22^nd October. This morning we crossed the equator at approximately 7:45 AM. Duncan was on the bridge to record it in his little black book, as he has been keeping a record of the noon positions etc., right throughout our trip. The Chief Officer has been telling him for the last couple of days that the world has a line lit up around it on the equator to mark it so it can be seen by travellers who cross it for the first time and it was a pity that it was so light this morning and he wasn’t able to see it. There are two crewmen, Duncan, Karin and Ose who have not crossed the equator by ship before so we thought there would have been some type of ceremony for them, however this didn’t eventuate. 1630 our second emergency drill. Up to the bridge with our life jackets and safety hats (Not in the lift – stairs only). The crew runs through their life boat drill and a drill for a fire in  no 7 hold. Stand down at about 1720.

23^rd October. Today’s highlight was “Bingo” at 5:30pm. With a typical lazy day before hand. Duncan had a false start and called a line one number to soon and incurred a US$10.00 fine, that helped the prize pool for the next game in which I won US$8.00 for the second “House”. The weather has given us the first showers of the voyage with a very heavy shower about 10:00pm, it’s still warm though.

26^th October. Nothing much happening at present only the clock movements giving us 23 hour days. One could say that each day is just another day in paradise. It is really quite pleasant to pass the day with the fact that your only worry is to be in the officers mess at  meal times.

28^th October. This morning we had our first sighting of land since we left Suez on the evening of the 16^th we went around the south western corner at about 9:45 AM. There was another highlight today as well. A conducted tour of the engine-room. We were to be in the ships office at 10:30 and were met by the ships electrical officer who took us right around the engine-room. We started with a look around from the top platform (there are four platforms) then we went into the control room (the only place you can hear anything) and explained the workings, firstly about the control room, then the rest of the engine-room, as its impossible to hear anything out of the control room and also we were wearing hearing protection. Then as we went around the rest of that platform and the next platform down. He carried a clipboard and note paper to write explanations on as he went. It’s not possible to remember all the statistics but just let’s say that it’s BIG nine cylinders two stroke with two big turbo blowers to feed it air. There are four electric generators that can generate enough electricity to power a reasonable sized town and what you could call a substation to step the voltage down to 400, 220 and 24 volts. A water generation plant and pressure pumps, sewerage plant, boiler and the computer equipment to run the lot from the control room. All in all again a most interesting morning. With all this happening it meant we had to spend the afternoon resting so we would have enough strength to do our dinner justice.