Word: oceaneering
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...Thursday of my third week, I had carefully honed these skills, and attempted to prove myself with an early morning stride-race to the lifts with Janice (who was supposed to be in New York but had presumably marched across the ocean in her hurry to get here...
What were some of the best moments? The Cocos Keeling islands, an Australian protectorate in the Indian Ocean, were a pretty amazing time. It was just the most beautiful place and pretty much uninhabited - there were 500 Muslims on one island and about 100 surfers on another...
...walk me through a typical day on the boat? It changed day to day, depending on where I was in the ocean. If I was near the shore, I had to worry about fishing boats, local traffic and shifting winds. If I'm in the trade winds, it's pretty much like doing whatever it is you do at your house, because you set the sail and don't touch the line for three weeks at a time. The wind comes in the same direction for months. When you're doing that, you get your eight or 12 hours...
...more stressful days, too - including, I believe, dodging pirates near Indonesia. Yeah, definitely. The hour when I had the pirate vessel coming down on me was probably the longest of my life. Then in the Indian Ocean I had to stay up for three or four days, trying to keep the forestay up to keep the mast from falling backwards. I was being told by the best riggers in the business that I could quite possibly lose the mast, which probably would have meant a stop to the trip...
...that everyday life might feel kind of mundane? I don't know. It's great to see my friends. At the same time, it's really weird not to have another goal that I'm really focused on. In port I had fun, but there was always that next ocean to cross...