Day 60 – Strait of Melacca

Oct 27th

Pirates?!
While I spent most of the day catching up on schoolwork, we began our journey through the Straits of Malacca. This narrow, long (500 miles) and shallow strait is used by thousands of ships each year. The ships carry 25% of the world’s oil and 25% of the world’s trade goods. Hence, the Straits also harbor pirates, which current patrolling has reduced but not eliminated. In order to avoid being one of the few dozen attacks that occur in the Straits each year, we speeding through as fast as our little ship moves. To pass the night, a group of us gathered in the Union and watched an amazing documentary called Bombhunters, which documented the current, post-war conditions in Cambodia. Many civilians, who are too poor to find other viable jobs, search out and cut up bombs and ammunitions to sell as scrap metal to Thai steel companies. These people make $0.09/hour dismantling US-dropped bombs that they have no training for, so Cambodia has the highest rate of amputees in the world. While I was unwinding from the move in the dining hall, Dan ran up to me to tell me there were two, jumpsuit-clad crew men on the back deck looking for pirates! I had to check it out for myself. I pestered them with excited questions, but they really didn’t seem at all interested in staying up all night to look for pirates. They had never actually seen a pirate either, so my hopes of finding Jack Sparrow were negligible.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was realizing that pirates do exist (unlike Santa Clause). My “low” was finding out the laundry machines are broken after I just turned in my laundry.