All's Clear
A.M. Nautical twilight. “All’s Clear”. Speaker voice of the Chief officer coming from his handheld VHF receiver set in channel 2. Standing at the bridge beside the wheel, waiting for the maneuver, I could see our watchman in a distance, few hundred meters forward, tightly holidng the hydraulic lever as the drum continuously rotates heaving up the remaining length of our huge mooring rope stretch on starboard side. Its bitter-end slowly moving forward from midships. The rope used as for-spring also serves as our last link to dry land for several minutes until two 500-tonner tugs arrived and secure dour fore and aft.
Foretug propulsion against the cemented pier causes the bow to come out while the other one holds the astern in a minimum safe distance close to the pier. With its faint light overhead, ripplets formed in our defected magnetic compass. I feel the vibration all over the ship’s metal structure. The scent of freshly cooked diesel fuel mixed up with the fresh air of morning breeze as our 20,000 hp main engine started to scramble the high-density water of Baltic Ocean. Moments later, right after the tug’s disconnect, pilot disembarked. Deck crew secured everything on deck preparing to cross the reputably “sinker bay of Biscay”.
I turned the wheel to automatic gyro and hold a pair of binocular. It wasn’t the ship or the obstruction ahead, it is a land astern I am working for with this pair of lens. I tried to squeeze the last optical-drop of submerging land until its totally gone, hiding behind those thick masses of air and I see nothing at all.. I know it isn’t a dramatic scenario, not even brand new.
With bountiful experiences in my prime years, I never find myself lost in the wilderness. I usually have a rugged judgment to everything but I’m not an ideologist who transformed theories into principles.Im against environmental poaching but never did I become a naturalist who choose to shelter in a primitive land and mourn every sundown. Im simply just like everybody else who contributes to that 90% of the total population as normal human being, breaths oxygen, have a regular IQ level, eat-digest-dump-whatever!
Yet astound by myself lately who begin t behave as if Im somebody else. I was not bitten by a mutated spider or something im sure. But I felt that there’s something going on in me, something big is about to happen. I even observed those blunt rays of sun as it glows toward a diminishing land. I am not complaining but it is normal for a simple person like me to see a lot of things, even microscopic ones in so many different and unusual angles. Or to react uncommonly to a very common scene. It was’nt long since I discovered that sensitivity inside me but to find myself in such an idiotic behavior like this is not my idea of a normal person. To find a magical conjunction between those tugs and the pier, or the ship and the land, or with the compass, winchman, or me and the binoculars or whatever I’m into is totally incommodious. Its craziness! It is acceptable that we will be experiencing once in our … (not yet done with typing..
