Day 14

Air / Water temperature: 17°C (12°C at night) / 16°C

Wind direction / Bft: East-southeast / 1-2

Area: FINIS RAPAE (a smell of mussels in the air) – Nautical chart showing the route

Combuse: Silver seabream (1 kg) scale, break out intestines, rinse and pat dry. Make five cuts per side. Moisten the outside of the fish with the help of half a lime, salt lightly and sprinkle evenly with flour. Heat oil in a frying pan and bake fish for 10 minutes per side until crispy and brown. Heat 2 tablespoons of canola oil in a small pot, add 1 large onion thinly sliced, 4 cloves crushed garlic, fry until translucent. Add 8 green chillies deseeded and finely chopped, 1 tablespoon finely chopped coriander root, fry briefly. Add 1 tablespoon sugar and let it melt. Add 1 dl of water and ½dl fish sauce, simmer 5 minutes. Squeeze in the juice of ½ lime and add 40 Thai basil leaves, stir briefly and serve with the fish. (More rcipes from the Chief cook of «PS Narina»)

Oskar has been scampering up and down the railing since early this morning. He could have chosen to pause now and then and give me a reproachful look. But he didn’t. Or, he could have brought something along with his pincers: a leaf, a sliver of wood, the building material of a nest. He didn’t do that either. Ants probably do not build nests only for themselves. Be that as it may, I haven’t the foggiest about where Oskar sleeps; he surfaces at some point in the morning only to vanish in the late evening. Perhaps he never sleeps; perhaps ants need no sleep. Or, he does not sleep because he is afraid of his dreams. What can an ant’s nightmare possibly be? Perhaps he’d like to dream of finding himself, isolated from his folk, on a paper boat again (together with a guy he has to call captain). Perhaps he believes that he is trapped in a dream. Perhaps he is running hither and thither on the railing in a bid to pull himself, at long last, out of his slumber and into a state of wakefulness.

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