Saturday, 8 March 2008, at sea

[skyring]

Another sea day, the second of three between Penang and Cochin. All around us is the commerce of the world, carried on enormous ships. At any given moment there will be several in sight. From my observation position in the Crows Nest, at one point I counted ten, ranging from a light blue-hulled Maersk container ship passing us eastwards, no more than three hundred metres away, to several faint white points on the horizon. Sometimes these points directly ahead would grow until they were right there beside us, ships with structures and names, details clear in the morning light. And other times they would diminish sideways, not seen again. But everywhere ships cutting across the Bay of Bengal.

Moderately clear at dawn, the clouds crowd in on us, and we eat our lunch with rain showers on the horizon. There is a seafood buffet in the other restaurant, and we few diners lunching in the Medina are caught with only a few waiters. One Indian chap hears my Australian accent and tells me with delight of an Indian victory in the cricket. I could care less, but he positively glows in triumph. “Well done!” I say and he twinkles.

One lady opposite, a keen bridge player, is anxious on the delays. Her lamb chops are held up in the galley, and she is counting the minutes until her next match begins. “You get better cards if you arrive early?” I ask, but apparently if she selects the north or south positions at the tables, you have them for the afternoon, whilst the late-arriving east and west chairs are movable feasts. This lady, large and elderly, prefers to take her position and hold it, letting those younger and trimmer move from table to table.

Me, I’m taking the stairs two at a time now. I go for a walk on the promenade deck, and for a few circuits I lap all others, before slowing to “warm down” and then go below for a shower. There are eight decks between my cabin on deck five and the Sun deck on thirteen, and I race up them to the Crows Nest and internet room. Often I outrun the lifts.

I’m going to need every ounce of exercise to outweigh the challenge of the food. I go to breakfast intending to have only a bowl of cereal and coffee, but three courses later, I’m wiping away the last drops of a glass of spiced tomato juice and feeling the chef’s special warming my tummy.

Lunch and dinner are special treats and in between are elevenses and high teas and snacks galore. The Cafe Bordeaux runs through the night dispensing gourmet sandwiches and hot chocolate to late night revellers. On this ship, there’s a restaurant for the wicked.

After lunch, a nap, some more reading. I’m hitting Stephen Ambrose again. He wrote Band of Brothers – and I’ve got the miniseries on my iPhone – which is just one of many microlooks at history. He does it so well. This one is called The Victors, and it’s Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe retold. I’m loving it.

It’s from the ship’s library, full of excellent books. Mid afternoon and half of them are likely to be found in the hands of people in deckchairs on the various public decks. And doubtless on private balconies as well.

My book release for today was a novel about people on an ocean liner from England to Australia. I registered it this morning and left it on one of the wooden benches on the Promenade Deck.

I had a brainwave this afternoon. I’ve got a limited supply of books with me, but there’s a constantly changing paperback swapshelf in the library, and it strikes me that I can register up as many of these as I want, return them to the library, and I may see a few catches that won’t count against any baggage limit.

The fly in the ointment is that I must use the internet room to register them and make release notes, and the satellite internet on this ship is slooooow. And expensive. The poor lass who runs the computer room is fed up with having to listen to passengers tell her that it’s slow. She makes excuses about geographic location and so on, but I figure that the middle of the Bay of Bengal is about as good as it gets for communication satellites, being so near the equator and everything and that the true answer lies elsewhere.

My guess is that during the day and evening there are a lot of users of the internet, and many of them would be crew members doing their legitimate ship’s duties, preparing the newsletters, making tour bookings, ordering up supplies and so on, and many crew members would be pursuing their private business. There isn’t much incentive for P&O to give passengers more bandwidth, not when they are paying $18 an hour for internet, and it takes a minute or so for each page to appear.

This is especially painful to me, now that my laptop is out of action, because I have to login afresh each time I go to a site, and I’m only allowed one browser window at a time. To do anything takes a long frustrating time, each minute costing me 30c.

I might see if it’s any better at three in the morning.

Comments

[lizmopuddy.livejournal.com]

The "joy" (not!) of internet cruising. It's the only real downside to cruising, I've cruised, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Med, with three different cruise lines. And universally the internet access has been pants. But the fabulousness of cruising far outweighs it's internet limitations.

[holmesfan.livejournal.com]

Three in the morning? You've got to be desperate.
Once again super descriptions. Can just visualize the so frustrated bridge player.

[awaywithfairy1.livejournal.com]

"I had a brainwave this afternoon. I’ve got a limited supply of books with me, but there’s a constantly changing paperback swapshelf in the library, and it strikes me that I can register up as many of these as I want, return them to the library, and I may see a few catches that won’t count against any baggage limit."

Ha! You've caught on to my little trick. I do the same thing with hostel Book Swap library shelves when I'm travelling...