10th December 2007- boats and memories

The 10th December 2007 saw me at the beginning of my 2007-2008 southern hemisphere summer/christmas (!) holidays.

I was with my parents at this point, on a utterly bizarre Chilean cargo-cum-passenger ship. The Navimag

I run up to the top deck, the wind shocking me with its force.
Buffeting my hair this way and that, baggy trousers flapping, alive at the cold touch of the icy air through the crocheted holes of my jumper.

It has a surprising force. With some difficulty I get up to the front top deck- dad's the only other person up there. I run past, staggering slow-motion, and lean over the front.

I'm completely permeated by the wind- its sharp coldness, its strength, its roar.Rushing though my holes and around my whole.

I turn to dada, take his headphones- stylishly cordless of course. The music is calm, majestic- rising...

The ship form where he is standing- somehow protected by the wind- is proudly sailing over the great expanse of grey. No longer a small, flaming-dolphin adorned cargo-passenger ship, she is a HMS special, flanked by mountains, rolling clouds and golden rays breaking through from the new blue above.

I try and lean over the front but it doesn't work- her majesty is lost in the infernal roar- this wild me contrasting with the sleekly designed headphones.

"It's not what I would have chosen."
Dada considers, taking them back. Half-smiles. "It's incredible. The music is in time with the boat"
I smile back "Not from where I was standing."
I flee.

The back top deck is all mine. I skit about marvelling at how the mood changes.

My wild boat, the wind molding it and manipulating its inhabitants.

Dad's space of calm- Stravinsky's 10th Symphony

A man joke screams as he scuttles to the cover of his warm AAA cabin.

Muted, drowsy viewing from the captain's deck. This amazing light lost to dusty windows; roar tuned down to a polite murmuring.

I need to write.

I consider the scene- my permeated self, the flapping of my pin-stripes, my curls.

Patches of the grey lagoon, silver in the misty rays of new light.

I need a pen.


So here I am, perched on a bench in my ski-jacket, wielding a borrowed pen.
Sat halfway between my wild and dada's calm. Buffeted enough to feel alive, yet calm enough air to write.

My writing with borrowed pen reminds me of me- this ink doesn't seem to know if it's coming or going: faint, then strong, then lost again.


It's such a weird boat this one- Saga holidays meets a Chilean cargo ship.
The average age seems to be over 60... with about ten exceptions!

It makes me strangely restless, I have pretty much eaten two books in two days- living vicariously though their pages- slightly groggy with this speed trip through two other's worlds.