Thursday 16 December 2010

Bring out the tree, break out the (alcohol-free) champagne!

I'm getting that distinct feeling of déjà vu. Not the good kind :|. I'm referring here to how progressive crew changes to and from Angola got increasingly difficult :S. In fact, this crew change marked two years since the first one in Luanda, to the day. This time getting to the Red Sea was not outright awful though. Barring the no camera thing, obviously. The day spent on the crew boat in pretty bumpy weather was good in a way. I managed to sleep for about 15 hours and was in reasonable shape by the time the Trident showed up this side of the horizon. I'd had barely 3 hours the previous night to clean up in Jeddah in absolutely the hugest, fanciest hotel suite I've ever been in! Oh the irony :|.The bad thing was that my flight out of Cal got delayed a solid three hours, and all my plans of meeting up with people in Bombay were shot through the head :(. But there might be other unexpected opportunities on that front before too long. We shall see.
On the other hand, the good thing was that some people managed to get their cameras through to the boat! (Of course, if I were to think that I could easily have slipped in my IXUS, then that's not such a good thing, but I'm trying to be positive.) So I've got some choice of equipment to use while on the boat. Hence the photos :).My boss very kindly offered his slightly old Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ8. It's not bad actually. One of those super-zooms. Only trouble is the rather pedestrian 36mm low end. But I'm not going to complain. We even had a laugh when someone joked that my 450D seemed to have shrunk to get past immigration :). I must say though, once you are used to the SLR, the awkward in-between-ness of the compact super-zoom can never feel right :-<. Be that as it may, I'm here, back in the Red Sea. A bit further south this time, and quite close to the coast. And the weather's perfect. Cool enough that I can actually step out-doors with the camera without an instantly fogged lens :). Let's hope the trip goes by in reasonable peace.

Currently: settling down for the watery year end
Listening to: Taylor Swift - Back to December

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