Monday, September 17, 2007

Seagulls

Seagulls are not really my favourite. I think my dislike stems right from my cadetship, when I would spotlessly clean or paint the deck & a seagull would come swooping down from the heavens, crap on the deck & nonchalantly fly away to another part of
the deck to repeat its handiwork.

As I progressed along the ranks, I grew slowly possessive of the ships under me & the behaviour of the Seagulls was simply unacceptable. In most parts of the world, these chaps are excellent fliers & often glide in place for up to fifteen minutes
without moving a wing. Actually that would be neat in itself, but what happens is that they keep pace with the moving ship & maintain their position without flapping a wing. As the ships bows break through the waves, they glide around the bow, waiting
for the fishes to break through the frothing sea before they would dive & in my fervent imagination, be run over by my bows to be gruesomely killed in the churning propeller.

But that was not to be. A few seconds later the seagulls would come bobbing up the water, often with fish in their beaks & then go back to floating above my foxel & ejecting the same fish from their hind parts.

I met these seagulls in the caribbeans & these guys I like. They are really horrible at gliding in place & keep swooping in their sleek bodies all over the place. And they don't crap much.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Velu! :)
It's only today that I finally discovered your blog (through a link on TT). My, is this beautiful...
Your posts and your pictures are just great, and what you wrote about the seagulls really made me smile. I'd never looked at them that way, that they don't exactly keep ships neat and tidy :)

But you make me wonder: did you ever read Richard Bach's short novel about the most famous of 'm all? Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a story about freedom, challenge and the right to be who you really are - way up in the blue skies... If by some chance you didn't know it yet, please whenever you can find the time just use below link and enjoy!

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

safe & happy travels
to you, your colleagues and your ship!

mieke - netherlands