So I’m getting farther and farther behind on these. We’ve been so busy working to get the ship ready to sail it’s been hard to accomplish anything in the off hours, I haven’t been so tired in a long time. But without further adieu (and possibly with a lot fewer details) here are the last two weeks (sort of) of my life in photo form.

Week 6 – Day 36 – 1/19/2011

Packing up our office out at Appelsbosch. It takes a lot of shredded paper to get the job done in the end.

Day 37

Murray is our Assistant Purser, and he likes to show off the latest fashions whenever he gets a chance. This is from my first day actually living on the ship.

Day 38

Believe it or not, computers need fresh air too. We took them out for a bit of a view of the port and some time to reflect on life and how they don’t actually have one… that got weird.

Day 39

We were at the local hangout when an umbrella decided to catch the nearest breeze and fly into the water. Whether it was having an identity crisis and wishing it was a boat or was simply in desperate need ofa swim I couldn’t tell. What I could tell was that the restaurant staff were mildly stressed by the situation and far from keen on losing a second.

Day 40

This climbing wall is three stories tall in the middle of the Gateway Mall in Durban, billed to be the largest mall in the southern hemisphere. Whether or not you choose to believe this is up to you, but I choose to based little on fact and mostly on a desire to believe I’ve been to the largest mall in the southern hemisphere. So shoot me for my willful ignorance.

Day 41

This is among the more weird experiences that Mercy Ships has to offer… at least so far.

Day 42

The ship was pretty much cleaned from head to toe, including the ceilings and the walls. It’s a dangerous job but somebody has to enjoy it.

Week 7 – Day 43 – 1/26/2011

As much as I understand the need for this I couldn’t help but stop and stare for a couple of minutes.

Day 44

The sunsets off the port side of the ship were amazing. This is the port of Durban at its best. And those “bridge looking things” are cargo loading cranes in case you were wondering.

Day 45

We had to hunt down and clean every computer on the ship before we re-imaged them (reinstalled all of the software on them). There were lots to go through and they were filthy.

Day 46

In spite of the dozens of boxes we packed and sent to the ship in the weeks before the move from Appelsbosch to the ship, we still had tons to take apart, pack, and send off. We use lots of technology apparently.

Day 47

The church that many of us attended here in Durbs (Northside) prayed over us as we prepared to set sail.

Day 48

Hanging out with my buddy/roommate Cyle, some good quality laptop bonding time.

Day 49

We got our lifeboats back finally and they ran some drills. They were out to be repaired for a good while. We were listing a lot that day (listing means the ship is leaning to one side or another) and while I’m not certain I think this had something to do with it.

Runners Up Etc.

Not a ton of runners up, I’m getting too tired to post them tonight. If I get around to it I’ll amend this with more later, but for now here’s what you get!

Appelsbosch afforded us many interesting discoveries. Possibly the most interesting of them all was the 5L jug of “tomato sauce” (a.k.a. ketchup) that was at least 12 years old and had separated into a deep red liquid on top and a thick red gellatenous mass on the bottom. The term “nasty” doesn’t begin to cover it, and it could have been used for some great pranks, but we left it in our office when we packed up.

I worked so hard the day we drove out to Appelsbosch to finish packing up our equipment that I puked on the way back. I almost made it all the way, I had a migraine at this point, and had regained my composure when the smell of the port hit me. I proceeded to lose it. Olly (our transportation manager) will be happy to know that I cleaned it up before I went to my cabin and crashed.

Fire and life boat drills give you a chance to stand around and reflect on all of those ways you could be dying.

Missy, on the other hand, takes these moments as chances to catch up on all of the good jokes she’s been meaning to tell.

And there you go! I’ll try to post a few more runners up here soon. Any grand exploits in your lives recently?

Filed under: 1 P/D, 1 Photo per Day by Jay