Day 17

Air / Water temperature: 15°C (9°C at night) / 17°C

Wind direction / Bft: Southwest / 2-3

Area: ALECHIA (fine drizzle) – Nautical chart showing the route

Combuse: Tilapia (600 g) break out intestines and gills, scale well, rinse and pat dry. Make several deep cuts on both sides of the fish. Bring to boil 1½ liters of water with 1 stalk crushed lemongrass, 3 cloves of crushed garlic, 1 sliced and crushed walnut-sized piece of ginger, 1 teaspoon ground turmeric. Put in the fish, let boil briefly, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, skim off foam. Raise fish from broth and let cool slightly. Remove skin from fish, take off the loose meat from the bones and set aside. Crush carcass and head a bit and give it back to the broth. Bring to boil again, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, skim frequently. Pour soup through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan, Squeeze carcasses well and discard then. Set broth aside. Make a paste in the blender with 3 stalks lemongrass finely chopped, 30 g chopped ginger, 20 g finely chopped coriander root, 4 fresh Thai red chillies seeded and chopped, 100 g Thai shallots chopped, 6 cloves garlic chopped, 1 teaspoon salt. Heat some oil in a frying pan, add paste from the blender and 1 teaspoon shrimp paste, stir well and cook gently 5 minutes. Pour in the fish broth and 2 tablespoons fish sauce, bring to boil, reduce heat. Add the pieces of fish, 40 g of dry roasted and mortar-ground perfume rice, 60 g of cooked chickpeas slightly mashed with a fork, simmer for 5 minutes. Season with fish sauce. Cook 160 g rice noodles according to package and distribute on 4 soup bowls, pour soup over and sprinkle with green onions and coriander. Serve with quarters of lime. (More recipes from the Chief cook of «PS Narina»)

The night allows us to see the world only in relative terms. In the lamplight, one recognises only fragments. As only one side of the object is usually illuminated one has to necessarily assume what the full form looks like. The morning’s consequences are even more violent; with breathtaking speed the nimble fingers of daylight form a new world out of the diffused masses of the night, an enduring world that holds meaningful connections and logical links – a gigantic act of creation.

There are also days that dawn not with a violent crescendo of light but with barely any change in scene. On such mornings the dark grey of the night changes almost imperceptibly into a somewhat lighter shade of grey. What we miss then is the sudden evidence of the world as a whole. As a consequence, we develop a certain mistrust of the physical relationship between things, which appears, more than ever, to be an illusion.

Next day (18)

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