Razvan, a young Romanian guy, has been waiting for us in his third officer uniform. Unfortunately, we board several hours later than he was expecting us and instead get invited to his room where he's in his trackies smoking cigarettes. He is our designated officer for the trip and within minutes of talking we can tell he will be fun company.
We eat dinner in the officer's mess, and at our table are the wives of a few of the Romanian officers, who have have been aboard since the boat arrived Trieste, but who will be disembarking again tonight for another two months as their elusive husbands set off for sea.
The table is laid with cabbage salad, cottage cheese and cured meats – presumably all foods that will last at sea in the cold store several decks below, and they're wolfed down heartily by the Romanian officers. The officers and crew, totalling twenty-three men, are a mix of Romanian and Filipino, although even the Filipino officers choose to eat down the hallway with the crew, where the language is theirs and the food is familiar.
Romania and the Phillipines, I'm told proudly, are great sea-faring nations, although obviously with two very distinct cultures. Manifestations of these cultural differences, however, seem more playful than tense, and it's clear, when they get back to work, that the sailors' differences are superseded by their common experiences at sea.
No comments:
Post a Comment