Saturday 3 September 2005

Blowing in the wind

It's been a rough day. Not specifically for me, but the ship. We have run into some bad weather. Or rather, given that we have been in pretty much the same place for about a month, some bad weather has run into us. From early afternoon the wind had picked up, and was steadily blowing at 30 knots (which is pretty bad given that a normal strong breeze is closer to 10 or 15). Knowing fully well that there wasn't a chance in hell of the slightest glimpse of the sun I went up to the deck. And for the first time this trip, was scared.
At over 70 Kgs, I'm not exactly lightweight, but for the first time in my life I was afraid of being physically blown away. But once I got over the initial shock, it was pretty cool, actually. The ship was pitching pretty wildly, i.e., one moment the bow is pointed well above the horizon, and the next, it's plunging straight into the water! It did not help that wind was blowing across from port, which meant that you had to independently counter the pitching and the blast of the wind. I wonder why this trip keeps reminding me of a roller-coaster. I'm afraid that if and when I do get the chance to be on an actual roller-coaster, it might prove to be a let-down.
I found a slightly sheltered spot and was at once greeted by a pestrel, flying very close to the ship and at almost exactly the same pace. It took me a while to figure out that the birds were probably taking advantage of the protection offered by the ship's superstructure. Every few moments one more bird would join up and before long there was a full squadron of them flying alongside.

7 comments:

  1. do i take it that u have actually not been on a roller coaster before?;)

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  2. yes, you may. and what of it? :|

    before this trip, i used to be skeptical (read: scared) of maniacal rides :P

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  3. Umm, I think you mean "Petrel" (assuming you're talking about stormy petrels of course - there's also a bird called a kestrel)

    Sorry to nitpick....

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  4. Hmm, guess what, there actually are birds called storm pestrels as well, I checked that out the first day I heard... But again I'm not sure these birds are which, petrels, or pestrels... and there are at least 3 diffeent types of birds I could figure out, have absolutely no clue what the rest might be though :(.

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  5. well if there are pestrels in the world, dictionary.com doesn't know about them. or was it just a pesky petrel?

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  6. Not everything is to be found within the narrow confines of Dictionary.com ma'am, when in doubt, seek Google :D.

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  7. @ Manoj - guess what's the first thing they teach in sea survival? DO NOT try to swim :P. It's the sea, not a swimming pool, as an instructor succinctly said.

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