N.49°44’53” W.07°58’78”
The container-ship is ploughing straight towards the setting sun. The steel plates beneath my feet are pulsing with the drone of the diesel engines – pushing the metal through the waves.
The ocean is endless in every direction. A liquid planet spinning through space. As we travel across the water we live by a 23-hour clock.We lose an hour a day as we chase the sun – thumping through the waves in the opposite direction to the earth’s spin. But we are losing. The water is too thick and the planet is too fast. The sun races towards the horizon and we fall behind into the following shadows of twilight.
The cold sun is almost lost behind the curve of the sea. A final lunge of the ship’s prow down into the water and the last sliver of gold evaporates behind the waves. The darkening sky is enormous. The wind blows uninterrupted across hundreds of thousands of miles. The Joni Ritscher lurches and moans in the swell but above the rolling containers the first stars are perfectly still.