Saturday, March 4. At Sea on the way to Mozambique. 25 C. Some really good ocean rollers, high clouds with some rain. Day 60.
When the Captain announced last night that we would be bypassing Madagascar and having an extra sea day instead, there were obviously mixed reactions although no audible sounds from the passengers. On the TV there is a screen that shows a low pressure area with the island Madagascar overlaid on it. It was for many reasons, mainly, safety and comfort of the passengers that it was cancelled. Cyclone Freddie is the main reason, and, it is Cyclone Season here. Who wants to go traipsing around in the rain in a third world bus looking for Lemurs in a dripping forest? 'I do’ I can hear some saying! So, there you go, you can’t keep everybody happy…
On a personal note, I visited the Doctor yesterday for my toe problem. The Clinical Diagnosis is ‘Crowding! My middle toe is being crowded by my growing bunion and squeezing the next two toes over to a position that the 'Toe Bones' do not like, and the result is pain. At least we have identified the problem, we can make some padding adjustments but the real solution will have to wait till we are home: 69 days from now. So be it!
*******
So now I have four Sea Days to do a blog for… I have been writing a Journal every day for 14 years, minus a few days when I was medically unable to do so. It is not possible for me to go to bed without doing my Journal/Blog. So...
The Ocean…
Only by travelling on the ocean do we get a real understanding of how Big the Ocean[s] are. They are indescribably massive. The ocean’s surface is one thing, the depth is another: 2 1/2 miles deep is not uncommon. This morning while walking the deck to get some exercise in, we saw a stream of water spewing out of the back of the ship into the ocean, like a small fire hose. I stopped and examined it a bit closer. The water was clear to the eye, I have no idea what the source of the water was but it was obviously being pumped out of the ship.
The stream of water could have been what they call Gray Water: Wash basin water; bath and shower water; dishwasher water and many other sources. Bilge Water has to be kept in tanks and left shoreside where it can be treated to get rid of the oil. Black Water is another issue. Black water is toilet water. The ship cannot put all the toilet water into holding tanks and get rid of it at wastewater treatment plants on land. So, they must treat it initially before spewing it out, [at night obviously!]
How do you think they handle empty glass containers? Or kitchen vegetable peelings, rinds, meat trimmings, bones? It is something that cruise lines are very sensitive about. We flush a toilet or pull a plug or leave some food on our plate or finish a wine bottle and turn the issue over to them. Over the years environmental concerns have made it more difficult to just throw the problem overboard. Violators are still caught, fined and shamed. It is a very big and expensive worldwide problem. The oceans are massive and at one time we thought we could treat them like toilets, but those days are pretty well gone.
When coming into port, we can look at the flotsam floating in the harbour and pretty well tell the standard of the country regarding pollution and environmental issues. Some are absolutely revolting others are trying to do the right thing.
A Sea Day, The Main Thing Was The Weather...
It looks like an Atom Bomb went off but it is a storm cloud, part of Cyclone Freddie that is causing us to bypass Madagascar.
No comments:
Post a Comment