The Banana Diaries

Day 1:
Today we left Anuta, well fed and ready to resume our diet of rice, homemade bread and canned vegetables. Luckily the anutans, in their endless kindness and hospitality, has provided us with no less than three stalks of green bananas and a cockpitful of coconuts. I'm gleaming, it must be about 400 bananas! Bananas are definitely my favourite fruit, and I always seem to run out of them, no chance of that this time!

Day 2:
Shitty weather again. I scrutinized the banana stalks today, and, lo and behold; I was able to find one banana that was almost yellow. It was just a little green, but it doesn't taste that bad with coconut. Can't wait for the rest of them to go ripe!

Day 3:
Egil pulls me out of bed at 0400 this morning. My shift. I put on my shorts, harness and inflatable lifejacket. I brave the rain and make my way up to the foredeck and the bananas. In the torchlight I can see several on one of the stalks gone ripe. Halelujah and christmas eve!! I pick half a dozen with me and enjoy them in the cockpit. Never mind the rain! I muse over the fact that we will be leaving a trail of bananapeels and cocohusks in our wake.

I've worked my coconut opening-time down to 10 minutes. Natures own soft-drink!

At lunch, eating fresh bread with banana and some banana for desert Egil says something about it being good we have the small type of banana as he always feel he struggles to finish off the big ones. I stare at him dumbfounded and reply "du må jo være domm i haue", which is adequately translated into "I have no idea what you are talking about mate. Whenever I have a banana I'm always wishing I could have one more"

I'm making dinner. Wok'ed veggies and green banana with tuna. Grilled honeybananas for dessert!

Day 4:
What can I say? I have polished off about 30 bananas today. Banana pancakes for dinner. Had three coconuts today. My body is craving for something salt, so I make myself some noodles. Feeling a bit funny.

Day 5;
We realize we're struggling to keep on top of the ripening process. We need to step up the consumption a bit. I was weeping blood as we had to throw a brown banana overboard. Made Egil promise we would not let it happen again. Feel a bit like having a coconut, but dunno if I can be bothered opening the bastard without using explosives.

Day 6:
When I get up in the morning after having slept after the 0000-0400 watch I realize Egil hasn't eaten any bananas during his watches last night. I notice when I go to fetch my compulsory morning-bananas. I give him a severe bollocking, and the mood is rather sullen for the rest of the day. A little after noon I try to make it up by getting Egil a couple of bananas, but he just looks at me a bit funny as he stuffs them into his mouth.

Day 7:
I dream about a blue woman insisting she is "Miss Chiquita" while some guy with a sombrero sings the Banana Boat Song over and over again. I wake up bathed in sweat with Egil's hand on my shoulder. He asks if I'm allright, says I've been screaming "go away, please, please!"
I get physically sick as I move to the foredeck and realize most of the bananas are ripe now. We need to eat more. I stuff down 4 bananas for breakfast while I throw the peels as far away from the boat as possible. Then I go wash my mouth.

I've been sleeping in the middle of day. When I wake up dinner is ready. I ask what it is. "Oven baked banana cakes" is the reply. A heated argument ensues, quickly reaches climax, then dies out as Egil grabs a banana from the stove-top and hold it in front of him as a knife. I'd rather it was a knife.

We're getting closer to Honiara now. During my night watch I creep up to the foredeck and rip loose two bananas while looking down into the deck. I deliberately avoid looking at the stalks. Back in the cockpit I start on the bananas. When Egil relieves me two hours later I'm still eating the second banana.

I don't go to sleep immediately. For a while I just lie on my bunk scratching the paint off the ceiling above my bunk. I hate the color. It's yellow.

Day 8:
Tonight I dreamt I was on the "Titanic". I was lowered in one of the lifeboats while people around me kept telling me how lucky I was. I sat in the lifeboat watching the rear end of the Titanic lifting high above the surface, then sinking. Everything was quiet, and in a weird way I felt happy, as if I'd escaped. Then I looked around me in the lifeboat and realize I'm alone, yet, in a way, not alone. I think it's a good thing. I look around for some oars so I can row away. I only find boxes. Square, paper boxes. The whole boat is full of them, everywhere. They are stacked five high, the stacks are higher than my head. Then I realize what they are. They are banana boxes.

I wake up panting in the cockpit. I'm just standing there looking out over the calm sea. Egil cocks an eyebrow from his rested position on the cockpitbench by the hatch. He wonders why I come running out from the cabin screaming like that.

"This is it" I think to myself. "It's you or the bananas Øyvind". When Egil goes to bed I stand for a while looking out over the sea again. I don't have a harness on this time. Then I move to the foredeck and start throwing bananas into the ocean.