Ft. Lauderdale and beyond to the Caribbean

So what exactly can I tell you about the port of Ft. Lauderdale, it’s no Miami put it that way.

I don’t remember much about either if I’m really honest FL as I’ll refer to it is pretty industrial and there is a couple of places we generally went to if we had the day or morning off.
There was an Irish Pub which most tended to head to or alternatively the mall which again I can’t remember the name off and other than blowing our wages I don’t recall why we went other than to escape the ship for a few hours and return to normality.

There were little vans in both ports selling pop/soda, and the worlds worst chocolate, they have no idea what good chocolate tastes like or how to make it if they haven’t left the states. Hersheys is the worst chocolate I’ve ever tasted, and that is a fact. I think I relied on m&m’s or haribo and other crap from the gift show, skittles too.

So we used to cruise alternate eastern, western itineraries when we we’re in the Caribbean. So from what I can recall, a bunch of the ports I visited were Key west, in the Florida Keys, Cozumel a Mexican Island just off the mainland. We called into Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands a little home away from home, next up was Limon in Costa Rica which was definitely one of the not so nice places I’ve been to and then of course on this run we had Panama, ah yes, Colon, Panama. You see Colon was aptly named because you couldn’t really go too far from the port for risk of being attacked.

There were a bunch of guys who did go out and they had there wallets, cameras and anything else taken some of them were actually attacked. There were a few places in the port to go, and again the food places were pretty much subway and a bunch of local places and that’s about it.

We were supposed to visit Columbia, I think Cartagena but because of issues with passenger safety we never actually visited. So then I think we landed at Ocho Rios, Jamaica a drug paradise and that was pretty much it on that run.

So on the other route which was hands down the better run of the two, so this time we headed east towards what I like to call the Caribbean arc. We called into ports like Castries, St. Lucia, St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, I’m not sure if we called into San Juan, Puerto Rico – I have been before on the Triumph but not sure on this run. We called into Basseterre, St. Kitts, Bridgetown, Barbados was somewhere I grew to love a lot later in my career but at this particular time I rarely spent anytime ashore here as it was only a half day call. I think we may have called into St. John’s, Antigua but again can’t be 100% sure on that one.

So that’s how it was for the contract for about 10 months of my live, it was total plain sailing if you’ll pardon the pun, there were as at Carnival a lot of ups and downs. I like to think I got through this contract due to a close knit bunch of friends again. Andi, nick, Kelly, Alex, and latterly Al and Emma all who worked in the shop spring to mind. There were a few others too, Alex on reception and Kat who was on the cruise staff were all good friends.

So like before progression was quick and even though I embarked as a number 6 it didn’t take long to work up to number 3 as people left to go on vacation.

So the team I joined was initially led by a guy from Wales called Steve Stiling, he was nice enough bit weird but he was nice enough. Mind you when the last photo manager I had was Kim, the North Korean dictator there was a shitload of room for maneuver. I think when I went out there I just wanted to shoot and travel again you know as long as I had a few dollars and a few beers at the end of the night i couldn’t really give a shit.

There was a really funny instance I think it was the day after a formal night in the gallery and some ass came upto me and Alex who were working the desk and asked when the “Captain’s Picture’s” were gonna be out? I explained the handshakes as we called them with the Captain were already out on display. I said the Pictures from the studios would be out the day after. The woman turns to her husband and says “what did he saaaaaay”. Instead of asking me again, Alex was fighting the urge to laugh I could tell. I explained it again and they shuffled off still not getting it in a huff.

It’s just how it was, we just took the piss out of the passengers, they would ask insanely stupid questions like does the elevator go from the front of the ship to the back, and where do the crew sleep, and do the crew eat onboard? Just ridiculous.

Most of my time in the ports was with Alex, nick and Andi in the nearest watering hole where we could get served without ID. We had our crew passes but no actual proof of age.

As for onboard it was a constant piss up on an evening, well when there was a Martini Bar onboard it was always going to be messy. The only thing that got in the way was the work 🙂

As I worked my way up though the responsibilities increased so on an embarkation day I had to put away the ships stores, photo paper, chemicals and yes films, remember that photogs, rolls of fricken film.

Again I’m going to leave it there for now and pick this up next time about mis-spent time off, time in bars instead of exploring etc.

That’s all for now.

– JD