The Crossing-part 1
Door: Cleem
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Clemens
27 Januari 2019 | Barbados, Bridgetown
English version
The Crossing-part 1
From La Palma there were about 3000 nautical miles of Atlantic Ocean waiting to be sailed. About, because sailing is not taking the short cut, but the most usefull for the sailing. The wind is the director of the Tres Hombres course. First southward and then picking up the westerly tradewinds which should blow us to the Caribean.
Passing by the Sahara aerea I mistook desert dust for clouds , most of it was high up, but the ropes got a redish glance, luckily not smelling after camel shit.
We're sailing on dead reckoning, the displays are taped off and a log ,the sextant and quite some variables are being used to locate where we are. Before the GPS/AIS era this was the common way of positioning and the ships got everywhere they wanted to go, so I think wel'll manage.
Life on board is dictated by the watch system: three 4 hour watches from 20.00 'till 08.00 hour, and two 6 hour watches in the daytimen. It's a rhythm I like very much. Since some years, my bladder is in charge of my sleeping time. After a few hours of sleep I got to go and then I can easily stay up for a few a hours.At home I do it all the time, peeing, reading some in my (digital) newspaper and go back to bed again.
The sailing circumstances are favorable, mostly fair winds and following seas, all in beautiful wheater.
On Christmas Eve, however, the wind fell away and we even lay still for a couple of hours. The advantage of this was that we could fully enjoy the company of some whales, swimming in the same direction. At times they came very close to the Tres Hombres. When they came up to breathe you also could hear the air coming out of their blowholes. Watching those massive and yet elegant bodies and hearing that sounds will never be boring.
Later that evening the ship had stopped completely and the decision was made that two hands on deck would do. I volunteered to be one of them.
It was a bit misty and the moonlight was tempered by it, Along with the calm it created an atmosphere that can be described both as fairylike as well as spooky.
Christmas contains enough fairylike elements for me, so I decided to let my thoughts go over a ghoststory.
This came in mind:
"It'is 1943..A just launched U-boat beats with it's propellor by accident a mermaid into a pulp somewhere on the Atlantic. So what, you might say, mermaids enough. But this particular one happed to be one of the sweeties of Neptune, the god of the seas. Good old Neppy was not amused and in his seadivine rage he cursed the ship and it's crew: untill the end of times they were to sail the Atlantic outside the normally used shipping routes.
Neptune, generally known as a friendly god, got second thoughts shortly after his damnation and decided in his seadivine kindness that he'd offer a way out. After all, yeah she had been one of his sweeties, but not exactly his favorite one with her whining about plastic tailsurgery.
So their souls could be saved when, after the turn of the century, they would be put ashore by an also in 1943 launched ship that had served the Kriegsmarine.
The U-boat crew, zombies now, only could look through the periscope every once in a while and seldom spotted a ship.
On Christmas Eve 2018 the zombie-of-the-watch puts up the persicope and looks around the surrounding waters. Then he spots a ship. A sailing vessel again, the rare ones they see around here. A bit gloomy he takes another look at the sailing vessel.
-Nice ship, though, beautiful shape, nice line, reminds me of..... Well I'll be damned (for an instant forgetting he was already) it's a KFK (Kriegs Fischerei Kutter). But what in the Führers name did they do to it. Sails??? Is that what they call progress nowadays? And that name: Tres Hombres??? What was wrong with a name like Seeadler?-
Realising salvation was close by, he didn't give it many thoughts, and sounded alarm.
And so the two people on deck of the Tres Hombres got scared the hell out of them when all of a sudden the tower of a submarine appeared on the surfaces".
And then my watch was over and my bunk waiting.
How this story will end? Not a clue here. Bloody and ugly,I suppose, 'cause it's a horrorstory. But it's not likely that the the inspiring circumstances -the calm, the misty moonlight and Christmas Eve on the Atlantic- will occur again on short notice, and like hell I'm gonna finish a story which ends badly for the Tres Hombres. And, coming to think of it I don't like horror in the first place.
However, if some Spielberg guy is interested, I'm available for a profitable chat on one absolute condition: a change of the ships name.
The Crossing-part 1
From La Palma there were about 3000 nautical miles of Atlantic Ocean waiting to be sailed. About, because sailing is not taking the short cut, but the most usefull for the sailing. The wind is the director of the Tres Hombres course. First southward and then picking up the westerly tradewinds which should blow us to the Caribean.
Passing by the Sahara aerea I mistook desert dust for clouds , most of it was high up, but the ropes got a redish glance, luckily not smelling after camel shit.
We're sailing on dead reckoning, the displays are taped off and a log ,the sextant and quite some variables are being used to locate where we are. Before the GPS/AIS era this was the common way of positioning and the ships got everywhere they wanted to go, so I think wel'll manage.
Life on board is dictated by the watch system: three 4 hour watches from 20.00 'till 08.00 hour, and two 6 hour watches in the daytimen. It's a rhythm I like very much. Since some years, my bladder is in charge of my sleeping time. After a few hours of sleep I got to go and then I can easily stay up for a few a hours.At home I do it all the time, peeing, reading some in my (digital) newspaper and go back to bed again.
The sailing circumstances are favorable, mostly fair winds and following seas, all in beautiful wheater.
On Christmas Eve, however, the wind fell away and we even lay still for a couple of hours. The advantage of this was that we could fully enjoy the company of some whales, swimming in the same direction. At times they came very close to the Tres Hombres. When they came up to breathe you also could hear the air coming out of their blowholes. Watching those massive and yet elegant bodies and hearing that sounds will never be boring.
Later that evening the ship had stopped completely and the decision was made that two hands on deck would do. I volunteered to be one of them.
It was a bit misty and the moonlight was tempered by it, Along with the calm it created an atmosphere that can be described both as fairylike as well as spooky.
Christmas contains enough fairylike elements for me, so I decided to let my thoughts go over a ghoststory.
This came in mind:
"It'is 1943..A just launched U-boat beats with it's propellor by accident a mermaid into a pulp somewhere on the Atlantic. So what, you might say, mermaids enough. But this particular one happed to be one of the sweeties of Neptune, the god of the seas. Good old Neppy was not amused and in his seadivine rage he cursed the ship and it's crew: untill the end of times they were to sail the Atlantic outside the normally used shipping routes.
Neptune, generally known as a friendly god, got second thoughts shortly after his damnation and decided in his seadivine kindness that he'd offer a way out. After all, yeah she had been one of his sweeties, but not exactly his favorite one with her whining about plastic tailsurgery.
So their souls could be saved when, after the turn of the century, they would be put ashore by an also in 1943 launched ship that had served the Kriegsmarine.
The U-boat crew, zombies now, only could look through the periscope every once in a while and seldom spotted a ship.
On Christmas Eve 2018 the zombie-of-the-watch puts up the persicope and looks around the surrounding waters. Then he spots a ship. A sailing vessel again, the rare ones they see around here. A bit gloomy he takes another look at the sailing vessel.
-Nice ship, though, beautiful shape, nice line, reminds me of..... Well I'll be damned (for an instant forgetting he was already) it's a KFK (Kriegs Fischerei Kutter). But what in the Führers name did they do to it. Sails??? Is that what they call progress nowadays? And that name: Tres Hombres??? What was wrong with a name like Seeadler?-
Realising salvation was close by, he didn't give it many thoughts, and sounded alarm.
And so the two people on deck of the Tres Hombres got scared the hell out of them when all of a sudden the tower of a submarine appeared on the surfaces".
And then my watch was over and my bunk waiting.
How this story will end? Not a clue here. Bloody and ugly,I suppose, 'cause it's a horrorstory. But it's not likely that the the inspiring circumstances -the calm, the misty moonlight and Christmas Eve on the Atlantic- will occur again on short notice, and like hell I'm gonna finish a story which ends badly for the Tres Hombres. And, coming to think of it I don't like horror in the first place.
However, if some Spielberg guy is interested, I'm available for a profitable chat on one absolute condition: a change of the ships name.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
