What’s it like? You are a thousand miles from anywhere, and even if you get bored it feels like none of the worlds problems could touch you if you can just let them go, and moonless at night in the middle of the Pacific, Venus can reflect and dance off the water it is so brilliant. you are surrounded by space but you can’t step into it, that would be a mistake, and high walls, like a medieval keep, and it feels safe, isolated and safe. You live in a 9 story condo, with a bunch of people who don’t require you to lock doors.. they feel as removed as you do, and you don’t have to explain too much. The Condo floats on a box the size of a small park, a huge intricate jungle gym to explore, it never stops moving to remind you are alive, making noises as the containers creak back and forth, and the pulse of the prop never lets you feel too alone despite the distances, like a mothers beating heart. The View is always water, but it never stops changing, the wind blows fresh from at least one direction, and there is always a new port to look forward to. Could it offer Shangri La?..if not, you have the boat to return to. There is no surfing the web, or texting your friends, or stressing social plans. There is email, but no attachments… it can bring bad news as well as good. You consume media, but it’s pre selected,no surprised unless you create one for yourself. You read books, you think, you remember, and you explore. You Floss your teeth better than you ever have given yourself time to. You feel good enough that you wonder if it would be more, or less fun with a woman you love but still want to explore.
There is enough time to focus on people, and the people have often taken that time to become interesting: The Crew of this particular boat was made up of two groups, Romanian Officers and Filipino Crew, except for one Second Officer who is Filipino, a crack navigator named Leo with a 4 year degree in Commercial Shipping, and a few cadets who are mostly Romanian. Even though some of the Filipinos outrank the Romanians, especially in the case of Leo, they separate socially, and the Romanians get the Men’s Club type officers lounge and the ostensibly nicer food. The Romanian officers feel like a slightly suspicious but mischievous fraternity, and the Filipinos like a beach Karaoke party where you still make it to confession the next day. I eye the one group like Dean Wormer from Animal House, with amused suspicion, the other like Dean Wormer might feel being force to hang out with the Campus Christians…. short bursts are exceedingly pleasant.. anything longer… Romanians are what you get when a Russian and an Italian have kids.. drama and narcissism mixed with a sense of humor and some mature perspective. Everything is a big deal, but nothing will kill you… There is a kind of acceptance that they will never be the top dogs in the world, but then again, who wants to be.. they are wary of authority but happy to do their job.
Filipinos have that affability, that best described as puppy like innocence, playfulness, and amiability.. they act forlorn sometimes, but it tends to be pretty adolescent stuff. Conversations revolve around exchanges of well publicized facts and some pretty genial Jr. High joshing.. but they respond well if you get a little bluer with the humor, like kids who respect their rebellious 7th grade math teacher too much to make the joke themselves, but will laugh if he does, and kind of like being judged worthy of it. Wow, the teacher made a sex joke. He must really like us! A few come across a bit savvier, a bit wiser, like the guys in the kitchen, whom I didn’t begin to hang out with and appreciate until the end of my trip, but it does take an east coast attitude to question niceness, so maybe I shouldn’t complain, as they were all nice as hell.
The wild card on this trip is 6 former longshoremen from North Germany who are installing a 6600 volt version of shore power.. think of your buddies plug at his nice yacht marina times, well times 45. They have been working about 8 hours a day consistently since we got here, cutting holes in bulkheads and welding, running this 2 inch thick insulated and shielded conduit in bunches of 6 that will allow the boat to plug-in on shore. It starts with these two refrigerator looking things ( dubbed them that, hoping the name sticks, feels like you can reach in and grab a beer if you don’t get electrocuted first) that they will plug the shore power in from on the rear deck, one each side, through a huge junction box the size of, well, a small walk in, and then up into the ships electrical room through the secret gangway as I call it, these secret hallways that run the length of the ship below deck. If pirates ever attack us, these things are like Chu Chi was for the Americal Division, along with a bunch of other passageways that led to places like the bow thruster and bosons supply. They are a jovial group, all from Hamburg now, but a few from East Germany before the Fall of the Wall. They all have enough English to fool me, but a few of them can have thoughtful conversation as well. We are the ship outsiders, and they are kind of my purge valve for western European thinking. I admitted I have an ex girlfriend whose parents hail from Hamburg, and have a few wacky stories about my three trips to Germany and my family history there (along with 50% of all of America) to kind of get to be in the club. Four of them are huge, they look like a death metal band, or essentially like what you would want a band from Hamburg to look like, while the Electrician, the top guy in some ways, nearly 60, is a bearded pleasant old guy, what you would want an old German sailor to look like, the kind of guy who would thoughtfully shrug and sigh before he ordered torpedoes to hit your ship during World War II.. das is war, yeah.. sad.. and then there is Tiny Tim.. he’s not actually that small, he just looks small and young compared to the rest of them, even though he is in is at least in his late 20’s, with sea experience, and a pretty sardonic wit I can sometimes tell even though he looks like a 12 year old compared to the rest of them and speaks the least English. HE looks tired and like he has a stone in his shoe every day, but is a prety tough cookie with a lot of sea experience already. They are like the giants in Where the Wild Things Are.. kind of philosopher welders.. the two who speak English especially are thoughtful gentlemen even though they almost make me look tame physically, and if you have ever seen me, you know that is saying something. One of the English speakers looks like Vin Diesel, only bigger, and could easily play a viking in a movie, or a shaven head Star Trek warrior bad guy or German machine gunner that the hero has to kill in some french back alley against all odds. Another actually reminds me of a Welshman for some reason, but from the days of kilts and broadswords.. if they ever did a Welsh Brave Heart (BraveSheep?) he would make a great supporting character if not lead, and his English/Welsh accent is already there. These guys give me an out sometimes, not that you completely need one, but when the Romanian Bitching seems to be more genuine than ironic, and when Karaoke and cheap Canadian Whiskey feel like a secret party at Filipino summer camp, these guys allow me to just be sarcastic and off enough to return to it all, and what they are up to will save the planet, and crap like that. My first class service follows me to their dining room, so when I join them, it’s always a bit awkward, especially when I get a plate of what they are just ladling out to themselves, just from a waiter, but also when my food is noticeably better, but I got to make it a joke. One time I was forced in with them while we waited to be checked by Russian customs, and as they rode me for it, stuck with the technicians, I said F you guys, I’m going to eat salmon! They roared…
You have the sea to watch, the boat to explore, the long list of what you wanted to read or watch but never had the time, that puzzle or model to make ( I made 6, one with the help of the whole crew, the skyline of Hong Kong in 3D.. seemed appropriate since they all see it for real about once a month. If I was ever doing puzzles on dry land, I would want you to shoot me…) and you can do nothing and not feel guilty, and the mom’s of the crew will still feed you three times a day, let you raid the fridge, poke into what they are doing, listen to big decisions being made without conspiratorial secrecy, and never judge… it’s teenage heaven!