Blogger on Board (4): What to Cope on Board

Finally, after a week at the harbour, the ship started to move. I was so excited to feel the adventure lies ahead of me. This is my first duty on board (as i told you several days ago) and the first time i'd be travelling on a ship for a longer period (my last trip with ferry lasted about an hour or so, from Batam to Tanjung Balai Karimun vice versa). Yohohohoho. Finally i had a chance to feel what our dear Marine Customs Officers (or i'd rather say, Crews?) feel everyday, first hand. And somehow i ended up written it in English (unlike my previous posts). It's been a long time since my last English-written article, so feel free to correct my grammatical errors. Sooo, this is my notes about (obviously written on the title) 'what to cope on board'. Let's check it out:

#1 and foremost, the wave

Up and down, up and down. Seems like a simple movement we taught to the toddler, right? Not only making our movement harder, those simple movement brings its own magic: it'll effectively stir up your stomach contents and will make your head feel like spinning. For those unfamiliar with travelling at sea, this could pose a real threat: seasickness. The crew said that if you are not prone to travel sickness while on land, you are less prone to seasickness (however that's not always the case). The cure: Sleep ascendent to the ship's movement, position yoursef at the lower part of the ship. Eat up. Even if you might end up puking it out, it's still much better than puking out your stomach acid only. Once you cope with it, prepare to deal with the second threat:

#2 the wind

When the ship set sail, the sea breeze is eternal. You know, it's a matter of elementary school's science about how water's very high heat capacity that make the water needs a lot of energy to increase its temperature so the ocean will be cooler than the land during the day (the land absorbs as many heat as the ocean during the day from the very same sun, but the land easily heated up; maybe because of the emotional people on land?), hence the air pressure there is higher than in land so the air moves from sea to land. I'm not being complicated, right? 

The cure? warm drink. It will comfort your stomach. Do not expose yourself to the weather (or you'll regret it like me. I was so excited when the ship set sail that i went sightseeing at the side of the bridge, fully exposed to the cruel wind. Silly me). Wear long sleeves/warm clothings unless you are used to be on board. Once you are safe from the element, comes the next enemy:

#3 limited conditions

When the ship is at the harbour, it is relatively easy to refill the freshwater tanks: just call the freshwater provider and they'll supply your ship's tanks in minutes. When the ship is set sails, we have to use water wisely; bath is not everyday neccesity anymore. Food might be less thing to worry about since the cooks already refill the rations according to the sail plan. As today's generation needs to be constantly connected, one thing might be come into our concern: internet are limited to ships equipped with V-sat devices (it's some kind of wifi transmitter, but using sattelite signal instead of land based cellular tower; not available on all ships, sadly), so prepare for the next step of ship's life:

#4 the boredom

Unable to set foot on land, limited water, limited or no internet at all, seasickness potential, all accumulated into this ultimate challange at the sea. What can you do during the voyage, other than doing your on board duty? Well, look for the previous post of mine. 

Actually, there are more things to cope on board during the marine patrol duty. Doing vessel inspection, facing smuggler's ship, violent weather, sudden illness (some of the crew got sick during the duty and had to be hospitalized at a certain island), unwelcoming local people (not all people are giving us a good welcome, especially at certain islands where smuggling is a promising profession, since Customs & Excise officer's duty could harm their business), sea ghosts, sea kings, pirates, eleven supernovas, shichibukai, yonkou, wait, hold up, that's not what i mean. I mean that i haven't face the worst yet (and i hope i won't), so what i had writen here is according to my limited experience on board. If there's anyone with much more experience among the readers willing to share the experience, feel free to write at the comment section. 

Here i spent the morning, and fell victim to the wind

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day, fellas.