Obeying Whose Orders?

Dearest Rachel –

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best choice for me to be watching while I was waiting for the girls to show up last night.

For all intents and purposes, I really should be talking to you mostly about the dinner we had last night; one last get-together before I ship out. About how we agreed to go to Sushi Station, only to find out that it had been – and will continue to be – closed for several days. Apparently, it will reopen some time tomorrow (for all the good that does me) – we theorized that it’s been undergoing some remodeling or something. And then, I could talk about how I suggested the Korean barbecue place by Randhurst Village as an alternative, only for Erin to confuse it with another place by the same name on the opposite side of town – she would have shown up there, and both she and we would be waiting, wondering where the others were, had I not caught her description of the location. However, after we cleared that confusion up, the rest of us looked up the hours of the place we were going to online, only to discover that Erin was right, and the two restaurants are part of the same… can you call it a ‘chain’ when there’s only two locations (so far)? Anyway, we could have gone there, and had the same experience, more or less. Live and learn.

I could go on about the fun – and the challenge, let’s face it – of cooking our own food at the table, and determining what each of us did or didn’t like. For instance, it hadn’t occurred to me that, just because both Daniel and I like bulgogi, we might have been the only ones of the gang who would. Although, by and large, that was the exception to the rule; most of the rest of the repast was pretty eagerly devoured. Ellen talked about the latest release from her beloved Longest Johns, while Erin and I did our traditional back-and-forth about her insistence on paying for ‘her’ share. She seemed to be still salty about me getting away with it last time we were out; and here, I thought she’d finally learned to accept such a gift when it was given her. After all, all the others have.

I could also tell you how, aside from the whole check issue, she’s so much fun to watch sometimes – it’d be worth paying the cost of her meal just for that entertainment value alone. She makes the same face eating the brisket slices as she usually reserves for the raw salmon she saves for ‘dessert’ at the Station… so, I suppose that means that the alternative that was forced upon us wasn’t such a hardship as all that. And as we were leaving the restaurant, she began running off in the opposite direction of our car, for reasons known only to her, slaloming between light posts and trees planted along the sidewalk. It was only when Logan and I got out our cameras to (pretend to) film her antics that she began to run with her face covered by her hands, ultimately going around the corner in an effort to circumnavigate the block and meet us by the car, only to be thwarted by the fact that the block doesn’t seem to go all the way around, according to her.

And, I suppose, I have just now told you about all this stuff, after all. But this morning, when I woke up, I wasn’t thinking about that at all. For whatever reason, my mind was busy focusing on a video I was watching while I waited for everybody to assemble last evening in the first place.

It was one of those ‘creepy’ type videos I’ve taken to recently, for reasons I have yet to understand myself. Specifically, its topic was on ‘last moments caught on camera,’ with one segment in particular standing out: that of the MV Sewol, a ferry that was running between Seoul and Jeju Island off the southern coast of South Korea. The specifics of what caused it to sink seem to be inconclusive to this day, but during the two-and-a-half hours from when it began to list in the strong currents of the Maenggol Channel to when the last of the ship submerged, the passengers – including 250 students on a field trip from a city just south of Seoul – were instructed to stay where they were, as excessive movement might further tilt the ship and speed its sinking, and that help was on the way. 

The video clip shown was taken by one of the students, showing some of them joking about how they were practically standing on the walls, others fretting about the situation as they put on their live vests. What actual panic might have been among them was hard to tell from the footage. It may have been lost in translation, as Korean doesn’t have the same tonal cues that English does, so I don’t recognize them – and the subtitles, while allowing me to understand what was being said, distract from the visuals and being able to grasp the specifics of what was going on. Of course, by obeying the command to stay in place in their compartments, the dutiful students had been asked to sign their own death warrants, although they didn’t necessarily know it at the time. Meanwhile – and particularly galling – the captain and crew had mostly abandoned ship within an hour of the Sewol’s initial listing, going against regulations then in place; the captain, in particular, was given a life sentence for murder.

Much as my mind this morning apparently wanted me to compare it to my upcoming trip, I’m looking up details in order to tell you about this, and realizing that there isn’t much to compare with. For one, the Sewol was carrying more than twice her maximum cargo allowance, while at the same time having less than half the required ballast (without even adjusting that for the excess cargo weight); this after being modified several times by various owners throughout her career. By contrast, the Serenade of the Seas has only had the one owner throughout her twenty years in service, with no record of significant modifications that its Wikipedia page notes (take that for what it’s worth). It also benefits from a certain advantage in scale; at fifteen times the mass of the Sewol, while not utterly impervious to whatever the ocean can throw at it (nothing is, in the final analysis), I understand it to be less susceptible to the vagaries of nature. Granted, I may change my tune about that when we’re midway into the Pacific; feel free to point this out to me then.

But key to the loss of life were the instructions that were given, and followed to the death, by the abandoning captain and crew and the dutiful students, respectively. It really does matter to be trained as to what to do in the event of an emergency (yay, muster drills) and sometimes, whose orders you obey for what you think is your own safety. Take that however you will.

I have to confess, I woke up this morning in a bit of a worry about that. Now that I’ve done a bit more research, while I feel for the families of those lost in this incident, I don’t see myself nearly as concerned for myself on this particular venture as I did when dawn broke. Knowledge is power, and security.

Anyway, I still have a lot of preparations to make, so I need to let you go. Keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.