Clocks forward 1hr: GMT -1.
2215: No sign. Either we haven't reached the Azores or we've left Flores to starboard too far to see.
1800: Cloudy night, moderate visibility. No moon visible. No lights.
1330: Yep! I went to the wheelhouse and the Second Officer was on watch. He reckons we'll pass Flores about 2000 hrs. I asked him about mobile contact and he said it's possible. So - when for Dover? Possibly Monday!
The sky is now hazy almost over all. There are long rollers coming up behind us and the ship is pitching quite a bit.
The microphone is repaired and I did a piece to camera and some desultory shooting - I'm not sure how useful it will be. The problem (besides running out of steam) is that this weather doesn't look like anything in particular. 'In between sort of murky' doesn't really come across on screen. You can decrease the aperture and make it look like the end of the world, but that's hardly playing the game is it old bean?
I have devised routines to get me through the days
and especially the evenings.
I despise all routines
and will ditch them
all without regret at the smallest opportunity
I may never drink beer again.
why do we feel we like
the things we are supposed to like
is it an attempt to fit in?
returning to the normal
life and its living
getting back to the everyday
here I am back on the job
all these questions you've asked me in my absence
sort of answered
all these little things you needed me for
sort of done
and the turning over of the piles of paper
what is it for?
taking us out of our everyday
by this means
travel reveals
how unimportant we are
so change it all?
do I waste my time?
does my time waste me?
It opened the great eye of the world
blinked back its tears, the ocean
and engaged once again with the sky.
The world had woken
and started to survey
what had happened while it had been asleep
I'VE LOOKED IT UP SINCE I GOT BACK AND IT IS CALLED 'REVENGE - A BALLAD OF THE FLEET' BY ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
At Flores in the Azores
Or at Florez in the Azorez?
Anyway, what is that poem
that only thought it rhymed?
It's just distance
It's just time taken
It makes no demands on me
Other than
To wait
Pass days
Let them past
It's just turn off
It's just let them go by
But that's to be dead
And I can't do that
I'll suffer the moments.
I mean, what is this?
it is like being a stirred liquid
agitation that appears to have a purpose
but just goes round and round
to attain the aims of someone
who will devour all you and yours
drink you back
sweetened
now to their palette
this is the old story
I have known it all my life
this crew learn it anew every day
take a lesson boys
don't assume you are the realists
confused by the apparent lack of purpose
what are our lives for?
what happened to the human ability to develop
interpret
discover anew?
but we are here for money
that is what flings us around the world
and we will never understand
if we examine just symptoms
and that is all our lives are
blowback from the closure of great wallets
the jetsam of profit
wasted in our wastefulness
the terrible truth about our apparently pointless lives
is that they have been rendered pointless.
1700: Fire drill. I was outside doing the ladders, wearing headphones, when the bell went, so it was a miracle I heard it at all.
Ivan is sticking by 'Morgen' for the Azores.
0810: It struck me just before breakfast that according to yesterday's position at 1630, and what happened on the run south, we could pass the Azores this afternoon.
0710: - I hope!
It is cold this morning. A sign of things..... Mind you, this is in an air-conditioned cabin, so as a portent it might be felt to lack something.
The sky is clearing outside. There is still a big following sea.
I haven't noted enough yet that the form of the work coming out of this will I think be modular, so I can do things piecemeal for net streaming. Then I can combine into longer work later.
This puts it firmly into the type of work, albeit in a different form, done with Scavel An Gow, and the aim will be to create small pieces that say a lot.
Peter pointed out yesterday evening that today it is a week since we were last attached to dry land, at Moin in Costa Rica. It is also three weeks today since I joined the ship. This could easily be the longest three weeks of my life - so cargo ship voyaging could be said at least to make you feel like you live longer.
I have to repair the lapel mic this morning - repairing my 2-year-old Moroccan bodge of manky gaffer tape.