Photos from India

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Pouring stars over my head

What a magnificent experience it is to take a shower here in the tropics. I haven’t really gone into much detail about bathing habits on board the boat, but essentially this is the deal. There is not a shower on board and the only chance you have for a fresh water shower is to venture outside whenever it is raining. I have found this is not the perfect situation as every time it rains, I go up on deck with my shampoo and soap and begin lathering up. Usually by the time the shampoo is foaming up in my hair and I have covered my body in soap, the rain turns to just a slight drizzle. Frustrated, I usually drop a bucket into the sea and pull out a bucket of water to get the soap out of my burning eyes! Usually, the rain will gradually come back and you can get a good thorough fresh water rinse after your bucket bath. With that realization, I usually don’t even attempt to let the rain do the work, even when it’s pouring. I wash off with a bucket of sea water and then just stay out in the rain for a while to get all of the salt off my body. This I have found is a wonderful system and is the highest level of clean you can attain on the boat. Typically however, we are limited to just a bucket and the ocean that surrounds us. I have found that it is really not too bad if you just take your towel and dry off before the water evaporates and leaves the salt covering your body. While yes a fresh water shower would be nice, I don’t really mind the salt water bucket baths on deck.
After a wonderful spaghetti dinner, I decided to get all of the sun block off me before heading to bed so I grabbed my soap and shampoo along with the blue bucket that we use to pull water from the sea and headed up to the bow of the boat. As I first dropped the bucket in the water, I noticed the incredible phenomenon of the phosphorescents spreading out like firework from the bucket as it hit the water. Not that seeing the phosphorescence in the water is something new, it is just tonight, they seemed a whole lot more plentiful for whatever reason. Usually, we notice them anytime the boat is moving at night or if you scoop water out with a bucket at night. Tonight however, they were glowing quite brilliantly and I found myself dropping the bucket over the side and pouring the water back out just to watch the show of the tiny particles glowing.
Closing my eyes, I took the first bucket of water and poured it over my head. As the water ran over me, I again opened my eyes, dropped the bucket over the side again to watch the show and then brought the bucket back up. This time, I had my eyes open and it was the most incredible sight I have ever seen. Each little droplet of water that fell upon me lit up like I was pouring stars over my head. Everywhere I looked, the brilliant glowing droplets were falling. They bounced off of me and landed upon the deck where their flames were extinguished. Each consecutive pour produced the equally spectacular results. A shower of light covering every bit of me. It would be a fantastic thing to introduce to our water system back home. If you could somehow invent a filter that added the tiny plankton to your water just before it came out of the shower, everyone would take showers in the dark for the entertainment of being cleansed in water that looks like it is full of electricity. It reminded me of having a fleece blanket and rubbing your hand across it in the dark during winter to see the sparks of the static electricity light up the room. A shower like this would make anyone forget about the salt in the water and just sit back to enjoy the light show that engulfs them as the water flows down over their head.

No comments: