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Like I said bikers dig an adventure, like Dave Barr, the ex-mercenary/double amputee who has ridden all over the goddamn world on various Harleys and written a couple of books. Since he’s already done that with a lot of class, I had to do something different. It’s a week from Christmas and I’ve been on board for three weeks.
We are now a few hours from the English Channel and will be most happy to see it. It’s been a rough crossing on several accounts. For a few days no one could take showers because it would have been tantamount to jumping in a blender and turning it on high. We were riding the edge of a storm.
It’s calm now, but there’s one aspect of this adventure that’s really interesting. It’s a learning experience daily. I’ve now been through a jammed course on the Gulf Stream and how it affects the weather in Europe. If it weren’t for this super highway of warm water slicing from the tropics into the Atlantic, most of Europe would be as frozen as Canada. It also causes tremendous storms in this region because the warm water brings the lows and the cold above it sends down the high-pressure, clockwise storms stirring up nasty winds.
After we survived the storms we were running almost due east. Generally the wind runs at a high force east and northeast, crashing into the highs. But for two days we’ve been running smack dab into a westerly wind driving directly at us. OK, you say, what’s the big deal? On the positive side, we haven’t rolled for two days, but we’re like a bike going up a hill over speed bumps. We’re pitching like crazy, which is livable, but it causes the single screw to jump out of the water, or since the ship is not carrying cargo, the screw is bouncing to the surface and spins free. When it happens, this motherfucker shakes like a rigid on a washboard dirt road. When the screw hits the water ahead, the sonuvabitch jumps and jerks like a tire finally grabbing the pavement. The result of the jump and grind in the middle of the ocean is that the captain must make a decision. He can pour the coals to this baby and tear it from stem to stern or back off until the bulkheads don’t shake. No problem, right? When you’re talking about a ship that does 20 knots max (about 23 mph), if you knock that back to 13 knots, you’re adding hours, maybe days to the crossing. When you’re a horny sonuvabitch like me, that’s fuckin’ devastating news.
One final note and one additional aspect to the adventure is that we don’t know where the fuck the ship’s gonna go until we load the sucker in Hamburg, the home port, and even then the schedule changes constantly. We were originally told that we would be docked at home base for seven days and many of the officers alerted their families in Poland to meet them on the coast for Christmas. Then the itinerary was changed to four to five days, but yesterday we were told that we would only have a couple of days in port. Then it’s on to Antwerp for a few more. Then we’re wailing to who knows where.
Ah, but rest assured that all is well. We had a fire drill the other day and from the bridge deck the Filipino crew pulled out the hose and ran it across the deck with the nozzle in hand. It took a good 10 minutes for the forward pump to spring forth with the much- needed salt aqua, and as soon as the hose filled to capacity it split down the middle. Finally the hose was changed. We waited another 10 minutes for the water to reach the nozzle and it sprung forth with so little pressure it would have had a problem extinguishing a match at 15 feet.
Hey, no problem. My challenge is to find Harleys and women in Hamburg. We’re now nine hours time difference from L.A. so calls are a treat. That’s my excuse and report for this week. I’m also running another one in the Cantina Sunday Post. I’ll be reporting from Hamburg on Sunday. This is making for an interesting Christmas. Reports from the front are that the Bikernet crew put up a Christmas tree in the headquarters last night and the Bikernet mad feline, Lucky, attacked it this morning.
OK, goddamnit, go for a ride and have a cold one on me.
Merry, merry Bandit.
