After the Storm

The overcast is a pale gray. The sea rolls with a modest swell and occasional white cap, settling back from the overnight storm. The Captain had warned us of this storm coming from America eastward across the north Atlantic in his noon advisory the day before. It hit almost exactly as he predicted, awakening me at 0045 ship time with reported gale force winds. There was a loud thud in my forward stateroom, perhaps a wave hitting the bow. More precisely, the bow hitting a wave as our flesh and steel are the foreigners in this vapid, endless landscape of gray above and below. The creaking of the ship’s furnishings against the steel skeleton and the motion felt in different sensory centers of the brain evidenced that a moderate roll was being thrust upon the steel and flesh. I would awaken to this a few more times in the night but overall sleep was at hand.

At 0630 the servants were about on deck seven. Like silent ants, they squeeged the teak deck to remove the overnight rain. First on the interior side. Then they pulled the deck chairs, void of cushions, back towards midships and swept the remaining rain into the deck gutters. The chairs were put back towards the railing and one by one the cushions were removed from the big wooden boxes and cast into the chairs followed by other servants tying them down. Then came other servants to wash the windows of the Kings Court restaurant on deck seven. Along the length of the restaurant on port and starboard are greenhouse bump outs for the lucky ones who can find a seat to watch the ocean swells pass by while eating breakfast or lunch. Every morning the servants would wash these windows with sponge and squeegee. As they were washing my window this day, it began to rain. And now, at the end of my breakfast, a second time it is raining. The windows will have to be washed again tomorrow.