Beer Run, a Christmas Story

The Canadian made the arrangements almost as soon as we arrived. For one pack of cigarettes one of our local friends would drive us to the store selling the cheapest beer. I went along for the ride.
Our friend drove a pickup truck he borrowed from his boss, but it was not a pickup truck in the American sense. As Americans we feel that if your pickup truck can't haul an entire city block up Mount Everest, you're not getting your money's worth.
Our friend's truck was an actual Japanese Toyota, and apparently the Japanese could not disagree more. You could have fit the whole thing in the bed of a Tundra. As we made for the road, we narrowly missed clipping the corner of a shipping container.
Since it was a Japanese Toyota the steering wheel was on the right. I surveyed the cars we passed to see if this was typical, and it turned out that about half were that way and half were the other way. Which raised a new question: which side of the road do you drive on?
Our friend drove on the left almost the whole time, except for one stretch when there were no other cars and there were fewer potholes on the right side. When we drove on the left, the roadsigns (all four of them) faced us encouragingly.
Our friend explained that the road had been built after World War II by British and American soldiers who did not reach an agreement as to which side of the road they would drive on. Instead each army clung stubbornly to the practice of their own nation. And when a British soldier and an American soldier traveling opposite directions encountered eachother on the road...?
"Crash!" explained our friend. "And then fighting."
Today this has obviously been sorted out because we passed other vehicles without incident (regardless of what side their steering wheel was on) though I marvelled at another foreign pickup that somehow managed to carry eight people even though the bed was entirely full of hairy coconuts. Those who could not find room in the cab or atop the coconuts perched on the cab's roof.
The Canadian got his beer and we sped back to the dock, dodging land crabs as we went. As our friend barreled toward the edge of the dock I thought of the near-miss with the shipping container and the 20 foot plunge to the sea.

Voyage by Numbers

For the sake of brevity, I give you Honolulu to Christmas Island by Numbers.

Days at sea: 12
Days I felt sick: 9
Times my schedule changed*: 3
Repairs made to gaff topsail: 7 (at least)
Emergency drills completed: 0
Signs of life (besides us): 2, one ship on radar, too far away to be seen and a bottle of Tide detergent floating by on the endless ocean.

* I was first assigned to the 12-4 watch, and then to daywork, and then to the 8-12 watch.

All of this made me feel as though I was losing my mind, but life had a way of throwing me a rope when I needed it. The most important of these was the radio. Once I was switched to the 8-12 watch, I was in the perfect position to listen to the Captain's nightly call to the Owner.
At first the radio makes noise: beeping and groaning like R2D2 with a cold, then general static, then the garbled sound of everyone speaking every language in the world all mixed together. All I can see from my seat in the wheelhouse is the warm glow of the charthouse light, and I hear the Captain's voice slow and calm, "Deep Water, Deep Water, Deep Water, this is Kwai, Kwai echo-five-whiskey-bravo." Then from hundreds of miles away the Owner's voice.
What's your position?
How's the exchange rate?
How's the weather?
How's your wife?
Sometimes the Owner is loud and clear, like he's standing in the charthouse. Sometimes he sounds like a theramin taught to speak.
Either way, we are not alone.

Safe and Sound...

...At home again.
We're back in Hawaii, and now I have before me the daunting task of trying to update this thing. Updates will occur, as always, at random intervals. I will start at the beginning and proceed in chronological order.