Now the real grind begins. How do you kill time for 16 days?

The trip was inaugurated with a rainbow.

I awoke early (about 6am), thought the sun was already well up when I did so. The morning was very overcast but there was pretty good visibility, and you could see Vancouver Island to starboard, the Canadian coast to port. In the morning I met the passengers during breakfast (at 7am); Stevan (Yea, with and ‘a’, that’s not a typo) and Jane are couple moving to Korea to look for work teaching English; and Chris, an artist planning on turning this trip into some kind of work. Stevan and Jane are doing their trip with a surprising unprepared optimism; they have one Bachelor’s degree between the two of them (hers) and no teaching certificates. Stevan was there four years ago teaching, and he seems fairly confident that they will be able to find work. I am not so sure, (and many of the people I have met who talked to me about finding work in Korea would not agree) though I do wish them the best of luck. But of the passengers, they are a little more social than Chris, who seems to be keeping to himself in preparation (perhaps in search of inspiration) for his art project. From his description of what he has in mind, I would really love to see it when it is through.

With the rest of the morning I began John McWhorter’s The Power of Babel. I tried to progress Wool, but it was boring me pretty badly. Is it strange that most modern science-fiction bores me? Strange, as it once was my favorite genre. Anyway, I picked up a copy of Gone Girl from the officer’s rec room. We shall see if it is as good as everyone claims.

Vancouver Island. Canada is green.

through

Lunch (noon) was uneventful, but a lot nicer now that I have company. After dinner I stepped out on to the deck for a few and chatted with Chris. We were confused as to what direction the ship was travelling in. You could no longer see anything to the port side, and the starboard side still showed land. It turns out that in the morning we were actually travelling south to go around Vancouver Island. We had now began travelling north. We both noticed that the ship was actually travelling very slowly.  I went back into my room thereafter and read more Babel, and began reading Gone Girl.

Before dinner (5:30pm) I noticed a sign informing us to put back our clocks one hour before going to bed. Dinner was uneventful, except for getting to know my fellow passengers a little more. Chris, Stevan and Jane all spent some time on the deck wandering about. I told them that I would later, joking that one needed to pace oneself, and that there would be plenty of time for that later. Jokes aside, beyond those few minutes with Chris, I spent almost the whole day indoors. I would make a point of going out tomorrow. By 9pm (with the hour change) I was ready for bed. Early to bed, early to rise…