There’s an ocean of expressions for the seafarers among us.

WHAT do John Masefield, Henry W. Longfellow, Samuel T. Coleridge, Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman and Ernest Hemingway have in common? Right, a fascination for the sea – an affinity hauntingly captured in their prose and verse of seafaring tales that live on like the never-ending line of alluring watery waves of the sea.

These names and more, related poetry and prose, even rhymes deemed forgotten, and scores of nautical expressions that have cruised into our daily speech, all drifted towards me as I stood on the (not burning!) spray-drenched deck of a ship recently. Indeed, the sea is a major source of sayings that have enriched our language use. My story? My husband and I joined a special three-day cruise recently to Phuket and Krabi in aid of the National Cancer Society of Malaysia.

While all buoyed up and looking forward to my brief sea sojourn I felt equally anxious about being seasick since I suffer from motion sickness. That was when an old brand name – Sea Legs, sailed through my mind. No, not the music band known for their “Falling asleep at the wheel” – hardly the kind of thought to dwell on before an ocean trip! I meant the pills to help me secure my sea legs, the sooner the better.

However, I took immense comfort knowing that I popped just one pill when we (I had joined some teachers – winners of Star-NiE scrapbook competition) set sail in 2004, returning exactly one week before the tsunami struck! I remember staring in disbelief at the television images of crumbled blocks of shops and buildings, all swamped and washed out. We had patronised some of these stores while on shore in Phuket. Tut tut! No negative thoughts! I admonished myself, in a stern lecture, shortly before departure.

We gathered at Swettenham Pier for departure – me, trying to look very nautical in my dungarees, head topped in boater-and-brim hat, with a duffel bag in hand that was stowed with some personal effects (barf bag not included!). That was when I first saw the cruise liner – “a tall ship” (Masefield); solid and steady ... that was enough leeway, surely, for a smooth sail, I assured myself (heck, again!).

I had opted for water travel for my first real break this year (and hoped the charitable cause that led me into the watery world would help me chart my other-worldly progress by scoring points with the Almighty!). It was a packaged voyage that included off and on shore excursions. On board I had settled for an ocean state-view cabin that came with a window, not for more view of water, and neither did I need Coleridge to remind me there was “Water, water every where” ... (and plenty to drink!), but just so I didn’t feel claustrophobic!

The vast view of the sea stretching to meet the sky so seamlessly on the horizon is really something. It does something to you and for you – I felt a strange yet intimate sensation, slowly coursing through my being; Masefield’s “Sea Fever”? A “something” that defies description; an affinity difficult to fathom. I wonder, though, if Longfellow captured its quintessence in this verse:

My soul is full of longing

For the secret of the Sea

And the heart of the great ocean

Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

On that “drizzly November” evening, whether I stood windward or leeward on the highest deck, with the ship “out of sight of land”, I wondered again if that “something” felt like Ishmael’s “mystical vibration” (Moby Dick). It was also reminiscent of Captain Jack Sparrow’s words ... beyond listing the parts of a water-craft, he draws a symbolic parallel between a ship and the inherently free human spirit: “That’s what a ship is, you know – it’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship needs (italics mine). But what a ship is ... really is, is freedom.” Note also Alaine Gerbault’s seaward declaration, “I wanted freedom, open air and adventure. I found it on the sea.”

Me? I was happy to turn idler for a change; clear my mind of all junk; catch my drift? I had my first cup of joe on board at Mariner’s Deck, in preparation for the long haul. Did I tell you? We ate with such relish; more than three square meals a day and at choice restaurants too. Needless to say all outlets had maritime names. My favourite was Ports O’ Call (not sure why plural, though) – where I called frequently, especially during “sale” on our last night on board; I bought earrings – I kid you not, it’s a nautical term; I wouldn’t let the cat out of the bag, otherwise. Apart from shopping, passengers could delight in many games. Bingo seemed a favourite. There was no limbo, though, a game said to be inspired by the high seas.

I must add that the crew proved to be an exceptional lot, with excellent people skills, well trained to toe the line, deft at handling situations of all kinds, and adept at multi-tasking; not wishy washy.

Guess what? I’m ready now to drop anchor here for a bit to give you a turn at the wheel (no sleeping!). Now that you are in the same boat, take stewardship of this section. If stranded, just dip into the pile of ocean debris (expressions given below the exercise) the sea has washed up for you to make your pick and you will soon be underway again. But ahoy there! You won’t win yourself a sailor, nor a sea dog, even with your A1 answers.

1. I attended a ______ once. It was tough but exciting.

2. After a sumptuous meal we sat ______ reminiscing, letting memories of some seafaring literature we had studied ______ us.

3. Please remember to check your ______ for all personal belongings before ______ the ship.

4. All passengers were told to retrieve their luggage at the ______ of the Penang International Cruise Terminal.

5. Since none of us know anything about ______, we’re expected to _____ fast, all 98 of them (Star2, Nov 5).

6. This act of adjusting a sail is known as ______, and it is done to allow the ship to sail at different angles to the wind (-do-).

7. ... safety is paramount ______ the ship. We’re not supposed to go out ______ without putting our harnesses on ... “You don’t want to be the man ______,” says ..., his ______ face growing serious (-do-).

8. It is the second day, and we’re right ______ to Pangkor Island (-do-).

9. “But we’re not in ______-infested waters. Anyway we’ve attached a spotlight by the ______ so we can see them ...” (-do-).

10. I asked him to take out the white cane ... and to hold one of my push bars so it looked like he was ______ me (Sunday Star, Nov 6).

I know you kept your shirt on throughout the exercise and supplied first rate answers! Well, there’s more to this salty language or “sailor speak,” if you like. But lest you get listless, or worse, lest anyone gets groggy, I’ll do a fly-by-night act. But not before I tell you that the relentless waves have swept on shore many more nautical notes which I have hoarded in my treasure chest perhaps for another day of stewardship at this page, if Skipper Jane says “aye,” of course.

Perhaps I linger to impress upon you the words of Isak Dinesen, “The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea.” How about an echo from John Kennedy? “All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came.” Vito Dumas nicely wraps it up for me “It’s out there that you are really yourself.” There, the innermost truth.

Land ahoy! All right, I’m abandoning ship ... for now.

Expressions used

stern, steering, chewing the fat, aboard, learn the ropes, disembarking, pirate, weather-beaten, sailing, boot camp, overboard, bracing, quayside, on course, on deck, cabin, wash over.

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