Hester's Head

I should be keeping notes of what we see and do that I think might be interesting. Then scratch most of them off because they are either inappropriate or maybe not that interesting after all.
Remembered motion is one of the stranger things about being at sea. Or back alongside. I suppose it's the reverse of motion sickness. The very first time I went to sea, a three-day trip on HMCS Yukon (now a reef near San Diego), we encountered some rather rough weather. When we came back alongside I had difficulty walking down hallways. It must be the same as being dizzy, being spun around in circles, except I had bounced left and then right for three days. I had to walk with both arms out to keep from banging into the walls in my house. My body was also anticipating a motion that wasn't coming. I had to go to bed, I was sicker than when I was at sea. I wasn't throwing up but I did have a mind-mashing headache. I haven't suffered like that since, but I still get remembered motion. The ship can be alongside and not moving at all and I will still stumble or have to reach out to brace myself. My body moves, anticipating a roll, and the ship stays still. That usually only happens inside the ship and isn't too bad, often it's only when I first get out of my rack and am getting dressed. I guess I expect bad things to happen when I'm standing on one leg.
One of the things I have to tell you about is the stars. You have no idea how many stars are out there, at least I don't. I can't even count them. There is no light pollution when we are out at sea so we can see damn near every star. You can read a book at the full moon. There are clouds of stars and it can be hard to pick out constellations with all the background clutter of star clusters. Those who live in more rural areas should have an idea of what I'm talking about. It's most unfortunate that I can't take a picture of it. The continuous motion of the ship precludes any shot of the night sky or a long exposure. And, no, a flash doesn't help. At least it doesn't look like it to me.
Flying fish are one of my favourite things. Sometimes we scare up one; sometimes we scare up a flock of 30 to 50. They sprint out of the water and usually just glide for 50-100 yards though sometimes they do flap. Their wings look like dragonfly wings, they are mostly clear and shiny, and their flapping sounds like the snap, snap, snap of a grasshopper flying. They can also get more distance by skipping off the top of waves. I wonder if they take a big gulp of water before they take off? And do they land gasping for water? Maybe they get a small gasp of water when they hit the wave tops. The flying fish seem to be far more common the further south we go, but especially in the southwest Pacific and here in the Indian Ocean.
The sea snakes are at the other end of the spectrum. They are creepy and completely freak me out. They are nasty little creatures floating out in the sea. They appear to be very fat, I wonder if they are flatter for swimming purposes. I've only seen three, but I do go outside often to look for them. My thrill at sea, I suppose. These things just float along, most of them don't care that a 4500-ton ship is going by 30 feet away. Some of them dive, but a lot of them have their heads out of the water watching. Nasty little creatures. I can't imagine anything worse than falling into the sea and encountering one of those. I'm not sure what's worse - sharks or snakes. If I'm in the water, I think sharks would be scarier, but snakes make my skin want to fall down off my bones and crawl away from here. (I have to give credit to 'Garbage' for that line.)
Our next port visit is India. Again I'm looking forward to the food. Vietnamese and Indian are my two favourite foods, but I love almost all ethnic food. We get plenty of advance info about a port before we arrive - we have liaison officers who do all the research and send all the emails for info. Don't drink the water in India - we've been told that 70% of the water isn't safe to drink. We are taking anti-malaria pills. There are day tours planned, the one I want to do visits a waterfall and a spice farm, where you can buy pods of vanilla. They have vegetarian and non-vegetarian buffets. I love vegetarian food - I'd be a fat vegetarian. My attempts to cook chickpeas pale to what I've eaten in vegetarian restaurants. I might have to ask for advice while I'm here. And bring home more spices. I still have spices from my last gulf trip. Anyone want some saffron? I still have plenty. I have the powder and the flower bits (stamens? pistils?) - it's quality stuff. I'm not kidding - I have a bag of it and a small jar of the ground saffron.
I don't want to calculate how many days we've been gone, but it's been a month and a half and we're not there yet. The Boxer ESG (Expeditionary Strike Group - which includes us) is currently exercising with the Indian Navy. The Indians have bought a lot of Russian equipment, so I enjoy seeing ships and weapon systems that I studied and memorized years ago. I can point out the Half Plate, Front Dome, Kite Screech, Bass Tilt, Pop Group, Palm Frond, SSN-2's, SSN-25's easier than... I don’t know. I just like pointing them out.
There goes another one.
That’s one too.
The exercise does enough to keep those of us in the Ops Room busy. This time at sea I have the forenoon watch and the long first. I'm on watch from 07:30 to 12:30 and from 17:30 to 00:30. Noon and midnight are my two favourite times - means I get to go to bed soon. India is EF time - some Newfoundland-like time zone. We are currently 12 1/2 hours ahead of home. 11AM there is 11:30PM here. It's hard enough to keep track as it is. I think we still have two more time zone changes till we are there, an hour one and a half hour one. I could Google it but I'm tired now. In addition to our exercises with the ESG and the Indians we are still doing internal exercises to ensure we are ready when we arrive. In a few weeks. There are other things going on as well, such as Halloween and raising money for the United Way. It was hot dogs last night - for $1 you could get a hot dog delivered to you at work. They were very popular in the ops room - the Padre had to make three trips. Thanks to AB Milligan for buying one for everyone in the ops room. At breakfast this morning I asked the Chief Cook about the hot dogs buns. They are a little strange - very dense, about two inches high and the width of a hot dog. When you put the hot dog in there's no chance the bun will stay together and you end up with a wad of bread, a hot dog and then another wad of bread. The Chief Cooks said we got them in Singapore and that I should wait to see what we get in India. She said you had to worry when the cooks had to Google half the stuff on the list. Speaking of that, I encountered a real passion fruit - not just the juice or the flavouring or whatever passion fruit thing I've had before. Passion fruit are awful to look at; before I was told what they were I didn't even consider eating one. They are a mottled green and look like a big egg - and they are so light they feel like a hollow egg. A guy in the mess cut one in half and scooped out the insides. I said I'm not sure if I could eat that and he told me I should try it. I was VERY hesitant as the insides are all black seeds in a very soft, almost liquid flesh that is also a dark green. Maybe some kind of mossy colour – it was awful. One scoop with a spoon and it's done. I said it tasted a little citrusy, kind like fruit punch, but more citrusy. I didn't even recognize it until I was told it was passion fruit. Really? Wow, haha, of course, passion fruit. Not easy to look at, but very easy to eat. The jackfruit was good, but very hard to eat, the star fruit was very easy to eat (slice it up and turn each slice inside out) but I didn't like it much. Then something that looked like a green apple, had the texture of a pear, and didn't taste good very good, the lychees were good. I must be missing a few; we had quite a few strange fruits kicking around. Dragon fruit - so mild tasting as to be boring. Looked great though - inside and out. Red outside, very white inside, medium firmness, almost like a gelato, with small black poppy seeds. It's the Gatorade of fruits - it tastes better the hotter and sweatier you are.
Now I'm looking forward to India - I saw 'soft coconut' mentioned somewhere. I wonder what that is.