17 Hours to Fremantle

(By Pien)

The Captain estimates that we will arrive in Fremantle on the morning of the 17th, a full day ahead of schedule. We completed the science program two days ago, ending the day/night shift split, and the dining area has become too crowded to accommodate everyone at once. Jim’s motto “sleep beats eat” has been replaced with the Captain’s “eat it and beat it.” We’ve since become preoccupied with low-stakes poker and a ship-wide game of "Murder,” which was a surprisingly short diversion. In “Murder,” all participants draw cards, and receive a pair of steel nuts. The Queen of Spades goes around “murdering” people by cornering them and demanding their nuts. On a 55-person boat, where you know exactly where everyone else is at any given time, this game moves quickly. Two-thirds of the “villagers” were killed the first day, and the rest were dead by the next afternoon.

It took us the second-to-last shipboard sunset to catch the “green flash.” As the sun sinks past the horizon, the rays are refracted through the atmosphere and separated into colors, as in a prism. One of the last visible wavelengths is green. On a very clear day, the sun as it disappears is replaced for a split second by a flash of green, which is one of the last visible wavelengths. We filmed the sunset from the flying bridge, the highest deck on the boat, but the camera wasn’t sensitive enough to capture the color.

All the guide books are out, and there is much talk of hotels, surfing, flights. 17 hours to Fremantle!!