The snake

“WHAT IN THE FLYING FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!?” That's my body communicating with me. It’s because this is the first real exercise I’ve had since the unfortunate incident in Åre last January. After the arm broke I have spent a great deal of time in a more or less horizontal position and now I am working hard. The ship is capable of carrying 6000 cars. Each car needs 4 lashings to make sure it doesn’t move. How many lashings is that, pray tell? It’s a lot. And you cannot appreciate how many it is until you’ve spent an entire day picking them up from the cargo decks. It’s like most jobs, I guess. Sometimes you have to bend over.

Today was 14 hours long. A foreman greeted me thusly: “Diss is Africa my friend and you are welcometoit. Be com-for-taybell!” And one of the stevedore asked me if I liked mushrooms, said he had a good dealer. And snake. “You like snake?”, he said. Instinctively I said no even though I have no idea if he was actually offering me reptile or if “snake” is some kind of forbidden aphrodisiac. I think I did the right thing but I must say I am very curious. 

For those who’ve been at sea knows that ships have a certain smell. The recipe is simple:
3 oily rags (preferably hydraulic)
3 table spoons of old grease
1 dl Heavy Fuel Oil 
3 dl salt water (1.025)
Put in blender and mix well. 
Set on fire.
Enjoy.
But in this case it’s not true. The smell of this ship is totally bizarre. Since the cargo is always brand new cars, that is what it smells like. I have “new car scent” in my cabin. And I’m not really sure how I feel about that.