we headed back inside for some picture sorting, not having seen anything else. Mahlzeit was rice, bean sprouts, cabbage, tofu, carrots and kohlrabi, with kiwi slices to round it off.

Back upstairs we could see the sea being engulfed by heavy mist, so that we could only just see the front of the boat. After sorting some more pictures the mist began to lift and we pondered about going outside. We then spotted loads of dolphins making for the front of the boat, so we rushed out the side and then down to the front to see them. A few were still coming in when we got there, but it looked like we’d missed most of them. In the evening Martin told us that he’d phoned our room to tell us when he’d seen about 200 dolphins heading toward the boat.

On deck the grand pre USA clean-up of dirt, Chinese cigarette packets and takeaways continued. Water flowed down the passageways and one member of the crew was busy repainting the black lettering of ‘Hanjin Yantian’ on the life rings. Wouldn’t have been the best time to fall overboard when they were all piled up outside the workshop. The bow area, which was sparkling clean the day before yesterday, was already starting to gather black dirt again. As mother’s magnet on the fridge might be rephrased to say: cleaning up while the ship’s still running ‘is like shovelling snow while it’s still snowing’. We just can’t understand this mass cleaning operation. The chief engineer says that it’s a complete joke when it rains and all the dirt is washed off the top of the containers making everything really dirty again.

It was pleasant sitting in our spots in the sunshine and when Jenny went off to the loo I spotted two whales. We saw another one later, yet more dolphins whizzing in to ride the bow wave and a rather huge sunfish. Unfortunately the mist was approaching and our visibility decreasing, so we went in to sort more pictures and to eat again.

The first time any of my predictions has been correct was the one time I didn’t want it to be. We had spaghetti, the same spaghetti that seemed to be magnetically repelled by my fork. Along with it was a tomato sauce, potatoes, cauliflower and peas. In the evening Jenny was at a loss as to what to do with herself while I occupied the computer with this 30,000 word novel!