‘Good morning! We have sort of arrived in New Zealand, it’s a pancakes and fruit kind of morning, are you awake?’ When Dante came in to wake our cabin up, he set the tone for the day.  

I was very excited for the pancakes and I know for a fact I wasn’t the only one. Pancakes for breakfast had actually been strategically orchestrated by the cunning voyage crew. It seems as though the usual rotation of boiled, scrambled, and fried eggs was not hitting the spot and so, they wrote a song to communicate this sentiment. At the daily two o’clockie, our chance to communicate the upcoming plans with one another, a couple of instruments lurked around the edges of the crowd. After we made the last announcement, that ‘dungeon tours’ would commence again today after their postponement, the ships singer-songwriter-busker, Nick, stepped forward with his mandolin. When Nick has his mandolin, captain Hans is never far with his fiddle. The two burst into song, Nick leading and Hans freestyling along the way. They sung of Sytske, our youngest crewmember, and her desperation for pancakes. The song was titled, ‘The no-pancake blues’. Each verse had details of Sytske’s nightly excitement that, ‘tomorrow must be the day for pancakes’, followed by her increasing desperation on seeing different forms of eggs, culminating in her wailing and rolling around on the deckhouse floor. I guess this was just subtle enough a hint for the galley to make pancakes the next morning. 

So I prepared for the day quickly, warm pancakes awaiting me. When I stumbled into the lounge, half asleep, half ready for the day, I was greeted not only with the warm, sweet carbohydrates that had been promised, but a glorious selection of fruits, from watermelon to oranges, kiwi to bananas. This was also the product of manufactured events. New Zealand have a rule about not landing any fresh produce in their ports, so the alley were desperately on a fruit-drive with us, putting piles of pears out at snack times and lacing every desert with apples. Back to the breakfast, though, and there was a wonderful cherry on top- real authentic (Costco) maple syrup! Needless to say, this evaporated into thin air very fast, but was spectacular while it lasted. 

Maybe we should move on from breakfast now and to the rest of the day, as I am growing hungry again just thinking about it. On deck, the air was clean, with a sharp cold that everyone found refreshing after the sticky heat of the tropics. I ate my breakfast looking out over the sea to see New Zealand greeting us on the horizon (I guess this is what Dante meant by ‘sort of arrived’). There was a rainbow in the distance and the sky was only lightly scattered with clouds. We were sailing at a steady 7 knots with very little rolling, gliding along the current. I kid you not- a pod of dolphins erupted from the water in front of the rainbow, followed by a rag-tag group of birds, hoping for an easy meal. An albatross then appeared from the horizon and wheeled around the ship against the sun, wings spread in majesty, reminding us of the mythical status of this group of birds. 

All this before the watch started. There are worse offices to work in, or so I’ve heard.