Cruise Ships
Back to BC!! Ft. Lauderdale to Vancouver
So in the space of a year I was back to beginnings, we were heading on a re-positional cruise back to Vancouver with some amazing ports to call into.
The main points of a repo. Cruise is exactly as it sounds, it’s to get a ship from one part of the world to another but generally unless it’s a half day repo, companies still use the cruise to make some money at the same time.
We left Ft. Lauderdale and Steve behind, and headed for ultimately Canada. We had a couple of management changes over the coming month. There was this one asshole who’s name I can’t even remember, and there was a kiwi guys who was pretty cool.
So again It was a long time ago when We did this cruise so i can really only remember the highlights, which for me were Seattle, San Francisco, and then actually getting back to Canada, which I think included a stop in Victoria.
It’s a strange one because even though we may have been out of Florida, it was rare we got to actually see a great deal of an American City. San Francisco is somewhere where I had always dreamed off visiting, and to get there was a dream come true. I really want to go back because again as usual I still didn’t get to see half of the things I wanted to. Of course I went to Alcatraz which was a massive highlight and always will be as long I draw breath.
I also got to hang out a pier 39, and take a ride on one of the world famous trams which again was something I’ll never forget.
San Diego should have been amazing too, I was desperate to go to the zoo there but that wasn’t to be but what can you do, I never made it further than the terminal.
Seattle was another incredible experience too, I went to the Space Needle, the music expo and then took a ride on the monorail. Of course no visit would have been complete without some shopping. I really want to revisit and hopefully will one day since I now have family there.
Then there was Catalina Island, which was incredible and about an hour from San Diego, I remember it was a little overcast, it was a tender port too so I ended up shooting gangway and just stayed shoreside for a bite to eat. I know it was about this time when I had had enough of being ill so went to the docs and had myself signed off, just wasn’t really able to eat properly.
The last two ports were in Canada if I remember rightly and we all got to hang out with in an old friend Jessica in Victoria before heading back to Vancouver where it had all started.
So when we got to Vancouver there was another Managerial changeover where our new gaffer embarked, his name Paul. Now this was a two way street because apparently we’d both been heard of previously. He had been working for NCCL where apparently some moron called Tamas, I had had encounters with whilst on the Imagination, had been filling him in on how lazy I was and how little I liked to work. Paul on the other hand we had all heard loved a drink – oh how true that was 🙂
So anyway off course there was a holiday in between two contracts but our cruises out of Vancouver would have us heading North through the inside passage and then to Seward, Alaska and back south again.
We continued doing 10 day cruises like this through the summer but there were a couple of pivotal moments to tell you about first.
The first would be as we entered Glacier Bay, now this was somewhere we were to go in and out of during our cruises once a cruise for the duration and whilst doing so the ship would be under the navigational guidance of the local pilot. As we left Glacier Bay on one occasion the ship lurched to one side, something not out of the ordinary in these waters. There were Icebergs everywhere, but still we continued on towards Seward, I think this was a day at sea and we arrived the following morning.
So we had to open morning gallery, and then strip the gallery from the last cruises pictures and prepare for the next cruise, until the ship was clear of guests and we were getting ready to go ashore, when there was a very large break from the norm. The Captain made an announcement asking all staff and crew to make there way to the theatre. This was something in my three years at sea which I hadn’t encountered previously.
Once everyone was assembled we began debating what was going on, why everyone had been assembled at such short notice and the Captain made his way to the stage. Apparently the lurching ship the day before was the vessel hitting an iceberg, this in turn had ripped a hole in the side of the ship big enough to prevent us from sailing. We ended up with an impromptu overnight in Seward. Our passengers where allowed to embark and stay on the ship overnight, and the onboard security who were trained divers carried out initial inspections. Lloyd’s the shipping safety experts were flown out to oversee and inspect the repairs to ensure the ship was safe enough to sail the day after. Even now one of my best souvenirs is a copy of the local paper which sold out in no time as passengers and crew scooped copies as souvenirs.
We sailed the day after after the key repairs had been carried out, but lost a port to make up for time on the way back to Vancouver. We also then had to follow this up with further repairs once we reached Vancouver, which in turn meant two more overnights in the port of Vancouver. he repairs needed their were even more impressive to see than the hole being patched in Seward, as the propellers had to be replaced.
So that was the ship side part of the drama.
On one of the return trips towards Vancouver we were transiting the latter part of the inside passage and I’d been up for Pizza, I was making my way along the open decks to a crew elevator and was lucky enough to catch the show, not the crew show or the show in the theatre, but the Northern Lights. It’s spellbinding, it’s breathtaking, it’s awesome, there are too many words to describe, but if you get the opportunity to go to north Norway or Iceland or if you live the other side of the Atlantic, then just go, just do it, believe me it’s worth it.
I enjoyed for the most part my time in Alaska, the ports of Juneau, Ketchikan, Skagway, Sitka were incredible and again I regret not doing more and going in search of bars with others. It is what it is though and the only thing you can do is learn from your experiences and move on and do more when you travel again.
I actually enjoyed doing the dress up shoots, but like always I loathed going into the restaurant. I didn’t mind doing gangway, and I didn’t mind embarks as the passengers knew the score.
Formal nights became a ball ache though, they would knock over lights, trip over cables which had been duc-taped down, and then try to lean against backgrounds which were being held up by auto-poles. It all just became a lot of a chore.
Towards the end of my contract things started to sour, I started to regret actually rejoining the Summit. I knew I was ready for a change but things weren’t quite rosy onboard with the team, we weren’t getting along at all and to be honest I just wanted to leave. I spoke to some people who arranged initially for me to transfer to another ship which was in the area, I thoughts about it but knew deep down I’d just had enough and wanted to go home for a whilst. I’d already resigned and retracted because I wasn’t going to be forced from a role I’d worked hard for.
I saw a couple of photogs sacked for “exposing themselves in a public area” and then just thought you know what I’m out the door. I asked for early vacation and left the following Vancouver.
I knew that as far as photography was concerned I needed a break, and I knew that as far a ships were concerned I needed a break for more than a few months so that’s pretty much what I took.
– Thats all for now
The Summit and some ports of the Caribbean
So as I said in my last blog I explained that as a photographer it was always too easy to find the nearest bar and perhaps I was extremely naive and didn’t appreciate where I was.
It was stupidly simple to start taking places like Mexico for granted as everyone was doing the same thing as I was.
So yeah when we called into Cozumel there were a few things that as a group you did, I was still a relative pup when it came to ships don’t forget but I was already growing tired of actually having to deal with passengers.
So plans were made for the following days when after leaving Florida and dealing with a long formal night day at sea, you wanted to escape, so a group would head to the mini golf where you could get hammered play a round, and then head to the internet cafe to catch up on the football scores.
So to elaborate a little more the mini golf in Cozumel was like no other I have ever been to. Sure the sun was shining, and a putter is still a putter, but here your given a radio so when your beer is empty they will send you more to whatever hole your on.
Of course the more you drink the slower you play, and well it’s just a good crack. After a few too many there and a bite to eat in one of the many burger places then depending on the time you sail or if your working or not later (and even that didn’t always matter) you’d head back to the pier bars, Carlos and Charlies or Fat Tuesdays.
This was pretty much the pattern of the time onboard the summit. I suppose my one regret from all my time as a photographer is, and more so since I was where I was, is not even checking out if we could escort tours. Especially since after leaving Festival where we went to Marrakech and the Granada Palace and a whole host of other tours.
So I think then you have to look at maybe St. Kitts where thankfully I was lucky enough to revisit later in my career at sea now there is lot of things you can do in St. Kitts but as with everywhere else because the food had become so mundane onboard then that’s usually what we decided to look for usually in this case I think KFC or Subway was probably the most likely destination.
Since re-visiting though on the Braemar I’ve been on the sugar cane train and then on the prince arranged a crew tour to go quad biking. I think in the end though it’s all about perspectives and if you only have one perspective you can’t look at something from another.
There were a couple of friends that took me to a beach on the Island of St. John, It’s called Hawksnest beach and it’s a short ferry ride from Redhook on the Island of St. Thomas. It was absolute paradise and in all my life I’d never seen anything quite like it. Aqua blue see through water, white sand and there was nobody else for miles. The cabbie took us and picked us up just as he said he would, If I remember rightly though we almost missed the ship, something which any crew member would dread.
It’s strange because since leaving home when I was just shy of my 18th birthday all I wanted to do was explore, but in truth I didn’t really know how to. I think this is something without doubt I learned to do as I got older.
Anyway I just wanted to say a little about a few of the ports, so I’ll finish with the disappointing ports of Ocho Rios, Limon and Colon. You see I think by comparison Cartagena, Columbia would have been a blessing.
Ocho Rios to start with, the port, was generally the same all the time, there was pretty much one thing to do if you were a passenger, and that was to head to Dunns River Falls. There were taxi’s waiting at the port but no real places of interest to go to that I can remember (I might be wrong). Now the distinct memory of this particular port is the masses of drugs being sold right at the port gates.
I think most of the time here I shot gangway and got back on board.
I did venture out a couple of times literally to escape for a whilst, there was a shopping mall called the Taj Mahal, small with some local shops but it was nice just to get out of the port and away from the ship.
Next up there was Limon, Costa Rica, which there were things to see and do further away from the port but within it and in the town, nada, nothing one of the biggest dives I’ve visited.
Finally and I’ve left Colon until last, quite possibly one of the worst places I’ve been to. Mainly because of the lack of safety for tourists, but just generally not many of us could really comprehend why it was on the itinerary at all.
So that’s pretty much that as far as our Caribbean run goes, I’m going to end this short and sweet blog off for the time being and start a new one for the next part of my summit adventure.
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
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
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
Planes, Trains, Ships and Automobiles 