Ikan Salai

Seamen are often conservative people. Not in a negative way, but our work is a traditional profession. Not a strict Navy style regime with uniforms, but nevertheless a strong hierarchical environment with rules and regulations. One rule is that inexperienced crew members are mentored by the experienced. Everything they know and had learned in the past will finally be transferred to the inexperienced. Old fashioned traditions are only kept alive by transferring them to the next generation. I learned how to smoke fish from the Van Ommeren captain I spoke about yesterday. He is retired now, and I hope the new generation on board now will tell their newcomers how to smoke fish when I retire. These mackerel were smoked almost three hours at 58 degrees centigrade, tasted delicious, and 'Ikan Salai' is Malaysian for smoked fish. How to smoke fish? Simple; make a small fire (no flames) in the drum you see on deck, put the box with fish on top and close it.

By the way: today the first drilling tower was lifted off, see this picture if you're interested