I have to write about the noise on board. You don’t think about it during the day, when you talk to people or are busy with something. But when you try to sleep, you hear
I have to write about the noise on board. You don’t think about it during the day, when you talk to people or are busy with something. But when you try to sleep, you hear it. According to my cellphone, it’s 75 decibel in my room, 24/7. That’s between ”inside car” and ”loud singing”. I like the idea of sleeping in a car, but sleeping next to a drunk friend trying to impress the whole ferry with a take on ”Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen does not entice me so much. The sound comes from various sources. The main sound is a dark sound, which I guess must be the motor of the boat. It sometimes varies alongside the movements of the bed, which is good. I hate beds that move out of order. And then there are all kinds of whipping sounds from various details around the room. Like metal, plastic, wooden parts vibrating up and down. Would an electric motor make less sound? Just an idea, in case a company would try to get more passengers. You could for example have cabin-sized containers that can be loaded like any other container, with some pipes to take care of shit and shower, just like they now have electricity for all their freezing containers.
I woke up at 2 am ship time after a dream in which I joined the senior organization for the Green Party just to be able to vote in some election. You had to do this the year you turned 28, which I did that year. A very flattering dream, or the opposite, depending on how you think about it. I think the senior organization is the part of the Green Party that I like the least, for example the religious resistance towards nuclear power, or them wanting to keep as many central trees as possible, forcing new citizens to live far from the town centre (= car), but I hope I’m wrong.
After lying for three hours reading, watching tv series or just listening to my drunk friend singing Bohemian Rhapsody with no end, I fell asleep again and dreamt that I met all senior organization party members who shook my hands and complained about me not attending meetings.
I had to go up for breakfast, in order to try my new fruit combination: kiwi, pear and orange. It was a bit too much as well (but its effect on my other parts was fantastic). So two fruits tomorrow. I hereby list the best two-fruit combinations with oats, including bananas, should they bring it:
Banana + Kiwi 14,7
Kiwi + Pear 14,2
Kiwi + Orange 14,1
Banana + Orange 13,6
Apple + Kiwi 13,5
Note how the best combination without Kiwi is not Banana + Pear, but Banana + Orange. That is because Banana and Pear have more similarities, so they’re not as good to combine to get all juicy vitamins and minerals.
After breakfast, it was time for the engine room. Most people who take these ships as passengers do it to get a remarkable experience, being interested in everything, such as the engine room. I don’t care at all, I just like to travel without killing so many people. But sure, let’s go. So we walk down there, assisted by a Romanian engineer. The sound below is insane. It’s not like one guy singing Bohemian Rhapsody, it’s like living inside the singer’s throat with extra loudspeakers by your ears. I could hardly stay one hour down there, despite the ear plugs. Amazing that people work down there for eight hours straight. I think the staff would love a silent electrical engine as well.






Ah, the oil. We have to talk about the oil consumption about my trip. If I, and everything that I need (bed, food, my part of the hull etc) is one ton, and if we say that my boat is old (this is from 2015, but call it old for fun), then travelling from Rotterdam to Saint Martin releases less than 70 kilos of CO2. Which is like 14 hamburgers, one a day. In fact, eating meat on the ship, which I have to do since they don’t really hear my bean wishes (I’ll buy my own beans next time) makes me pollute more than travelling! Flying the same distance, one-way, would be a ton of CO2, 14 times more, straight into the atmosphere. (Or a lot more than 14 if we calculate on my ship being new.) This is some very lazy calculations, taken from here: https://www.wired.com/story/the-ultimate-carbon-saving-tip-travel-by-cargo-ship/ If you have better info, please share and I’ll update.
At the same time, cruise ships are very bad, worse than airplanes sometimes. The reason is all the space they have for the passengers. The restaurants, the dance floors, the shopping etc. And the space for cars. So, just like for flying, the amount of _luxury_ determines the fuel consumption. The best is to just buy a seat place, and don’t spend money otherwise. Eat your own sandwich. I ought have done it on the Igoumenitsa-Bari trip but didn’t [excuse], but most people did.
And ships get better and better. New ships are tremendously better than old. And they can work on batteries, since they _float_. China and Scandinavia has electric ships already. There is no technology for making long electric flights. They might develop it in the future, of course. But only if you – yes you – start boycotting fossil flights right now, to get the money where it belongs.











Then gym (pull), then lunch. I was so hungry before lunch, so forget about those two fruits.
I had a coffee on the bridge afterwards, and the guy up there told me about the hundreds of dolphins that showed up half an hour since I last left the bridge. I haven’t seen a single dolphin on this trip, while Daniel and Chloe see them all the time. I’m not bitter.

Spent the afternoon drinking coffee and not sleeping. Met the captain and talked about beans. All I want is the same as the rest, but no meat, and beans instead. Totally uncooked beans (except for boiled if they aren’t) and I’ll spice it up with Tabasco. It should be cheaper for them, and almost the same amount of work.
But for dinner it was beef and potatoes, nevertheless. Then we played Monopoly (Singapore edition), the only board game aboard. I should have bought my own board game in Holland, and left it on the ship! Monopoly is such a game of psychology. Make the others not make a deal, but try to make deals yourself. I won. I almost cheated by not telling the rest that you can sneak past other player’s streets without paying. Maybe I would have won anyway.

Then Spanish, and not sleeping, until it was 22, local time. Then I snuggled down in bed, in fetus position with a pillow between my knees and one under my head, and the ship let me keep that position. Ear gloves, and a beanie on top, to shot everything out. Fell asleep like a baby.