Sailing!!

I'm somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, and I can't see land, but I can write on my blog. As one H. M. Plum put it, 'things have really changed since the Titanic days. I don't remember Leo DiCaprio being on instant messenger when they hit the iceberg.'

Things got off to a slow start, as there was something wrong with the engine that only became apparent when it wouldn't start on the day of our departure. The engineers stayed up all night, and a prayer meeting was held, and the engine was revived by around 3am. They say that this ship is held together by prayer, and I'm beginning to think there's a good deal of truth in that.

In the days leading up to the sail, we were all warned against seasickness and given preventative medication to take. It seemed to work as I didn't actually hear of anyone getting seasick - but on the first day of the sail, either as a result of over-medication or staying up all night to bid farewell to Ghana - the majority of the crew could be seen stumbling around half-asleep and hardly able to keep their heads from rolling to one side, nevermind carry on a polite conversation. If this weren't Mercy Ships, I would've thought someone had spiked the Tang. Add that to the fact that no one could walk in a straight line anyways due to the motion of ship, and it was all quite surreal.

Sailing has been delightful - the clean air is most welcome after the smut of the Tema harbor. Dolphins can be seen playing around the ship (often noted in announcements by the captain, immediately after which the ship tilts a bit towards the side that they're on due to the mad rush of crewmembers with cameras). There was a stunning sunset worship service on the bow, and afterwards a large cohort of young ladies secretly dragged mattresses out for a massive slumber party under the stars (it's hard to keep things like mattresses secret though, I think a few people caught on).

Because there wasn't too much work for the OR staff to do, with everything in the OR tied to the wall or duct taped to the floor (kudos to the man who invented duct tape), I volunteered to work in the Engine Room because they had asked for people to help with something called 'tunnel watch'. Having no idea what that meant, I signed up for a four-hour shift.

It turns out the Engine Room is right around the corner from Purgatory: 902849754 degrees Celsius, monstrous black metal bellowing enginey-type machines closing in from all sides, grated floors covered with oil so you constantly feel like you're going to plunge to a feiry death in the bowels of the ship below, and a roaring sound that vibrates every part of your thoracic cavity. My job was to take the temperature of some metal things (I dunno...they hold these big shafts that turn?) every 15 minutes to make sure they didn't overheat, check the oil of the same metal things and top it up when needed, and move the water pump around so the engine room didn't flood. I'm sure it's much less responsibility than it seemed at the time, otherwise I don't see why they'd let me do it, but I felt pretty important, and I don't think I broke anything.

At the end of four hours I was sweating profusely, black all over, and in awe of the poor, poor souls that spend 8 hours a day down there, making this ship go. As for my contribution to ship maintenance, I think I'll stick with the (air-conditioned) prayer meetings.