Looking down on seaguls

Our room, our home for the next three nights is on the third floor of a modern hotel overlooking Torbay from Paignton.

I never sleep well for the first night away from home. Overtired from the journey, broken eating routines, different sounds and different air are the pesky little factors that conspire to disturb my sleep even more than it usually is. Last night they all worked together harmoniously and had the help of an additional conspirator. That was an unplanned trip to the nearest A & E five miles away in Torquay.

Room 315 has a wall to wall and floor to floor window. It doesn't matter what time I take in the view it is constantly amazing and limitless. My wife assures from under the duvet that it will still be there in the morning.

When we checked in there was a large orange coloured commercial ship lying about a mile offshore. At three in the morning she was till there. An array of white and sodium coloured lights making her look like a Christmas tree lying down for a rest until it was needed again. She is the "Coral Shasta" registered in the Marshall Islands that are somewhere in the Pacific between the Philippines and Hawaii. Her cargo is liquid propane gas (LPG) from somewhere to somewhere undecided which could explain why she is at anchor in Torbay far from the Marshall Islands and any specialist quaysides able to accept her cargo.

Her cargo, in the current volatile energy market, is most likely being bought and sold relentlessly until a decision is made somewhere in the world to commit to and take physical delivery. Even then, its final offloading can be delayed depending on the pricing contract.

At our time of check in LPG was being traded at 2.922 US Cents per kilo on a commodities exchange in America.

Four in the morning looking out of the window and towards the Coral Shasta I was ghosted by seagulls that I could look down on as they flew around the building. Their white silhouettes flitted in and out of my field of vision like airborne spirits. Silent, ethereal, spirits in the sky and purposeful all at once giving me a free avian air show.

Further away or nearer, as it is always hard to judge distances over water at night, the street lights of Torquay form a yellowish arc of light showing where the town ends and the ocean begins.

There were only a few lights on the Paignton pier which has been reaching two hundred and forty metres into the English Channel since 1879.

Five thirty and the Coral Shasta, what a title for a reggae song, is still in the bay. She has been joined by the Maersk Montana, a container ship registered in the United States and scheduled for arrival in Antwerp later tonight. Both are pointing towards where the prevailing wind is coming from. Even from the window I can see it is only a breeze.

Behind the ships some candy floss strands of light weft and weave their way through the thin clouds. The advance guard s of light for the fast approaching sun.

The price of LPG at this time had risen from 2.922 cents to 2.948 cents which in percentage terms is only 1% but in that period if the load had been bought and sold some trader somewhere was able to make $10,000 for each $1,000,000 the cargo was worth in thirteen hours.

As for the visit to the hospital, the patient is well on the way to a full recovery.