Sunsets, whales and space stations

There are, of course, massive perks to being out here in the great blue expanse of the Pacific, which I have no intention of glossing over.

For starters, it’s absolutely gorgeous:




It’s the strangest feeling of my life to be surrounded by water in all directions.

Normally if you’re taking a ferry or going on a leisure cruise somewhere, you’re never really out of sight of land, even if it’s just an inky smudge on the horizon. Out here, everywhere you look it’s just the white-topped swell on the watery blue of the ocean, with the grey-blue sky bleeding into the horizon.

My eyes and brain just aren’t used to it.
Especially having gone straight from the sensory overload of London, Tokyo and Yokohama, it’s like stepping onto the moon. If you stand on the top deck above the bridge, all you can hear is the wind, the sound of the boat cutting through the waves and the distant rumble of the engine at the back of the ship.

It’s even too far out for most seabirds. We saw a few hardy seagulls swooping in the distance yesterday, low over the water looking for fish to snack on.

But it’s not totally barren out here.
You have to remember that there’s plenty of life beneath the waves that we don’t see at the surface. We’ve already seen lots of flying fish jumping out of the bow-wake at the front of the boat. They’re really cool and look like silvery darts hovering above the water for an impossibly long time, until they plop back into the deep. Really strange but definitely an interesting addition to the scenery.

We also had a tantalising glimpse of larger life out here yesterday evening... the spout from a distant whale and some silvery fins on the horizon!
I was so excited I actually lost the power of speech for a minute or two. Hopefully we’ll see some more cetacean action before the cruise is done ☺

I decided to try and catch the sunset last night, as I’m migrating to the night shift tomorrow (12 midnight to 12 midday), so it might be the last one I’m awake to see.

This turned out to be a good decision:



Words cannot describe.

And later on, when the sun had slipped beneath the ocean and the stars had come out, and Jupiter was hanging huge and red, we saw the International Space Station whizz overhead, chasing the Space Shuttle toward the horizon.

The seasickness was worth it.
This. Is. Awesome.

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