Monday 18th July

I hope to be going out to the town today, it is my off day, and I want to go visit, perhaps get another hoodie, and if possible, some obscure musical instrument :-). Apparently Durban will be amazing for shopping, and the next port (which I have forgottent the name of) has a cool outdoor market.

Anyway. Enough about shopping. Boring subject.

Most of the previous STEP have left now, only 2 left, one of whom is joining us for the next month and a bit. Seems amazing that time passes so quickly here… 1 guy on the STEP has done half of his time already!

Tomorrow afternoon we will set sail for the next port, sailing time 3 days, inclusive of arrival and departure. It’s still strange to me how many people really dread the sailing, and still get seasick. Many of the longtermers do every time. One would have thought that they would get used to it, and for it to no longer effect people so, but apparently not.

I found, in the book-exhibition, 2 greek new testaments, one in modern greek, the other with 1 page of original greek, the opposing page with the same verses but modern. Very cool, and 25 units each (about 25 cents, I think?). I am still having problems getting used to the currency, something like 35000 meticas to 1 USD… and 50000 meticas to 100 doulos book-ex units… Very confusing.

The port here is very boring. Containers as far as the eye can see, and one must take a shuttle bus to get to the port gate, and then 10 minutes walk from the gate to get to the town centre.

There is music everywhere on board, quite a mixture. From CONSTANT worship CDs in the book-ex, to michael w. smith in the foc’s’cle, occasional dire straits, P.O.D, other various Christian heavy/death metal bands, trance, rap, classical, rock, and so on. Oh, and light piano jazz from fire station 3 at all hours.