*
Message from the captain. I'm expected on the bridge for the tour included in the travel package. The captain is a short-staffed Est in a checkered shirt. I don't know his name, he's just the captain. He can already see from my face that technique is not my thing and he doesn't intend to dirty a lot of words about it. You really don't do him any favors asking questions, so I'll keep my mouth shut. It turns out that one man on the bridge is enough and the course is set and followed automatically by computer and the double and triple radars. Only sporadic intervention of the human eye or hand is required - at most in precarious circumstances. The drill on the bridge is four hours on and four hours off, divided between the captain and two officers. I hear we've got 369 40-foot containers on board and we're going to Dublin first, not Cork. When I ask (with a view to a trip ashore) how long the loading and unloading will take, the captain answers "no idea". The thought of Dublin alone opposes him: in Ireland nothing is certain, he growls. Why is that? "No idea".*
The sea is endless grey. The water dissolves into a sky that is just as grey and so the horizon falls away. It's one big, wholesome space full of cold pure air. Gray is annoying everywhere in the world, except at sea. I breathe and enjoy.*
After lunch - fortunately again with ginger tea for digestion - five decks climb to the bridge; at least the outer deck on port side. There's not a human being to be seen, while we're at 17 knots through the water. The ship sails by itself. Somewhere to the right is probably the Isle of Wight. On the French side Le Havre. I'll look around. The sea remains endlessly grey, with that massive presence that only nature can evoke.*
I draw my curtain and realize more and more that this cabin will become my cocoon.***
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