My trip from Male’ to Kochi on INS Jalashwa (page 5)

I had friends with me on board. That was the only way to pass time. They were fairly adventurous themselves. One had even found a way to enter the anchor room, even before we departed. That was our meeting place of sorts. Not many people knew about it, and it had lots of windows to look through. Only place inside where we could do so.

I saw Navy guys cleanup the water in our sections. They did a great job, but the AC was no slouch. She was as furious as before, pumping out even more water. It was back to mud slush in a few hours’ time. Previously, when we were on the open deck, the Navy officer in charge of us were telling us how this evacuation was the largest of its kind by any country. I was wondering why nobody else bothered to do it though. Hmm… Well of course nobody was brave enough. Not because it was not hygienic in a pandemic to transport a bunch of people in a Petri dish environment for two days in open ocean. Nope. Definitely not that.

That said. The I Salute the navy for all the efforts they put into making our lives a little better. They did not make the decision to bring us. They were ordered to. And they did a tremendous job at that. It was a good day. They served lunch, which was the same as the dinner last night. I was really hungry, so I did my time to get to the food. There was another temperature check this time. I got some sleep afterwards and then we were all again called back up on the open deck for sunset. Had a briefing on what was going to happen the next day when we arrive at Kochi port in India. Sunset was again, surreal to my eyes at least. They finished up some formalities that were still not completed, from the boarding day. Turns out they had to stop the boarding process towards the end and do the rest on the ship after the ship had started the journey.

They put on a movie that night. It was one I already watched, still I took the excuse to stay on the open deck. Skies were clear and amazing. Up until lightning blades were visible on the horizon. Everyone was instructed to return to their mess. I went down early that day, skipped the dinner chore. Half tired from the pills I were taking and other half from heat exhaustion.