Month: October 2013
An introduction to my former life – Life at Sea
Listen, the first thing I have to stress when it comes to life at sea is that we work/worked on ships and not boats.
Never, ever, especially when it comes to my pal Nick Oldfield is concerned refer to ships as boats, it upsets us a great deal.
So this blog is to explain just a little about how it is to work at sea, what it involves, what to expect etc.
So a lot has changed in the last let’s say 15 years and peoples stories will vary, their experiences will differ. I began my life at sea in 2000 with Carnival Cruise Lines. I finished in October 2009, although I made a brief reprisal the following year for a couple of cruises returning with Fred Olsen Cruise Lines.
It goes without saying that the ships vary in size, with my smallest ships being the Black Prince, or the Flamenco.
Prior to embarking a ship depending on your role you’ll have to complete some safety training, which varies. You will have to complete a crowd management course also and only once these courses have been completed will you be given the ok to sign onto a ship.
Ok so when you embark as a crew member there are a number of formalities to be completed, you’re likely to make your way to the crew pursers office to hand in your safety certificates, passport and seamen’s book. In exchange your then given your room key and then you’ll be given your instructions for safety briefing which usually takes place later that afternoon.
Your safety familiarisation onboard is usually done over a few days and usually it’s exactly as it sounds it’s so you know in an emergency situation what to do, where to go and just as important when.
There are regular crew drills which are usually done on a week by week basis, and as your likely to find out later on embarkation day there are passenger drills done too.
Don’t forget amongst all of that you have your actual job to do at the same time, so as a photographer for example, you have to start displaying the embarkation photographs, and depending on the ship there was a Lifeboat drill shoot to do, or sailaway shoot on the open decks.
There are ships where I worked for example which have staff introductions, which again is fairly self explanatory and involves being introduced to the passengers either as a team or representing the team.
After that chances are you’ll have a day at sea and an early start the following day so your not likely to be hitting the bar, but then again I almost always did.
So on a ship from my experience there are ships with crew bars and ships without, the ones that have them can be broken down into either two or three bars, either you will have staff and crew bars, or you will have Officers, staff and Crew bars. There are restrictions as to who can go into which ones.
As I said I experienced ships without any sort of crew/staff/officers bar and instead there was sort of a wholesale shop where you can get beer and chocolate or the god awful Mattheus wine (don’t do it).
Your days at sea are exactly as they sound and they become a split of three different types of evening, Casual, Informal and Formal. These are pretty much going to dictate how late you work, what work you do and what you wear.
As for your port days, again these are split into a couple of different types of ports really, you have ports where you are at anchor (Tendering), and ports where the ship will be alongside the pier. If you are at anchor, you’ll likely be using the ships lifeboats to ferry people ashore, however if you are alongside, people can come and go to the ship as they please.
Tender ports are done in a relatively organised fashion, usually from a crowd management perspective it is done by handing out tickets in one of the public areas.
One other thing to remember if you are working onboard is something called IPM (In Port Manning) which in a nutshell means a certain percentage of crew must be onboard the vessel at any given time.
Otherwise you will have days where the ship sails early (Half day calls), arrives late in port due to weather, misses port because of weather conditions, late sails (2200hr sailing time or later), Overnights or just regular days where you arrive around 8am and sail at 4/5pm.
Life onboard a ship can be very easy, it can also be a total pain in the ass, depending on your team mates, your line manager, the hotel manager and the senior officers. As an example onboard the ships there are certain rules, like you don’t use passenger elevators, if a hotel manager will write you up for doing so, then you take the risk in that case.
Basically if you do as your asked then you don’t make your life difficult for yourself, which looking back I wish someone had given me that advice.
So I wasn’t a saint, but at the same time I was by no stretch of the imagination a tearaway either. I drank my fair share of beer and the rest, but rarely was I out of control.
So a little more into a few things that will happen onboard because for decades they have. Cabin parties will happen, not matter what ship you work on, because they do. Likewise relationships happen onboard whether people are married with kids or not.
There are going to be people who you just don’t like, because that’s life. In a nutshell it’s a different world, you can’t compare it to the 9 to 5 your friends and family live. You can’t expect nights off and weekends to yourself.
You can expect surprise immigration and coastguard inspections, you can expect cabin inspections. You’ll likely have to share a cabin with someone else too.
Above all else you will have an amazing time, as long as you just explore things with an open mind, and ride the wave so to speak. I spent a goo amount of time growing up at sea and it’s a truly special place. To everyone I experienced it all with then you all played a part whether we still speak or not.
There has been heartache and suffering, too many hangovers to recount, I’ve seen a whale full breach off the Castries coast of St. Lucia, Icebergs in northernmost Norway and sailed many oceans. I’ve transited the main canals in the world too and I’d do it all over again if I had a time machine.
– That’s all for now
JD
Festival Cruise Lines (The Poulides Dream)
So the next chapter, well I spent as long as I could at home, I even took a job working back at Jessops in Huddersfield.
I stayed home for a couple of months though before after making some enquiries and a low key interview in Huddersfield I took the plunge and signed on with Ocean Images.
It was a funny one though because when I left Carnival I never wanted to pick up a camera again. Ironic yes, then you might say given the next contract would be another ship as a photographer since I always thought it would be as a shoppy (shop staff).
So Ocean Images were a company based out of Southampton and supplied photographers all over the world to a huge number of ships.
If you read my recent posts on Carnival, then you’ll get the idea of the sizes of ships I was used to. Boy was I in for a shock really now then.
I think it would have been around April in 2001 when I flew out to Genova (Genoa) to join the Flamenco, which was a tiny ship and carried about 7-800 passengers and crew, seriously it was tiny. The Flamenco was part of the Festival Cruise Lines fleet, and one of at the time three or four ships. The other ships were the Azur, which was smaller, the Mistral and I think the European Vision was being built or planned, later would come the European Stars.
So yeah I joined up in Genova, and met up with my new team which was a team of three, Andy who was the Photo. Mgr. and there was Phil who was the other photographer.
Phil was a quirky guy, but nice enough and from Hull. He was also who I’d be sharing a cabin with. Andy seemed nice enough but he could crack the whip when he wanted to.
At the time I joined the ship it would probably have been completing it’s Med, North Africa and Canary Island itineraries. If I remember rightly and not in this order we had, Funchal (Madeira), Arrecife (Lanzarote), Almeria & Malaga (Spain), Safi & Casablanca (Morocco), Alicante (Spain), Marseille (France) I think that’s it but as I said it was 12 years ago.
It was all a bit of a crazy time again though because It was all new again, it was a different way of doing things, totally different from the Carnival way I’d known before. The gallery was tiny, loads of the kit had been allowed to fall into disrepair, I think I was using a Canon eos 50e at the time, which was ok, but the lens was a piece of shit it was some 28-200 I think. It’s amazing what you learn as you grow as a photographer.
It was a strange atmosphere on the ship, with it being a Greek run company, came the Greek mentality. So you had the Greeks, the rest of the staff and then there was the crew. So naturally outside of the working hours there was plenty of drinking, and because it was a Greek ship there was plenty of theme nights too.
So the first month zipped by, there was a load of training for safety drills and classes which I had to go to which was par for the course, and I had to do a course run by a senior Captain. He was from the port of Piraeus I think. Anyway one of the funniest things I remember from the early days, we were in the middle of this course and a life raft had been prepped , this Capt. Pulled the wrong line and we just heard a hissing noise of the raft starting to inflate inside the shell (casing) of the raft. The next thing he starts yelling back!!, back!!
This shell blasted open and the raft continued to inflate, which we all found hilarious, him not so much though.
There was a huge difference in crew bars from carnival, just a small bar at the aft of the ship next to the crew mess, but we all had a good time in there most of the time. Except for the “not so random” alcohol tests, I have no issue with the fact that it happens, it happened all the time on every ship I worked on, but they were never fucking random. They were spot checked on certain people. How else do you expect some people being done every month when there were three hundred crew onboard.
The cruise director onboard was awesome his name was Paulo Freitas, who some people liked, some people didn’t like whatever, he was a nice enough guy with me and we got on well. He had an obsession with cars and was pretty proud about the fact that he was Portuguese.
There was another couple of CD’s during my time there, Franco Pili, who was pretty famous within Festival, then there was Maria, who I can only compare to someone like medusa, because she was good looking yes, but she’s just as soon a bad mouth you to someone as smile at your face.
There were a bunch of other people but there is no need to mention everyone, there are a couple of others, the first Nikos Glezakos, who was a safety officer onboard when I met him. Years later he had become captain for Louis Cruise Lines. I didn’t exactly see eye to eye when we first met, and to be honest I didn’t take safety tremendously serious, something that changed in a big way as my career progressed.
So after I’d missed enough drills that Nikos had had enough and looking back it was fair enough. So for those who missed drills on a regular basis were “invited” to a drill on a sea day which was basically class room based.
It meant you didn’t have as long of a break in the afternoon (I’ll come back to that) so it was meant to encourage you to attend drills.
So I went along, all cocky (I was 19 I think, just) and of course Nikos took great pleasure on asking me loads of questions, one in particular I remember should have been answered “the Coxswain”, only I answered with the driver. He thought it was funny anyway.
I should mention the excursion team Marcin, Cecille, Fabrice and there were a few others, one of which I actually had a telephone interview with for Holland America, I got offered the job but I didn’t feel it was the right thing to do at the time.
Anyways so yeah the itinerary switched and the ship reposition to a place called Kiel, in Germany which involved a transit of the Kiel canal for the first time. It also meant transiting the English Channel for the first time onboard a cruise ship. The ship would then cruise alternating itineraries from Kiel to the Baltics and then to the Norwegian Fjords.
There were a bunch of ports I visited for the first time including, Flam, Gudvangen, Geiranger, Hellesylt, Bergen, Tromso, Honningsvag, and Longyearbyen, Molde, Andalsnes all in Norway. Also we visited Stockholm & Visby (Sweden), Tallin (Estonia), St. Petersberg (Russia), and I can’t remember where else we cruised to on those Baltic cruises. In addition I was lucky enough to visit Reykjavik in Iceland during my time based up north.
So this was another incredible experience and Norway remains today one of my favourite countries and I’ve spent a good number of summers luckily cruising Norwegian waters and the tiny coastal towns to huge cities.
Festival was a long time ago now, of course there was a girl during my time onboard who for the sake of this will remain anonymous, and then there was Andy. Who come the end of him being onboard became a total nightmare. I was glad to see the back of him come the end of it all and that left me in temporary charge. I really enjoyed the challenge and to be honest
It was a huge step, and there were ups and downs, some massive run in’s but I was lucky in a way I made good friends with the captain onboard and still managed to piss off the hotel manager who was a total prick. I also upset the inventory officer onboard, to be honest that was the funniest thing, during a hotel meeting I’d asked for some stores/supplies about four times and just been ignored so I brought it up in a meeting. It didn’t go down too well, but it got my point across.
There was another incident which happened minutes before we set sail from Kiel, to the Baltics, there was a massive commotion down the passenger corridor where the photo lab was. We just saw our onboard security and some German Police haul off a couple of passengers and a couple of cases. We later found out that the cases were full of drugs.
Anyone who has ever been to Norway knows it’s not a place to go out and get blind drunk, but sometimes you also just have to think, you know what I may never be back here. In the port of Honningsvag there is a bar/pub called Noden Pub, and this place is awesome, full of football memorabilia all the locals are a good crack and generally it’s recommended for an overnight or a late sail, though I’m sure we had an overnight.
I spent about 16 months onboard the Flamenco and I had a few clashes with people, but it depends on who you ask regarding my next statement. It is possible to stay too long on a ship, and for me, at my age I did exactly that. I think my first contract I stayed around 11 months, the usual at the time was 6-8 months.
One of my favourite times was during dry dock in Genoa, which was the only time in 10 years I experienced dry dock. I did so with one of the new photographers Martin, who was a Belgian photographer who, during drydock introduced me to Leffe (yes another Beer).
We drank, we ate Pizza, we didn’t do a lot else with the ship in drydock if I’m honest, the ship and Genoa were fucking cold though, it was December. I remember they was no smoking onboard anywhere as they were in all of the ballast tanks, and some jackass was smoking onboard. I went to speak to the captain but nothing got done because seemingly the engineers were Greek too.
One of the memories I do hold was actually being asked to go into the drydock to photograph the ship and the works which were being carried out.
The storm which we encountered was not uncommon, I mean the ship was tiny, I’ve said that already it got tossed around the open sea like a tin can. I recall once sailing off Iceland the seas so rough that the aft lifted out of the water and you could hear the props spinning around in the air.
We were warned ahead of the cruise to expect bad weather for the duration and sure enough we got exactly that. Working on a small ship you sort of get used to the conditions and everything that comes along with it.
Our equipment at the time were Konica machines if I remember rightly, we had a film processor and a printer. The printer was a huge machine, and this was the main thing that was damaged we lost a couple of cartidges which again were not small, and the printer separated and the alignment was then out too. The lab was a mess the chemicals went everywhere.
In the end we had an engineer come out but it was a massive disaster, we even ended up taking films ashore to process them. I can’t even remember if the engineer may have had to sail with us to the next port.
9/11, nobody will forget that date, nobody that was old enough anyway. The ship at the time I think was on a late season Baltic cruise, and we were leaving Tallinn. The library was tiny, but it was the only place in the lounges that had a TV and we had a huge charter of Americans onboard who sat glued to the TV for hours. It was a horrible harrowing experience though and I’ll certainly never forget it.
I started the following year back in the Baltics and Fjords and If I remember rightly I disembarked the ship which must have been sometime around July I think. I didn’t want to fly so opted to get the train from Germany, back through Holland, and then jumped a ferry home from Rotterdam.
**I said earlier about coming back to something which I’ll write about separately in a separate blog, afternoon breaks.
CCL – the end of a very short era
So to carry on I still had a few months to the end of my contract and I’d already decided I wasn’t wanting a return ticket to Miami, or anywhere else for that matter. The main problem was I didn’t really know what I wanted, I’d made some mistakes and it was a steep learning curve but I didn’t believe I deserved to be treated the way I go treated by some of the people at CCL.
I continued to work when I had to, I spent a fair bit of time on my own in the ports just going out and shooting stuff I could to add to my portfolio. To show you how retro it all now seems, I had a cd player, and still bought loads of CD’s and just used that when I went out. It was escapism at its finest.
It can get quite lonely out there especially looking back if you don’t have a room-mate who you hang out with and just head to the beach or go shopping, or exploring if you’re doing that on your own then a lot of the time it’s not much fun.
So I carried heading to the crew bar and there were some interesting social circles, there were the shoppies, the steiners, the dancers and the ents, the deck dept. the photogs as you probably gathered seemed to be split amongst everyone else, and there were a few who didn’t really go to the bar.
I went I suppose to try and forget about work and it’s probably the same reason I drank, that and because everyone else was doing it so why not.
There was a time where my drinking went crazy so I stopped, and it wasn’t a problem because I knew I could stop when I wanted to. I think there were a few surprised people when I started showing up and just drinking water.
There was someone who needs a quick shout out, and that’s Dragi Andovski, a Macedonian Photographer who wasn’t like the rest he was such a nice guy who was only onboard for a couple of weeks before being transferred to eh Sensation I think it was.
So anyway that was pretty much the imagination for you, things went by and I think I pretty much hit my lowest point around xmas and new year’s which just seemed like a really surreal experience. We worked all day both days and you know that’s what you’re paid for and that’s that. We got about 15 minutes off to see in the New Year and then it was back to work. I think we made it to the crew bar for about 1am, and it was just one of those nights that I wanted to quickly forget.
There had been a changeover in Hotel Manager (Steve Bolitho) and also a double switch in Photo Mgr. with Kim disembarking, Andy Radu taking over and then Clifton coming onboard. It’s weird how you get a reputation within companies but seemingly I had one. There was another Photographer Tamas (I think his surname was Haydut) who later in my career would stir some bullshit about me to another Photo Manager prior to him joining a ship I was already on.
So yeah there was the Photo Mgr change, and it became evident my days were numbered so before I was pushed I jumped. Clifton came into the lab one day and basically said I think it’s better if you disembark. I wasn’t going to argue until they tried to make me pay for my flight home. There were two contracts you had to sign at carnival an F&B contract (food and beverage) and a departmental. I had completed my F&B contract, and I went to see the onboard F&B Mgr. I explained what was happening to me and that I was happy to go because of how unhappy I was.
It was sometime at the beginning of January when I came to disembark, and on the morning I was hungover as they come. I made my way to complete the sign off process and immigration, and was then escorted to a hotel where we waited for the flight time to come closer. Eventually we made our way to the airport where my bags where checked, I was checked in and the immigration escorted me to the gate where I was left. I’m not sure if they left me or actually saw me onto my flight, but I was pretty happy to be on my way home.
There are a bunch of things I’ve missed out in the above, things that I still laugh at or look back with a smile:
The meteor shower we watched from the front crew deck, literally about 30 of us laid on our backs looking skywards
The girl I was seeing, yes I picked her badge up and wore it by accident the entire following day
The numerous rounds of mini-golf in Cozumel, Mexico
The Coastguard drill I bailed out on because I didn’t want to be asked questions during the inspection
The numerous early morning immigrations
The copious amounts of Pizza
The copious amounts of budweiser
The contract was long, it was up, it was down, it was hard work, there were a lot of laughs, there were some tears too.
I think that’s enough about Carnival for now, next up the no longer solvent Festival Cruise Lines where I spent almost 16 months onboard the Flamenco.
CCL (Carnival Cruise Lines) – my working experience
What can I recall from a couple of days which happened 13 years ago, well I wish I had spent my time more wisely but one of the best things is actually arriving into NYC.
We all woke early in time to see our arrival, sailing down the Hudson, I remember it was cold, it was windy, thankfully it was dry though. We were flanked by fire ships and so many smaller boats as we arrived. It was amazing to see the statue of liberty in person, something I’d dreamed about since I was a kid. The twin towers which at the time really to me weren’t as significant as I’d never heard of them and the Empire state all completed the skyline of this famous city.
So once the ship was eventually cleared I can’t remember how long it took but I seem to remember walking for miles, we took a walk through Hells kitchen, and through times square, took a cab ride and used the phrase “follow that cab”, missed our transfer to the airport, made a mad dash via the Bronx to the airport.
Thankfully we just about made our flight to Miami. I should elaborate on the we really, the purpose of the two weeks we spent on the Victory was to train. We were now being distributed amongst the fleet of ships into service. Now some were sent to ships pretty much straight from training others were lucky enough to spend a week in a hotel, playing golf, hanging out on south beach, and just generally having fun.
There were a group of about 6 or 7 of us who were stay and after the first couple of days it got smaller and smaller before there were just three of us left who were all joining the Carnival Triumph. The Triumph was the third of the destiny class ships and the second to be delivered, the Victory was the third and newest and the Destiny was the first in its class.
Anyway so embarkation day came and it was a real blur, the ship was huge and although you would think I’d know it inside and out from being on the Victory we had no idea about crew areas. There were about 13 decks and some were passenger (pax) cabins only, some had pax and crew cabins, some had no cabins. It was crazy as it comes and took some getting used to.
There are loads of parts to getting used to being a seafarer (I deliberately avoided the use of the word seamen). Sure you have the mental aspect of working at sea, but there is the mental aspect of a prolonged period of time away from friends and family too. Inevitably at some point you will suffer from sea-sickness, and the home sick will get you at some point too.
You usually become quite a close-knit bunch, almost family like.
My first roommate I won’t ever forget he was such a funny guy, from Bali, and called Dewa, Dewa Arsa. It’s funny though because I worked at sea for around 10 years, covered more than a ship per year but I still remember him and a bunch of people who I’m no longer in touch with from the Triumph.
Likewise it’s disappointing that I’m not in touch with as many of the team from the Victory as I’d like either.
There were some funny memories and it was a great team on the victory, but there were some also not-so-funny at the time, but hilarious looking back memories.
I had to dress as a pirate which was one of the jobs I actually enjoyed, it’s quite a funny thing to do though after 6 months it got a bit old. The pirate outfit varied across the ships but in this instance it was a Captain hook outfit, though when I was 18 I was still pretty baby faced so the beard had to be drawn on.
I actually really enjoyed most of the first month aside from the homesickness that almost saw me quit inside of two weeks being on the Triumph, but that’s when the friend-like family rally round you. They make you want to stay.
So a few of the screw ups then well one of the basic ones I think was on a formal night I showed up wearing an informal uniform, I think I was 9 decks up from the lab aswell so back up 9 decks and then back down again.
When I got back to the lab I picked up a video tripod for a still shoot so again back down 4 decks to come back up again, that wasn’t that great an experience at the time but came down to inexperience.
The luckiest one could have cost me a lot of money though. When we were training we had been told time and again, to disconnect our cameras/flashes from the battery packs (the big metz ones) when we put the camera down on the side.
Only the thing was with everything else which was going on, and everything I’d had to take onboard (pardon the pun) I’d started to forget things.
I put my camera down and took a step away from the surface and heard something crash down behind me. I was gutted, it was the last thing I needed or wanted in my first few weeks.
One of the guys picked my camera up and started to check it out, I got so lucky, we were using the US equivalent of an F90, which were good strong bodies. My had pretty much got up dusted itself down and cracked on, with a new filter ring on the Tokina lens it was good to go again.
Like I said, lucky but lesson learned, most of the guys had seen a shutter curtain go, or had someone put their thumb through one. Both are not good.
It was another incident that littered my first couple of weeks but things quickly settled down and thanks to the people around me I bounced back with a few brewskies haha.
Something else which always makes me laugh, is how I mentioned about one particular costume (pirate) earlier, well there were all kind of things like that, pilgrims, pirates, grim reapers and a bunch of other costumes. One of my favourite shoots was the iguanas, which wasn’t a costume but actual iguanas. Now we got off to a pretty rocky start me and one particular iguana, in short he pissed down my bright white, brand new polo shirt, and I dropped him, so would call it evens after that.
It was awesome though, they were heavy little buggers, and every time we arrived in Cozumel this little old Mexican lady would come down the pier carrying this hessian sack which contained the Iguanas.
Most of the passengers were terrified of them but it was good fun seeing their reactions when you bring up this lizard from your side.
Speaking of Mexico, and Cozumel in particular, it was a party place, there was so much to do there, and you could take an island tour, rent a jeep, swim with dolphins, or erm play mini golf downtown. The latter of which I was introduced to and loved it, they gave you a putter, a beer and a radio for when you ran out of beer and they would bring you more.
So we frequently sailed late from Cozumel which meant some kind of parties which in turn meant some kind of Mexican themed shoot, in this case Mexican hats (q another screw up). There was or is an long running thing about getting a roll (like film) count as much as you can onboard ships. Well I came up with an ingenious, or stupid way of increasing my roll count on this shoot. Forget the fact I was half cut I thought I could get a shot of two people together and then spin the camera around and crop in a little tighter and get head shots aswell – I so should not have been shooting this thing.
So yeah I mean Carnival are know as the party ships and they are that for a reason. My time on the Triumph believe it or not was shortlived, I stayed there for about 4 weeks before being transferred again. This I really was not happy about, but I had no idea why either, initially one of the other photographers was supposed to be transferred to the Imagination but with 2 days notice the plans changed and as I quickly learned that’s how things go sometimes.
I said my goodbyes the following Miami and made my way down the pier to the imagination which was alongside also, made my way up the gangway and onboard.
It felt strange though not as homely, it smelled funny, and it looked dated too. Nevertheless I had four months left and I’d have to make it here. After I signed on I don’t remember at what point I met Kim, or any of the other photographers but it soon became evident that I was slap bang in the middle of a split team.
Probably the one person who I can class as a friend was Dindo Reyes, a friend of Dewa’s from the Triumph, they were both lab techs too.
So here was the problem, there was Kim, who was from Korea don’t ask me which side, but either way he was an asshole, a control freak and very much like a dictator. Everything was his way or not at all. I later learned that he had been fired as he got into a fight with a guy he found in bed with his wife. He was re-hired evidently later as he made the company a lot of money or so the rumour went.
So then you have his two sides, there was the Eastern European side, and the South American side, I didn’t get on with any of them, even Sagay (shortened) the Indian photographer who was so ignorant it was unreal. He would just grunt and yell things that was about it.
When I talk positively about my time with carnival it is only from the first two months, the last 3 (I think it was Jan when I came off), were a nightmare. I spent little time with my so called team. For the first month on the imagination I worked, slept and went ashore alone and it was horrible.
I didn’t set foot in the crewbar once.
I’ve skipped something I should point out too, when I first came onboard I’d had morning duties on the triumph, I was then through immigration on both ships then I had to go to the safety briefing. In the safety briefing I fought to stay awake but having been awake since 6am my chin kept dropping and hitting my chest.
So I was sent to see the safety officer, not because I hadn’t answered a question but because some jumped up Italian officer wanted to get one over. So on I went and I got screamed at for five minutes because I couldn’t identify a fire extinguisher, and then threatened to be disembarked in the next port.
He sent me away and told me to find out and come back the next day (at sea) and tell him, I was in pieces when I left his office, I’m just glad I held it together until I left, but it was horrible.
So after a month, pretty much in hiding, I decided to cave and head out to the crew bar with some of the shop staff I’d become friends with and the pursers too (Tanya, Anoushka and Juaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan would kill me if they didn’t get a mention).
They were pretty much the people that I then started hanging out with away from work and to be fair time started to go by a lot quicker.
Thats all for now – TBC
A week on the Algarve
Up until recently I’d only ever visited the mainland areas of Portugal, these being Lisbon and Leixoes.
We decided that as we hadn’t been for a relaxing holiday overseas since New Zealand in 2009 we’d treat ourselves to a week of late summer sun.
The first thing I had to sort out was my Passport as it lapsed early August. I’d also at this stage like to say what an amazing job the UKPA do, a few years ago they received so much bad press for the time scales for a new passport. Nothing has been said though recently, this year alone, both Laura and I, and many friends have sent off for new passports and had them back in under six weeks. I’d also highly recommend using the online form completion. Complete the form and it’s sent through to you sign it, and send it back, the only thing you need are upto date pictures and in our case they didn’t even need counter signing.
Anyway we started looking, and for me this was something which was still moderately new. I’d only ever once before been on holiday overseas in a “package” sense of the word holiday. There is so much garbage out there though, and so many “cheap” options, I’ve always been blessed with the fact that the majority of my adult life I’ve been working overseas, and therefore travelled for very little. It makes it that much more difficult now though to spend hundreds of pounds for a week away when I’ve heard and seen so many horror stories. The joys of the media. The other side of it as well is I usually prefer to plan my own trips and explore and do my own thing, lying on a beach usually wouldn’t be my cup of tea.
So we searched for a couple of evenings and looked at reviews, and tried looking at prices, we even ended up on the verge of booking with one company, but once they added on their “additions” we decided against that. To say it sounded sketchy would be an understatement. Bags, Check In, Meals, Seats, Tickets, Transfers, Booking fees, erm I don’t think so. I’m not objecting to some of the charges but some of them were double what we actually paid. This alleged cheap break away was going to end up costing us way over what we planned for. Jetline Travel, just walk away. Likewise IcedLolly.com
We decided on the Algarve which meant flying into Faro, an airport I knew nothing about other than it was a small airport compared to most I had been through.
We booked through expedia and flew with monarch, the only three things we had to pay for in addition were baggage, transfers and pre-booked seats. The transfers were easy enough we booked these through the hotel and it cost I think 25 Euros return. The baggage I booked through monarchs web site and was something like £15 each way, and the seats which I’m still not convinced should be chargeable after paying what we paid for the flights were about £8pp per flight.
So anyway enough of the pre—holiday talk we got the train to Manchester airport as we’d lucked in with the flight times, or arranged to travel the Sunday instead of the Saturday because of the flight times. Either way we got the train and even when we set off we knew there was a delay on the flight. It takes a little over an hour from Huddersfield to Manchester airport but the main annoyance of that journey is the trans Pennine “express” and it’s lack of space for luggage which is a complete pain.
We got to the airport and the check in was quick and seamless, there were queues through security but nothing major and considering it was around lunch time. One of the best things I’ve seen implemented in airports are the passport chip and scan machines which I’ll come back to shortly. We made our way through and Laura set herself busy in duty free, although to be fair she didn’t spend a penny which I’m not really surprised by as she rarely spends money on herself in that way.
Before long we picked up some supplies and found ourselves a quiet spot to relax before the flight was called and we made our way to the gate. I never understand why people race to the gate to get in line when you know full well it’s going to be a whilst before you are allowed to board, and even then they do it in a certain order. Still people are people and they will do as they wish.
Once we were sat on board (or shoe horned into our seats) I started “bricking it” due to my fear of heights and things that go really fast. I have no problem with being in the air as long as there is no turbulence but I hate the take-off and landing parts. Luckily for me the flight was short and sweet, but in the end the delay had quite an impact as we were late arriving into Faro and our case more or less the last one through we were both pretty shattered by the time we got to the hotel.
Our driver seemed in a hurry to get somewhere I’m guessing given the state of his driving, but we arrived I’m happy to say in one piece at Clube Praia Da Oura which was literally a 5 minute walk down to the beach.
After we checked in I grabbed a beer and then we went and grabbed a bite to eat. Our room was right by the pool, the complex was open meaning anyone could walk through so I’ll be honest it made me slightly nervous but at the same time we made sure everything was locked up before we went anywhere. It had a small kitchenette and the main thing a fridge for the beer haha, otherwise it was what we needed, somewhere to sleep.
The beach was pretty much where we spent most of our time and it’s sorted of split into three sections, the area we chose was the smallest section with beds for hire, and a beach side café right next to us.
We pretty much ate lunch everyday we were there at the café and went back there a couple of nights for dinner, the staff were really friendly and the service was amazingly quick, also the Daiquiris were amazing.
The beach is the beach, but the good thing was there was always a lifeguard on duty, meaning if you are there with kids there is peace of mind for the parents.
So anyway the resort area itself is very British, it has a strip, an abundance of places offering “British” food, and generally has a very British feel to it. It’s not really my cup of tea in a sense, but the week away certainly hit the spot when it came to forgetting about work.
A couple of main highlights were definitely the waterpark and the bullfight, the latter of course will always spark controversy, but even Laura said she enjoyed it, though I feel if the bull had been killed in the ring I think she would have felt differently.
The waterpark was well worth the trip, personally I wish we’d been there from when the gates opened, and don’t believe the transfer which arrived 20 minutes late in the morning did us any favours, but we did still get about 5 hours at the park.
It was about 40 minute’s drive away from Albufeira and I’d have happily gone two or three times as entrance I think was about 20 euros each.
Again having being picked up late in the morning the driver didn’t endear himself in the afternoon by arriving late (another hour) to pick up the group, and then to make up time driving on the highway on an open top bus. *I should add to this that it was a single decker open top bus – no cover at all.
The tickets for both we purchased from the ticket office at the top of the road, but they are scattered around town so getting tickets shouldn’t be an issue.
In terms of eateries, The beach side café was awesome but the best place I think was the sunset restaurant where steak on a stone (I’d had this before in Madeira) was served. For those wondering it’s raw steak served on a sizzling stone, which then cooks in front of you. Out of this world!!
As for the beach side café, I had the kebab special one night which was beef hanging on a skewer which was cooked to perfection and highly recommended.
Finally the last night we took a walk down the beach back towards the hotel (or the steps upto it from the beach) and stumbled – not literally – upon a couple, as the bloodhound gang would put it, doing it like they do on the discovery channel. We swiftly made our way off the beach and back upto the hotel in a fit of laughter.
It was a great week and one where Laura managed to work on her tan, I finally got to see a bull fight and we both got some well earned R&R.
A weekend in Wales
It has to be around 16 or 17 years since I last hiked up Mt. Snowdon, well that was until this last weekend.
It’s a trip Gary and I had planned, well he planned I just went along, for about 8 weeks or so, and we set off late Friday afternoon.
The journey wasn’t too bad in and around 3 hours from Huddersfield to Llanberis, which is where we stayed.
We arrived late in the afternoon and checked into the room above the café Pete’s Eats. The café was like a clash between the old and the new, but very likeable and the staff were pleasant and the food good both in quality and quantity.
After dumping our gear we headed out to the pub, Heights, which I think was one of two actual pubs, but the one I’m told most of the visitors venture to, for food and drink. It looks very like an old school or hotel from the outside.
On the inside it was warm, and pleasant, very homely and the staff were friendly and helpful too.
The Friday night (and I think most Friday nights) there are live music acts which is always a good crack.
After a few too many we returned to the café for a good nights sleep.
Gary is one of my best friends, and we’ve known each other since we were about 16 I think maybe a little younger. He’s also a an experienced climber and he’s done loads of stuff like ice climbing.
I’d climbed Snowdon a couple of times before as I mentioned before, once with school, and once with the scouts though I don’t remember either of those occasions at all. Both times I would have made the ascent via the miners trail or the pyg trail.
I’d been told to pack my big boy pants as we were going up via Crib Goch, which was a route I knew little about but was happy enough after all Gary knew how capable I was when it came to hills and mountains.
The route starts of at the car park and starts with a moderate walk and increases in gradient gradually, it then levels out again and then picks up but nothing major. You reach the split for the Pyg and Crib Goch and that’s where some groups split off from each other and go their respective routes. The route up and over Crib Goch starts climbing up and it’s heavy going in places it winds it’s way up wards and eventually brings you to your first hurdle. When we went up there were a few that started to have second thoughts, grown men, and then a couple of young girls just went right up. It was quite funny to watch.
The views from that point were fantastic back over the lakes so I stopped to take some photographs over where we had come up.
We were still totally sheltered from the wind too so I can’t imagine what it would be like to have the wind gusting at your side whilst trying to climb it. it’s about 7ft the piece of rock you have to get over and probably the one with the fewest hand and footholds on the route.
Once you’re up that there are a couple of other rock faces you have to get up but again there are more footholds and hand places to use. I was pretty nervous the higher up we got – I hate heights, though as Gary put it, we never left the ground.
Once we reached the top of that main ascent we sheltered out from the wind, oh yeah that picked up and we reckon it was around the forecast 20mph, which when you’re on top of a ridge it’s still quite strong.
It was funny watching some of the more experienced hikers just walking along the ridge like they were walking along a footpath, and there were people like me (although not as slow as me) on pretty much all fours the entire way. Oh and before you laugh or mock, take a look at the height and width of Crib Goch.
There was a decent length of walk along the ridge and there were a couple of guys who decided it wasn’t for them and the elected to take the not so scenic route straight down the side of the mountain, an ill-advised and quite dangerous route. It was a long fricken way down to the pyg trail. We continued on (trying not to look down, or rather I tried not to) and eventually it brings you back out onto terrain I’m more used to.
There are a couple of other sections which involve some serious climbing for a rookie like me but again manageable if you don’t look down.
The worst part was probably the poor preparation, I haven’t done much exercise at all since march/april this year, I’m very out of shape, and was very hungover. All things I’d advise against if you choose this route, as for me, I started to get serious cramps in both thigh muscles and that didn’t exactly help my cause.
That was pretty much the ascent the rest after you come off the ridge is just uneven ground, with another climb to the summit.
The route down we did the miners and even got a visit from the sea king, which apparently (according to instagram) landed the day after so, it’s not clear whether it was for training or there was an incident.
It’s a pleaseant walk back down – then again anything would be in comparison to the ascent J
All jokes aside it was an incredible day and although I wish I hadn’t been so hungover it was still an incredible trip up.
Planes, Trains, Ships and Automobiles 