Salt and cider

Busy busy!

2012-02-10T23:00:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s been a busy couple of days! Having been told tocall the agent in the morning to find out what time the ship was arriving, Iimagined I would get a good 8 hours sleep in the hotel. So I was fairlyunimpressed to get a phone call at 0435 saying my taxi was waiting. I madecoffee, threw my clothes on and my things back into my bags while gulping itdown, got locked out of the room as I attempted to manoeuvre two large casesout of the door and eventually made it downstairs. The taxi ride was much longerthan I had been led to think it would be the night before, and involvedstopping off twice, each time the taxi driver got out with some pieces ofpaper, went off to do something with them and came back, all without a word,apart from asking me for my passport at the second stop. I began to feel morelike a parcel than a person, I had no idea where I was going or what was goingon around me, but at that point I simply had to trust that these people wouldget me to my destination! The last stop was at a rather small jetty, even inthe dark I could see that there was no way that the vessel would fit alongsideit, and sat, waiting for the next move, feeling confused. As dawn brightenedthe sky a man arrived, and I could over hear him talking to the Wind Star onthe phone, I had no idea who he was, but at least I appeared to be in the rightvicinity! Shortly after I was told, “Ok, we go now” and my bags and I were leddown the jetty to a small boat. The realisation dawned then, I was joining theship on the move, and I was wearing flip flops!

Luckily my trainers were at the top of my bag and while wechuntered out to the ship I changed footwear. It took about 25 minutes to reachher, as the boat approached the pilot ladder there was a bit of a swell, so it wasa case of choosing one’s moment carefully. I asked if there were anylifejackets and the agent (as the man on the phone had turned out to be) smiledand simply said “No, not here I don't think!” My bags went first and I was relieved to seethem safely on board, and then it was my turn to find a moment when themovement between the two vessels was at a minimum. I scrambled up easily, butit was still a relief to be on board. I was met by the Purser, and there wereforms to fill in and then I was taken to the bridge, where I was greeted by theCaptain and C/O. We waved goodbye to the Senior 2^nd officer ashe left on another boat. He’d been waiting for a relief for a couple of weeks Iam told, which explained the huge smile he had greeted me with as we passed atthe pilot station. He has been relieved by the previous 3/O, who is nowpromoted to 2/O and I am taking over as 3/O. I must say it is comforting toknow I have the guy who was doing my job around for a while, as there’s a hellof a lot to take in! Most handovers for new officers are done over a week, andwhile I am in one sense taking over immediately, he is going to be there for meto pick his brain for much longer.J

After going through the basics, the C/O’s first concern washow much sleep I’d had, and on hearing that I’d not slept for 24 hours and thenonly had about 5 hours kip in the hotel, she told me to go and rest up, sortmyself out and be ready to start work at 8 that evening. I could have huggedher! My cabin is one deck below the bridge, on the same deck as the mess. Ihave three mirrors in the cabin, plus one in the bathroom, (why there are somany is baffling, I guess they want us to be aware of how we look so that wedon’t look like scruffy baggages in front of the guests). I have a tv and dvd player,a fridge, lots of storage space, a double bunk and a porthole. Oh and wifiaccess too! (I am going to get through a lot of internet cards I think!) Iunpacked and went and found uniform, saw the Doc (she stuck needles in me) andthen meandered up to the bridge again, never having been through the PanamaCanal before I wanted to see what was going on. We were in one lock, and aboutto go through the second, for which the C/O suggested I go down to the aftmooring deck to see how things worked. I will save lengthy descriptions of theprocess until I know a bit more about it all, but in fact, my job will simplyinvolve talking to the bridge on the radio. After that, we went under a bridgeand I then decided it would be a good idea to take the C/O’s hints (she startedasking if I had actually slept yet) and go to bed.

I dozed for a few hours, but solid sleep evaded me, but Idid feel refreshed when I got up for dinner. I had a wander around the shipjust to see what was what, and then it was time to go to the bridge. I had theC/O with me for the first hour (she takes the 4-8 watch) and then the Captainfor the next three. It turns out that he and I have several friends in commonfrom the Tall Ships, he sailed as Captain with people that have in turn been myCaptain, only he sailed with them when they were still bosuns mates and 2^ndOfficers and Mates. I have promised to bore him silly with pictures of Pelican!Both he and the C/O are absolutely lovely and while I have no doubt that theywould not take kindly to stupid behaviour (which I have No intention ofstarting!) they are very approachable and supportive and easy to talk to.

This morning I got up to the bridge for my anchor watch andwas told to go straight down to the tender and go with the security officer tohave a quick look around the island we would be tendering to. There are severalislands, all tiny and all crammed with more wooden, palm thatched huts than youwould think possible. The locals were all busily setting up displays of theirwares, and I imagine that by the time our guests arrived on the island, thestreets (if you can call them that) would be a riot of colour. Sadly I couldn’tlinger and we returned to the Star. Anchor watch was quiet enough, and Imanaged to get a fair bit of reading done, there are many, many documents Imust be familiarised with! After lunch and a wee lie down I went back up to domy two hours day work – more reading, indispersed with asking the 2/O manyquestions about how this and that was done and where to find the right forms onthe computer system. I was still there when the C/O came up for her watch andwas firmly told to go and get some rest!

This evening, I imagined things would go as they had donelast night. The C/O asked how I was getting on with the familiarisation checklists, and I showed her what I’d got ticked off so far, she then asked me if Iknew where various alarm panels were, what I’d do if this happened or thathappened, how I’d call the Captain if he wasn’t in his cabin, and then ticked offa load more things and signed it off. At 2100 she went off saying she was goingto call the Captain, who turned up about 15 minutes later, he hung about forabout half an hour, we discussed the traffic situation (one cruise ship on myport side, passing about a mile and a half astern) he asked if I knew all thevarious ways I could get hold of him, told me to keep 2 miles away from anydanger and to call him if in any doubt and then shook my hand and told me hewas going to bed! I really hadn’t expected to be left to it that quickly, butI’m positive that they wouldn’t leave me if they had any worries. I told himthat I am absolutely determined not to let him down and thanked him, severaltimes I think! There was no traffic, and nothing going on, but of course, thatcouldn’t last! In the next 2 and ½ hours I had a fire alarm; (not an actualfire, just a lot of people smoking in the crew mess, but Dear God, when it wentoff I nearly had a heart attack! Sent the quartermaster to check it and resetit…) disposal of food waste, the incinerator, greys and blacks (lots of loggingof times and positions of start and stop times); and then a vessel, on my portside, crossing 1.4 miles ahead. Which, frankly, seemed rude, like someone brushingpast you when you’re in a wide open space. I spotted him from about 15 miles away,and watched and waited to see if he was going to give way, but when he got to 4miles, and still hadn’t done any thing, I called the Captain. He came up, andwe watched as this ship passed ahead of us, and then he thanked me for callinghim and went back to his cabin.

Allin all, I think this is going pretty well so far!

Greetings from Panama!

2012-02-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

Well that's resolution number 1 sorted :-) And it's not just any job, it's the job I'd been really hoping might show up. (Without seriously thinking that I'd be THAT lucky as to actually get it!) But here I am, in a hotel room on the 11th floor of the Crown Plaza in Panama City, contemplating the fact that I'm joining the Wind Star tomorrow morning as 3/O. That's one of the sister ships to the Wind Surf, which, if you are a regular reader, you will know I spent 4 and 1/2 months on last year as a cadet.

I have, basically, landed my dream job (dream starter job anyway, I intend to progress up the ladder!) first time. I was very half hearted about job hunting for most of January, mainly because I had to wait 2 weeks to get my CoC back and I needed my CoC number to put on job aoolications. Once I had it though, I was able to finish filling out a couple of on-line applications, I then called my sponsor to ask about something banal and also got a contact name and number for one of the companies I'd just done the online application for. A few minutes later I had an interview with a recruitment agency lined up! They told me it that there was practically zero chance of anyone taking me on as a 3/O and the best I could hope for was a 4/O position to start with. (Everyone wants experience, but you seem to have to have experience in order to get experience...) And that once they'd interviewed me, if I passed muster, then I'd still have to wait around for an unknown preiod of time waiting for a position to actually open up.

The interview certainly seemed to go well, and they told me they'd let me know the final outcome in a couple of days. I did tell them, several times, that I had really enjoyed my time on the Surf and that I'd love to go back, and when I got home I dropped a line to a contact from the ship, asking if they might be able to put in a good word for me. Next morning I got the call asking me when I could start! They wanted me to join at the weekend, but that would have given me two days to sort everything out, and I'd got plans too, so I asked if I could possibly join mid-week instead, and here I am!

The journey here has been long and arduous, starting on Tues morning with a trip to the Docs for a company medical, then a stay in a hotel miles from the airport, two flights, the second of which was 10 and 3/4 hrs, but that's not including the delay due to technical faults and refueling etc. Think I spent about 12 hrs sat on that one! But i'm here now, and I can hardly keep my eyes open any more (Well I have been up for 24 hours!)

The fun starts tomorrow; I'll keep you posted :-)

Regarding Concordia

2012-01-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

We should not leap to conclusions about what happened, and I await the report, as should the media. However, I fear there is a catalogue of failures that led to this sad and terrible situation, and more than that I fear the majority of those failures came from poor leadership on the part of the Captain and his officers. However the rest of the crew should not be penalised in the media for a few people's shortcomings, and it should be bourne in mind that the majority of passengers were evacuated, in extremely difficult circumstances, well beyond any situation you would expect to simulate in a drill. I hope that as a (newly qualified) bridge officer I will never have to be in such a situation, but if I am I will remember my position and responsibility and behave in a manner that reflects that. Moreover, I will do my level best throughout my career to ensure that every member of crew understands how best to react in an emergency, that they are confident with that understanding, and that they know I will always be there beside them.

New Year, New Life!

2012-01-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here with a glass of hot spiced cider, and realising that, as Dorothy said to Toto, I'm not in Kansas anymore. It's strange, I feel rather lost at the moment, for the first time in three years I have no schedule, no deadline and, most importantly of all, no idea where my next wage is going to come from. (This has not stopped me from purchasing far too many pairs of boots on ebay mind!) So my New Years resolutions are quite simple-

1. Get a job - this will provide me with the money to do the next resolution.

2. Learn to drive - this will enable me to get to jobs and see friends without having to deal with trains all the time. It will also give me something to do when on leave.

3. Go to the on-board gym more than once in a blue moon - this will balance out the fact that driving means I no longer have to lug cases through stations, which is one of my primary sources of exercise. That and cycling to and from college, which I also no longer have to do.

I haven't started looking for a job until now because a) I wanted Christmas and New Year with my loved ones and b) I felt that I deserved a break. I had a wonderful family Christmas at home, with not only Ma, Pa, Sister and her new husband, but also the Beast and his mother. I had a completely tech free day, (although we had to watch the Queen's Speech) full of exquisite food, fancy drinks (including a 1927 port and a 1906 brandy), a roaring log fire and scrabble to round it all off (which of course I lost!). New Years was seen in with friends and also included an gluttony of food and drink. My waistline has somewhat expanded over the last few weeks!

Now however, with January looming cold and bleak I am finding my feet are starting to itch a little and I am resolved to get my paperwork in order and begin the process of applications and interviews. If anyone knows of any jobs going out there, please do let me know!!

Meanwhile I wish you and yours all the very best for 2012, and hope to see you on the high seas soon.

S4 xx

The exam

2011-12-03T09:32:00.001-08:00

This is what I can remember of the exam, I may have missed bits out, most of what I can remember is the parts when I thought it was going badly! The examiner was very fair, and threw me a lifeline on more than one occasion, it wasn't the quickest exam ever but considering he is the examiner who's got the reputation for being the most stringent, I'm very proud!

I stayed in the nunnery (Park House Guest House) the night before, everyone who stays there passes apparently, they're very sweet and there's one nun in particular who's tiny and promised to light a candle and pray for us, which was lovely of her. We went down the road for food, there's lots of restaurants to choose from and we ended up having a really good Mexican meal, along with a couple of beers. I fell asleep easily enough but woke up at 0430 and then at 0630, and had some super-weird dreams that I really want to forget!!

I spent the entire morning waiting while my two coursemateswent in and came out after 30 minutes with Leggit, they said it was easy, morelike a chat and half the time they weren’t sure they were being examined. Ifelt better hearing this from them and then my heart sank when Hiliard cameout, I’d brought my books in a crate and he asked me to bring them in. Heexplained the fire exits, fire alarm and the muster point outside and offeredme a glass of water, which I jumped at. He then had a flip through my nav workbooks, he had a look at my first sea phase ops workbook and didn’t botherlooking at the second one (I did have half a rainforest!) then the exam began,he gave me a small model ship and told me that was my ship.

Started out with Rule of the Road, I was so nervous, firsthe gave me a fishing vessel other thantrawling on my port side, I took a series of compass bearings (did this inevery case) and then I said I’d sound two short blasts (made the sound signalevery time as well) and go to port.

Then gave me a fishingvessel over 50 m trawling on my port side, again, said I’d go to port.

Then I got a towingvessel less than 50m length of tow less than 200m, and I had a total brainfart and said I’d go to port. I realised almost immediately that I’d screwed upand he let me have another go at it and I said I’d stand on with caution. Atthis point I thought I’d failed and spent the rest of the exam wondering how Iwas going to tell everyone I’d failed.

He carried on asking me questions though, he put me in a TSSand put a red can buoy in the middleof it and asked me what the light was (red, flashing any rhythm other thancomposite two plus one), then asked what I would do when I saw it, I said thatif I saw it right ahead I’d alter to starboard and leave it on my port side.

Still in the TSS he told me that it had a course alterationcoming up, with an 18m vessel on mystarboard side outside the TSS heading toward it that wasn’t impeding me atthe time, but was going to start impeding, I said I’d stand on, then he said itwas impeding now, and I said I’d stand on, then it got closer again and so Isaid I’d alter to stbd. I then wanted to beat my head on the desk as I realisedI should have given 5 or more short and rapid blasts before altering. I toldhim I knew what I’d done wrong there and told him I would have done the 5 ormore before altering, he didn’t say anything but carried on. This only servedto convince me further that I had failed. He did ask me who was the give wayand who was the stand on vessel in that situation, I took ages to answer butsaid I was the give way vessel but would expect the small vessel not to impedemy passage.

He then put an arrow on the table and told me that that wasNorth, put a red dot to symbolise a danger in the middle of the table and anarrow to show which way the danger extended. He then gave me a west cardinal buoy and told me to put it inthe right place. I put it on the west side of the danger, he asked me whatthe light was on it (9 quick in 15 secs, 9 very quick in 10 secs) and that wasit for buoyage!

I then got a ship onepoint abaft the beam on my starboard side, and I said I’d make a broadalteration of course and pass around her stern, he asked me which light I’dshow the other ship, and I told him I’d show them my port light.

He gave me the lights for a vessel aground and asked what I’d do, so I gave him the stop, takeall way off, call the master, turn the echo sounder on, plot my position, plotthe other vessels position and assess where the deep water was, he stopped methere and said “You’re on a paperlessship, how would you do that on ECDIS?” I told him I’d use the radaroverlay, and select the ship with ARPA on the radar. He asked how I’d assessthe chart, so I told him I’d increase the amount of soundings the chart wasshowing.

We then went onto RestrictedVis, he asked me to tell him about going into RV, so I said reduce speed,call the Captain, turn on nav lights, start sounding the appropriate signal,get a man on the wheel, extra look outs. Then he gave me a sheet of paper witha radar plot on it showing several vessels, he told me it was in true vectorsand relative trails, that there would only be one vessel that had a risk ofcollision and to take my time in deciding which was which and what action Iwould take. I started to answer but he told me to take my time so I stared atit for a couple of minutes! He also gave me a straight edge and a pair ofdividers to help me work out what was going on. He said that in RV situations Iwouldn’t have to worry about things too much because I’d have the Captain onthe bridge but he just had to make sure I had an understanding of the rules.

The first one had a vessel ahead of me that was causing arisk and I said I’d go to starboard (not sounding any signal), after the vesselon my starboard side that was overtaking me had gone ahead and was out of theway. He asked me what else I could do and I told him I could go to port as Iwas overtaking it.

The second one had two vessels with relative trails thatpointed directly at my ship, and I used the dividers and edge to try and figureout which was more of an immediate problem, there was another vessel on thestbd side which would pass astern of me. He said that there was only one optionopen to me and I agreed because I couldn’t alter toward a vessel abeam or abaftmy beam so went to starboard. He said “Ok, but you wouldn’t make a very broadalteration and cross the other vessel would you?” I told him I’d make a trial manoeuvre first which made himimmediately move on.

Mooring fwd, whatpreparations I would make? I told him I’d have a briefing on the bridgefirst with the Captain and find out how many lines we would be using, then briefmy team ensuring they had the right PPE and PPC and ensure there was power ondeck by calling the engine room. On the deck I’d ensure there was adequatelighting, that the deck was clear of obstructions and debris, get the linesflaked out, grease round and warm through the winches (if necessary but I’dexpect that the winches were greased as part of regular maintenance), get theheaving lines rigged so that the lines would run without catching on anything,and then position myself where I could see the quay and the deck so I couldgive distances off via radio.

He asked what would Ido if I couldn’t see the man on the winches from where I was so I said I’dposition another competent person who could relay my hand signals to the winchman.

What kind of stopperwould I use on a polyprop mooring rope? I told him for a polyprop rope, I’duse a polyprop stopper.

Fire in the galley,what would be the best way of fighting a deep fat fryer fire? I told him about the wet chemicalextinguishers that I had on the cruise ships, he asked how it worked and I toldhim that it solidified over the oil and smothered it, I think he was lookingfor me to say “fixed system” but he left it and we carried on.

Steering failure,I said I’d call the Captain and try switching to non-follow up, he asked me toexplain how non-follow up worked so I told him about that and then he told methat the steering had failed again and the rudder had locked over to port so Isaid, eventually after some pushing on his part, that I’d use the emergencysteering gear in the steering flats.

He possibly asked me what I’d do in a MOB situation, but Ican only remember the pain of the next question, it was like pulling teeth!-It’sa nice calm flat day in port, the Chief Officer tells you to launch the rescueboat, How would you prepare the rescueboat? I started off ok, telling him I’d muster, call in to the bridge,check everyone had the right PPE and PPC, check the condition of the boat andthe gear in it. I knew I needed to check the limit switch so I said with theboat in the cradle I’d lower the wire and then heave it back up to test thelimit switch, he wasn’t keen on this and I tried to re-explain what I meant,and he asked if I’d lift the boat, so I changed my answer and said I’ddisconnect the wire, test the limit switch and then reconnect the boat, heseemed happier with this and told me to carry on. I then said I’d launch theboat with people in it. He gave me a funny look and said “There was an M-noticeabout that recently wasn’t there?” I jumped on the lifeline he had just givenme and said Yes I would lower the boat to the water line without anyone in itfirst. He left it at that, but I think he was looking for FPDs.

Passage planning onECDIS I started with Appraisal, and he stopped me and said “You’ve done allthat, what would you do before you start putting stuff into the ECDIS? I saidI’d make sure the charts were all fully updated, and then I was stumped, hestarted talking about alarms and parameters, and I was still lost, I told himI’d check all the feeds going into the EDCIS were right- GPS, Gyro, Radar,speed log, AIS and then he asked what else do you need to do? I said make surethere’s power? I was utterly lost and told him I was sorry but my mind had goneblank and at that time I didn’t know. I realise now he was looking for me toclear all alarms and reset all the layers on the chart.

Port state controllercoming on what instructions will you give your crew? I told him I’d tellthem to answer his questions and give him any information he asked for.

What’s the differencebetween port state control and flag state control? Told him the onlydifference was that flag state inspected ships that were flagged by their stateand port state inspected any ship that came into their port.

He asked how I would know what they were looking for so Itold him about the Paris MOU website, that I’d look on that to see what shipshad been detained and for what, he asked if I’d looked at the website and Itold him I had (Thank god I did just a week before!)

He then said “Well you’ve passed” I nearly cried! He took myNoE to photo copy it and then gave some feedback, I need to look at Passageplanning on ECDIS and to take my time when assessing situations- he hadobviously realised how nervous I was and that my mistakes had been down totrying to answer too quickly, overall though, he said it was a good exam. He gave me my books back which I had to put downagain to shake his hand and then left, thanking him profusely and in shock!

I passed!!!!

2011-12-02T08:41:00.001-08:00

I'm still in shock, and am currently recovering from drinking large quantities of whisky last night. Will update this with a blow by blow account of the exam soon!

The Middle of the End

2011-11-16T16:19:00.001-08:00

Two weeks to go, and I have finally got my game head on properly, which seems to have co-incided with me figuring out my optimal working set up (Radio 2 on the TV, sitting on the sofa, using a coffee table to rest note book on, laptop on second coffee table with mnoticefinder.com ready for immediate use, reference books on the sofa next to me). It also helps that my housemate is away, he has a tendancy to come and talk about his computer game at un-useful moments, and try and make me watch zombie shows. I have also posted the following notice on our front door "Please, Do Not Disturb, I have the most important exam of my life in 2 weeks and am revising, See you after, S4" Needless to say the neighbours came knocking twice this evening, but I had to forgive them, as they were without power or heating. I gave them another candle and a torch.

Revising everything you have learnt in the last three years is no easy task, none of it is new, but I need to remember which Code I can find such-and-such information in, what annex to what legislation applies to which situation, etc. It's a drag I can tell you, but I'm getting there, and I'm also looking forward to having my own comprehensive set of notes that I will take with me to my first ship, all neatly index tabbed so I can find everything quickly and look like I know my shit really well!!

That's all for now folks, see you on the other side. S4 xx

The beginning of the end

2011-09-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

I finished my last trip yesterday, it was only a 4 day trip, but my last as a cadet, and I suddenly find myself facing the prospect of returning to college for the last time.Where did the last three years go? I wonder, have I learnt enough? Will I crumble into a small heap of nerves as I step into that exam room? I am I good enough?

If you read my appraisals, you would probably say yes, phrases such as "Will make a fine officer" "Is welcome back any time" "Has demonstrated a solid understanding of the rules in busy traffic" are but a few of the kind things my training officers and Captains have written, but I can't help but think... Are they just being nice?? My father says of course not, they wouldn't say it if they didn't mean it, but he's my Dad, and a proud father, and therefore unlikely to say anything otherwise. I know he's probably right, but I still have this deep down gnawing fear...

The last month or two has been interesting, for a variety of reasons. My last trip on the Balmoral was supposed to be my last trip, but as I had only gained 6 hrs watchkeeping hours per day on the Adventurer I needed 32 hours more bridge watchkeeping time, I had asked my sponsors about this a while ago and they'd said "Ohhh it's fine" and then phoned up a few days ago and said, "Oh, um, it's probably not fine". They did find me ship though, and a great little ship it was too; Huelin Dispatch sails out of Southampton three times a week, taking general cargo to the Channel Islands, the crew totals nine and there's no uniform, no calling people Sir, no EDCIS, no ARPA.... it was wonderful, and totally, utterly opposite in every respect to the Balmoral. In the space of 4 days I felt first welcomed, then accepted and valued, and without any wish to sound nauseatingly gushy, it felt like I was part of the family. I wish I'd had the chance to sail on her for longer, navigating without the course laid out on the Radar or AIS cluttering up the screen made watches interesting cos I had to actually think about things, the cargo stayed where it was put, it didn't ask me anything and it didn't complain when the weather made life a little lumpy. And when I say lumpy I mean, in a force 7 the ship was moving so much that I started to get a headache and feel that tea rather than coffee was necessary (which is about as close to being seasick as I get), and I couldn't sleep, which means it's seriously lumpy. But how devine to actually feel like I was on a ship, rather than having stabilizers take all the fun out of it.

You may have gathered from this that I liked the Dispatch, almost as much as I disliked the Balmoral. I would like to point out that the officers were all perfectly nice to me on there, but I always felt like a spare part, and as for other things.... I'm not going to go into detail about them here, as I think they've gotten themselves into a big enough hole as it is, but as I said to the MCA inspector on the day I left, most of what I learnt on there was what not to do. As I said, it's been interesting....

So with all these experiences under my belt, and the lessons therein tucked firmly into my brain, am I ready? I guess I'll never feel 100% ready, 100% confident, and will always wish I could have just a bit more time. But on the other hand, I'm looking forward to having my own watch, looking forward to the leave periods, looking forward to the pay, looking forward to the opportunity to choose the ship I work on, especially as that ship might be a Tall Ship.

The Rules

2011-06-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

I used to take part in a lot of plays; school plays, youth theatre in the holidays, amdram, university plays... so I thought that learning a few rules would be easy, just like learning lines.

It's not.

I've got the meaning of them, that's not the problem, the problem is the placement of seemingly insignificant words. For example, in the normal world, it wouldn't be a problem to exchange a "will" for a "shall" or even a "may", in the rules however, it matters. In the language of the Rules, these words are not insignificant and using the wrong one or putting them in the wrong place is tantamount to heresy. I was flippant about learning the Rules when I started this course, thought I could easily box them off in a few weeks and so didn't get around to learning them properly until Officers on ships started getting on my case about them. And thank gods they did! I'm getting there, slowly, I've gotten all the lights and shapes stuff done, and distress signals, and out of the really important ones: 4-9 and 11-13, and 19. (I'm putting off 10 because it has so many little parts). Rules 14, 15, 16 and 17 are all fairly simple, so is 18 actually, so I reckon, if I put my mind to it I could have them signed off soon, hopefully by the end of this trip (three weeks time).

What I'm trying to say really is this: If I could give anyone starting out on this career one piece of advice, it would be this learn your COLREGS! Learn the structure first, it goes a little something like this....

Part A - General - This is Rules 1, 2 and 3.

Rule1 - Application. This basically says that the Rules apply to everyone on the high seas and waters connected to the high seas that are navigable by seagoing vessels. There's a lot more to it in reality though.
Rule 2 - Responsibility. In a nutshell, this says that if you fail to follow the rules and crash, it's your fault, but it also says that if by following the rules you end up crashing, it's also your fault. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't!
Rule 3 - Definitions. Does what it says on the tin really, it's a lovely long list of exactly what a 'vessel' is, what a 'power driven vessel' is, what a 'sailing vessel' is... all the way from a) to m) "The term Wing-In-Ground (WIG) craft means a multimodal craft which, in it's main operational mode, flies in close proximity to the surface by utilizing surface-effect action" You'll probably never see one, but you still have to know what it is!!

Part B - Steering and Sailing Rules. These are the really important ones, that you have to know like the palm of your hand.
This part is broken up into three sections;
Section 1 covers the Conduct of Vessels in ANY condition of Visibility.
Section 2 covers the Conduct of Vessels IN SIGHT of One Another.
Section 3 covers the Conduct of Vessels In RESTRICTED VISIBILITY. Remember that.

So in Section 1 we have:

Rule 4 - Application. The rules in this section apply to.... (hint, see above!)
Rule 5 - Look out. i.e. keep a good look out, at all times, using ALL available means.
Rule 6 - Safe Speed. Go at a speed appropriate to the circumstances and conditions you are in, when determining what this should be, all vessels should consider: Visibility, Density of traffic, Manoeuvrability of your vessel, Lights around you, Weather and your Draught (in relation to the depth of water) I remember these points with the mnemonic VD Makes Little Willies Drip. In addition, vessels with radar should also consider: Characteristics and limitations of the radar, any Constraints imposed by the radar range in use, the Effect of sea, weather and other interference, the Possibility that small objects may not be detected by radar, the Number of other vessels detected by radar and the More exact assessment of visibility that can be made using radar. Another handy little mnemonic for these ones is Chinese Charlie Eats Pussy No More. Both mnemonics are gross, but highly memorable!
Rule 7 - Risk of collision. This rule defines how you will determine if there is a risk of collision.
Rule 8 - Action to avoid collision. This says that any action to avoid collision will be taken in good time, and be obvious to the other vessel that you are doing it.
Rule 9 - Narrow channels. Basically, keep on the starboard side of a channel, small vessels keep out of the way, and use sound signals if overtaking or nearing a bend.
Rule 10 - Traffic Separation Schemes. Another one of those rules with a load of little parts, (a to l!). To sum it up- keep to your lane, if you're crossing it, do so on a heading that is 90 degrees to the lane, small vessels keep out of the way.

In section 2: Conduct of vessels in sight of one another. These rules tell you what action to take when risk of collision exists.

Rule 11 - Application. (as above)
Rule 12 - Sailing Vessels.
Rule 13 - Overtaking
Rule 14 - Head on Situations
Rule 15 - Crossing Situations
Rule 16 - Action by the Give-Way vessel
Rule 17 - Action by the Stand On vessel
Rule 18 - Responsibilities between vessels. This tells you who has to give way to who when both vessels are not the same type. i.e Sailing vessels keep out of the way of vessels engaged in fishing, etc.

In section 3 there is only one rule:

Rule 19 - Conduct of Vessels in Restricted Visibility. This is almost guaranteed to come up in your Orals, so know it, and know it well.

After that little lot you have three more parts, these you don't need to have off by heart and back to front, but you do need to know what they mean!

Part C - Lights and shapes
Rules 20 - 31. These rules are best learnt visually, you don't have to know which rule is which, but you do need to know what vessels will display what shapes during the day, and what lights they will show at night, and be able to define what they are from a variety of viewpoints. Get a set of flash cards!

Part D - Sound and Light Signals
Rules 32 - 37. The title explains it all really. It's all about learning when to go ding ding ding, dongalongalong...

Part E - Exemptions
Rule 38. Some older ships, depending on when they were built, are exempt from having to comply with some bits and pieces regarding the installation of certain lights and sound signalling appliances.

Annexes
Annex 1- Positioning and technical details of lights and shapes. Best learnt as diagrams mostly.
Annex 2 - Additional signals for fishing vessels fishing in close proximity. Learn these with your lights and shapes.
Annex 3 - Technical details of sound signal appliances. Very technical, the important part to remember is the distance over which you must be able to hear the signals, depending on the size of the vessel.

Annex 4 - Distress Signals. Learn these off by heart. And make sure you're learning the most up to date version, see MSN 1781 (M+F) (Amendment).

So now I guess I should take some of my own medicine, and go and nail rule 14!

Some deep breathing, cathartic deleting and a little introspection later....

2011-05-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

And I'm back, apologies for the rant, and thanks for the support too, it's good to know that my humble offerings on t'interweb are of use and interesting to people.

When I started writing this, I was doing different things most days, everything was new and, while not exactly exciting, it was interesting, and I wanted to share that. However, life on ship is not always interesting, and with 10 months sea time under my belt now, I feel I can safely say that for the most part, life on ship is actually incredibly repetitive and dull. Whether you're doing the same routes around the Caribbean week in week out, or to-ing and fro-ing across the Atlantic, or the Irish Sea, you're still trogging round the ship inspecting fire extinguishers and hoses, checking lifeboat gear, doing drills, correcting charts, testing radio equipment, writing logs, filling out checklists and staring out of the window for hours on end. And that is something that I feel is important to realise when you're considering embarking on a career at sea. The people who promote the MN as a career will tell you about the money, the opportunity to travel and the long periods of leave, but one thing you have to remember is that these perks come because your job matters. When you live on a ship, your life and the lives of your fellow crewmembers and passengers are reliant on the fact that the people who do inspections and checks do them properly, and do maintenance thoroughly, that they keep a sharp look out and make sure the equipment that will save your ass if the shit ever did hit the fan works properly. And that is why I continued with the daily log entries, yes it's repetitive, but believe you me, you got the edited highlights! I think now though, that that point has been made, and I'm at the stage now where I really am doing the same thing every day, which does not make for interesting posts. For example, one of the things we have to do for our nav work book is keep a radio log, of all the communications made from the ship to other ships and shore stations, plus the daily and weekly tests. Every ship keeps a GMDSS log, but only actually logs that the tests have been completed and (according to theory anyway) any distress communications received. After keeping my log for 4 days, I could now give you a run down of every call we make going from Dublin to Holyhead and back, and what frequency it was made on. Do I now really know how to keep a GMDSS log book properly and do the daily and weekly tests on the equipment? Yes. Is it interesting? No. So I'm not going to write about what I do every day any more, but will hopefully get some more interesting days to tell you about from time to time. I still keep a daily log for myself, but it's basically brief notes on what I did to help jog my memory when writing reports.

So what will I write about now? Well, the met post was just as much for my own benefit as anyone else's. I'm starting to think about Orals now, which I'm due to take in December this year and I find that for me, the best way to revise something is try and explain it to someone else. I'm not going to be doing all my revision on here, and what I do post will not be utterly comprehensive, so please don't view my writing as a 100% reliable source, go to the books yourself and read up too! (And if I have made a glaring error, feel free to correct me.)

We interrupt broadcasting for a short service message

2011-05-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

I would just like to make something very clear, this is my blog, and I will post what I dam well like, not what some antipodean old fart who has to resort to posting anonymously because he has made himself so unpopular on forums that he has turned one into a wasteland and been banned from another thinks I should write. I am no longer accepting anonymous comments and will post again if and when I have calmed down a bit.

Bouncy bouncy... a small lesson on met.

2011-05-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

Bouncy Bouncy
Oh what a good time!
Bouncy bouncy.... Hmm, enough with the Boosh references, but you should have got the idea, it's been rough out there today! If you watch the UK weather forecast you will have gathered that there's been a big old low pressure going over us today, and this one was particularly vile. For those of you who've done met at college or just know this stuff, please feel free to skip this one, I don't want to teach grandmother to suck eggs, but for those of you who've not yet had that pleasure:

Here's the surface pressure analysis for midnight this morning:

And then the forecast for 1200 midday:

Images courtesy of the Met Office

The thin black lines are called isobars, they are basically contours, like you get on an OS map, only these show pressure. A low pressure system moves in an anti-clockwise direction and as it moves, so the wind goes too. Wind generally moves along the isobars, and on a low pressure system the wind circles inwards. The closer the lines of equal pressure, the faster the wind will be. (Think of it as a funnel, the closer the isobars, the steeper the slope of the funnel and the faster a ball will roll down the inside). The red lines with semi-circles on are warm fronts, and the blue lines with triangles on are cold fronts. Our part of the world is a mixing bowl of sorts; to the north we have cold air around the pole, and to the south we have warm air around the equator. If the earth didn't spin and butterflies didn't flap their wings (bit of chaos theory there for you) then these two masses of air would sit side by side quite happily, but if anything stirs things up a bit then things get interesting. When warm air and cold air meet and mix, they don't want to mix, so one body of air will actually slide under the other. This makes air rise, and when air rises it cools, and the water vapour in it condenses, condensed water vapour is generally know as clouds, and you know what they bring! So that cold front is a big ass wedge of cold air, pushing up warm wet air (warm air can hold more water than cold air) from the south into the atmosphere, which is why a cold front brings with it rain in buckets.

So there you go, that's not the whole met syllabus, there are further complications and possible permutations of the scenario, but those are the basics. High pressure systems of course go clockwise (think of the two types of system as cogs) and are gentler beasts. Then when you head to the other side of the equator things flip and low pressure systems rotate clockwise and high pressure systems rotate anti-clockwise. The direction in which they move depends on what latitude you are at, this is is due to something called the Coriolis Effect, caused by the spin of the earth. Google it, if you're bored!

This way, that way, forwards and backwards.....

2011-05-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

...over the Irish Sea. But there's no rum, nor is there cider. This makes me a little bit sad.

I'm on a ferry now, twice a day we go Dublin to Holyhead and back, it's not the most exciting run I must admit, but it's something different, and it's only for 6 weeks so I've a lot to learn in a short time. Technically, this is a ro-pax, i.e. we take cars, vans, lorries and anything else on wheels, and passengers back and forth to Ireland. What this means for me is a chance to get some of the cargo work stuff in my record book signed off and short watches :) I'm on day shifts at the moment, so I'm waking up at 0630, crawling out of my pit at 0645 and having breakfast at 0700. Loading starts at 0720 and we're letting go by 0820, after that there's time for a quick cuppa and then I head to the bridge for watch. By 1200 we're all tied up in Dublin and it's time for lunch, after that it all starts again, going in the opposite direction.

It will get a bit more interesting, in a few weeks we're going into dry dock, so I'll have a lot of chances to go crawling around in spaces that you wouldn't normally see, (and do lots of reports on everything too... deep, deep joy...). There are other benefits too, all British crew, satellite TV that works, my own cabin with TV, and.... free internet!!!! If only I had more to write about.....

Karma

2011-04-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

Well I failed abysmally at keeping up to date on this blog didn't I?! Well there's a good reason for that; I was utterly miserable, and no one wants to hear someone droning on about how shit their life is.

Now before I continue, I want to make it very clear that my take on this has changed, but, if you had asked me two months ago whether I would go back to that ship, I would have told you emphatically NO, I hated it. I continued to write a daily log up to the 26th of Feb, but for the most part it had ceased to be about what I had done, and had instead turned into a diatribe of anger and resentment against certain people on board, which would have been deeply unprofessional to post up, despite being deeply cathartic. Since those dark days though, things improved greatly, people joined and people left and by the end of my trip I was being given responsibilities that, while technically shouldn't have been mine, made me confident that I had proved myself to be a competent and useful person to have on board and would be welcomed back, whereas the people who had managed to make my life such a misery had been deemed lazy and useless, with less than a snowballs chance in hell of ever getting back. Karma, you gotta love it.

My problem boiled down to this: I am not a girly girl, I tend to be sarcastic and blunt, I swear more than my mother would like and I like a good dirty joke, I work hard and expect others around me to do the same, and while I am always willing to help a shipmate out, I will not do someone else's work for them. I like a few drinks, (generally this was curbed to Friday nights, with the glory of a study day on the Saturday). In other words, I am a sailor through and through. My fellow cadet was pretty much the opposite, she detested sarcasm, didn't drink much (unless she got so drunk she had to be escorted to a bunk with someone to watch over her in case she was sick), was lazy, and flirted with all the men she could find. They, of course, loved her. She was cute, gazed up at them with big eyes and played the helpless maiden to their worldly wise manliness. We tried to get on, but eventually it became difficult to disguise the mutual contempt in which we held each other. She however had gotten herself a boyfriend on the bridge, so guess who got portrayed as the big mean bossy cow, and who was the poor little flower who could do no wrong. I could go on and list specifics but that would be unfair, and I have every confidence that when it comes to the Orals, she will come unstuck.

What I have leant on this trip is that while popularity makes you happy in the short term, working hard, keeping your head down and smiling even when you want to cry will bring you much greater rewards in the end. I would love to return the ship, as a cadet and then as an officer, and will drink a toast to those who made me miserable, as without them, I couldn't have done it!

"When you're good, you're good. When you're bad, you're better!"

2011-02-04T17:14:00.000-08:00

Oh dear me, it’s been a month, and yes, there is a months worth of blog for you to read! I’ll try to edit it so it’s not too dull, but, don’t forget, that while I may be in the Caribbean, there’s plenty of boring jobs to keep a cadet out of trouble!

Jan 4^th – St Kitts

Am. Boxing off odd jobs for C/O. Looked at creating new bomb search plans, which promises to be a fun little task (like pulling teeth!).

Pm 4 – 8 watch, spent a fair bit of time hunting down info on Fire Fighting systems. Made some progress and have written a report on it now, though I still need additional info though.

Jan 5^th – Marigot Bay, St Maartin

Am. I started on the Bomb search plan using the safety plan ( which is on a table under perspex) as a tool to block off areas. In the afternoon I got ashore for a couple of hours, Marigot is so much nicer than Phillipsburg; lovely French colonial architecture, a variety of shops (as opposed to a choice of duty free shops, jewellery shops or electronics shops) and no blaring music. Gets my vote over P’burgh any time. There was an awesome market, lots of tat in there of course, but in between, there’s some good quality and good value stuff. We also found an wonderful shop in the mall, where I bought an ashtray that clips onto a table, perfect of on a ship!

Pm. 4 – 8. Anchor watch.

Jan 6^th – St Barts

Am. Day work working on Bomb search plans. Fire Drill at 1015. I joined fire team Alpha. 2/E DS is the team leader and he put me in his fire kit, and told me he would talk me through everything. The mask fitted well this time, which was a relief. We got the kit on in the fire locker and then went down to the ER. The fire was in the PM room so Team Alpha met the On Scene Commander in the auxiliary room. The WTDs on each side of the PM room had already been closed and Fire team Bravo was attacking the fire from the other end. Fire Team Charlie also mustered in the auxiliary room with us. We were briefed by the OSC that the fire was thought to be on the switchboard and that there was a suspected casualty. To simulate going into a low vis space the team all had hoods put over our heads (Really, really disorientating!). I was #2 on the hose, we approached the door from low down and the WTD was opened a little by the OSC, the team leader sprayed inside and the WTD was closed again. This was done three times to cool the space and then the WTD was opened to let us in. We kept low, one hand on the hose and one hand on the team member in front, and sweeping with our feet, I had the hose so that the team leader could have one hand on the bulkhead and sweep the area ahead with their arm. The area is not easy to search as it is near the welding bench and there are several obstacles to get around. The switchboard is not far from the WTD, and has two large (9Kg) CO2 extinguishers located next to it, the team leader reached these and used one to extinguish the fire on the switchboard. Behind him I used the hose to protect him from heat. Once the fire was out we continued forward through the space and encountered the casualty. #3 and #4 came forward to pick up the casualty and they then followed the hose back to the entrance. I stayed with #1 and we continued to cool the area and search. We were then instructed to come out of the space and change bottles, which isn’t easy when it’s still on your back!

Pm 4- 7 watch. I actually got to play with traffic, we had a cargo ship on a steady bearing which I altered for!! (Sounds naff to be so excited, but it was the first time any traffic had really posed a threat). I knocked off early to do tables with the C/O (that’s eating with the guests to you landlubbers) Food was excellent and the C/O was on fine form, I need a few decades more experience before I can regale a table full of people with so many stories! Afterwards I went down to find S wasn’t in the cabin, detective work told me she’d gone to the Compass Rose, (lack of epaulettes and formal uniform in her wardrobe) so I went up and found the 2/E, 2/E DS, 2/O Sails and S there. Had a couple of glasses of wine and then was the first to go to bed (see me, I is responsible cadet!!)

Jan 7^th – Iles Des Saintes

Day work, working on the BSP, this thing is turning into a personal vendetta/my baby!

PM 4 - 8 watch, The Captain took an azimuth bearing of the sun at sunset, so I need to do the calculations for it now! (Kinda forgot to note position and exact time so it’s going to be a wee bit dodgy!).

Jan 8^th – Pigeon Island, St Lucia

Day work, BSP. Got the basic sorted now, so am now making lists of lockers etc for each specific person to search. Which is involving a lot of walking around the ship with a clipboard; Looks very important, but it’s an utter drag, if only I had a cadet to do my jobs for me…..

Chilled out with Al for a bit (and talked about the BSP!) Then went ashore for lunch at the BBQ, chilled on the beach for about an hour and a half then back to the ship.

4 - 8 watch. Anchor was aweigh by the time watch started, so it was a pleasant evening doing some scenic cruising along St Lucia, and into the Pitons Bay (plotting 6 minute fixes all the way…) before setting course for Barbados.

Jan 9^th – Barbados

Up at 0300 for 0330 on the bridge, I was on sugar loading tower watch again. We then went with 2/O Navs to see how they do the emergency steering gear test aft once we were all fast. I had a snooze after that and then we got a call at half 8 saying the C/O wanted us on the Marina. 2 sided job – a) put non slip tape on marina steps, b) firewatch for the welding that was going on. Also could be read as. a) Sit in sunshine, b) sit in sunshine ;-)

Chilled out for a couple of hour this afternoon in front of the TV, finally managed to watch a film on the ship’s system (albeit that I watched the second half first and then watched the first half on the next run). Then dragged myself out of my bunk and went up to the bridge for a coffee to wake myself up before carrying on with the stupid task I have given myself of listing EVERY locker in the pax alleyways for the BSP. I could have left it as C/O had said take the afternoon off, but we’re going to be doing fire extinguisher maintenance on daywork for the next few days, and I won’t have time to do it and C/O is already telling me to hurry up on it. Got those done in time to have a fag before the pax drill (I’m still doing that too) And then got changed, bullied Al into shifting his ass, had dinner on the ship and then went to the Boatyard for a couple of drinks ashore, much needed R&R.

10^th Jan – Bequia

Day work, we have a new special project! The annual fire extinguisher inspections are due, so S and I have been taken off watch keeping and are doing them for as long as it takes. 2/O Navs showed us how to do them in the morning (there’s lots of different types), and we spent the afternoon inspecting the rest of the spares in Charlie and made a start on the ones in the Engine Room, we got as far as the PM room before the engineers started closing the WTDs so we decided to go back to the ECR with them and see what they do at departure.

11^th Jan - Grenada

Finished off the ER fire extinguishers and started on the next deck up… this is going to be a loooong week!

12^th Jan – Mayreau

Continued with the fire extinguishers all day, with a couple of brief respites from it when we went to help 2/O Navs with the high fog system in the food stores.

13^th Jan - Sea day

Continued with the extinguishers all day.

Fire Drill at 1015. The Cadet Team had it’s first outing, we did alright, but could probably do with a bit more practice before we get sent in to a real fire!!

14^th Jan – Rossau, Dominica

Continued with the fire extinguishers. The ship dragged anchor at lunch time, S and I had strolled up to the bridge to tell the 3/O about a PPE locker we’d found, and got caught up in that instead. The main problem was that the shelf of shallow water around the island is very narrow, so by dragging a little, the depth of water drops suddenly and there is a lot less cable on the sea bed. The Captain decided to move around to another anchorage where there was a bit more ground and a bit more shelter, I would have loved to have seen the faces of the passengers who were ashore at that time, seeing the ship disappear off around the corner!!

15^th Jan – Pigeon Island, St Lucia

Got the last few extinguishers we could do finished off, it was so nice to hand the the list back to 2/O Navs, I’m wholeheartedly sick of fire extinguishers!

16^th Jan – Bridgetown

Up again for arrival, I was back on sugar loader duty. I did rule 19 for the Captain, getting two words wrong, so he told me I could try again later. I did it for the C/O when we started again at 8, and he signed it off, and rule 35 too! S got both signed of as well. I’m sure I did some daywork in the morning, but as I’m writing this a week late, I can’t for the life of me remember!

PM. An actual proper afternoon off, went to the beach, S went jet skiing and I phoned my man, it was lovely to hear his voice, I do miss him so.

17^th Jan – Sea day

Didn’t have to be up until 12 cos 2/O Sail’s given us a weird schedule whereby I do day work for 3 hours in the afternoon and then the 4- 8 watch. S is doing daywork in the morning after her watch. Seems weird to me, as it means we only do 7 hrs a day. For daywork I got started on the fire attack plans, we’d been told ages ago to write a fire attack plan for the switchboard room, but when I compared the digital file to the paper one I found lots were missing and/or out of date, so I have taken it upon myself to type all the missing ones up and get the digital copy in good order so that when new ones are put in or current ones are updated, it won’t be a total ball ache, which it is at the moment.

4- 8 watch in the evening.

18^th Jan – St Kitts

I was up, but not dressed when a MOB drill got called so I shoved on my boiler suit and rushed up, found 2/O Sails and followed him about. When I got to the bridge I got asked by the 3/O where my MOB muster station was… OOPS!! (Had totally forgotten in my hurry!) Day work consisted of picking up where S had left off in the morning in the deck store, we have had a delivery of lifejacket lights (they expire after 5 years). Far be it for it to be an easy job though, the brackets that the lights fit to are too small to comfortably fit around the webbing strap, so it has to be pinched in (and therefore crumpled) to fit the bracket, which means that attaching the light involves a lot of pushing, wiggling and very often swearing, as well as very sore fingers. 4-8 watch in the evening.

19^th Jan – Marigot, St Martin

Daywork was, once again, the lifejacket lights. S told me she’d done three of the deck boxes containing spares, this impressed me mightily, as the day before we’d each done about 35, and the boxes contain 36 or 34. I found it easier and rather than taking 3 and a bit hours to do 36, got the remaining box of 36 done in 2 hours, but still couldn’t work out how she’d still managed to double my output. Until that was, I went to the bridge and told the 3/O I thought she was Supergirl or something, “Or she had the Bosun with her!” was his reply. Sneaky wench!! After that the 3/O came with me and we did the deck 1 crew cabin life jackets. To go into crew cabins you have to have two people so that you can’t be accused of nicking stuff. When we’d done them, as we were at anchor until late and they needed doing it was decided that I wouldn’t do the watch but just carry on with the life jacket lights. The 3/O told me to put aside the number of lights we need for the pax cabins and then start on the spares in FL Alpha. However, when I looked I found we had no-where near enough to do all the pax cabins, let alone the rest of the crew cabins as well as the spares. I did some maths and gave him a full breakdown of how short we were. On 2/O Sail’s suggestion I then went to reception and found out how many pax cabins were empty and went round and replaced the lights on those ones. As we sail at 2359 from St Martin, I went ashore with a bunch of crew, we had a dam good evening, and were all on the last tender back, probably being a little more noisy than we should have been! Went to the crew bar after as well as it was the Restaurant Manager’s birthday, I didn’t get anywhere near drunk though, I seem to have become very responsible these days!

20^th Jan – Gustavia, St Barts

Daywork in the morning, because we had the drill at 1015, I got on with the fire attack plans, which is turning out to be another of those never ending jobs, I keep making the mistake or actually reading what is written and then going and checking if it’s right, and then writing a better option instead. Goddam perfectionism.

Fire drill- all four cadets were put in charge of one of the fire Teams, I was I/C Bravo, S was I/C Alpha, Al was I/C Charlie and T was I/C support team. The fire was in the port bunker station, with additional fires and hot spots in the garbage rooms.

We changed Captains today, Captain J has been specifically requested to do the charter cruise next week and as the Wind Star was in the same port as us for once, today was a perfect time for them to swap over. Having done my daywork in the morning, I had a snooze before watch at 4. Weirdly enough, I had a dream, in which a new senior officer joined the ship (although it wasn’t this ship, and there was a weird fire drill going on involving an Olympic size swimming pool and tiny boats) But what freaked me out when I went up to the bridge for the 4-8 watch, was that the guy from my dream was standing there!! , Captain J seems really cool though, he got the sails out as we lifted the anchor and sailed past the Wind Spirit, really really close!! At one point I was next to the QM, whispering “HARD A STARBOARD!!” It really looked like we were going to T-Bone her stern, but the Captain took us at least 10m off her stern, everyone on both ships was waving and calling out to each other and taking pics. Someone on another ship took a picture that looks like we had hit her, but he had full control, and everyone loved it!

21^st Jan – Iles des Saintes

Came up for daywork in the morning cos I was doing SOLAS training on Pyros, SARTs and EPIRBS for the 3/O. While I was waiting for that I got on with the fire attack plans. 4-8 in the afternoon.

22^nd Jan – Pigeon Island, St Lucia

Did my daywork in the morning again, I prefer to have my day broken up, and I do a full 4 hours this way. It also meant S and I could get on with deck 3 crew cabin lifejacket lights.

4-8 watch in the evening, Captain J took us so close in to the Pitons that you could see the sail’s shadow on the rock wall!

23^rd Jan – Bridgetown

Up for arrival, I kept the movement book while S went forward on her own. Went and crashed after we were alongside, then back up at 8 for a marathon of lifejacket light replacement in the pax cabins, we got deck 3 done and over half of deck two, because the Bosun and some of the sailors came and helped, because S is so small I was getting them out and putting them back, and when the sailors came and helped I went round and pulled the rest of the ones on deck 3 out and then followed round again putting them back. Wasn’t so bad at first, but after the BRM at 11 I had loads to put back up, and by the end my back was killing me.

24^th Jan – Sea day

Spent the majority of the morning carefully measuring the ski boats and hurricanes, only to come back later to find my carefully drawn diagrams back in the cadet pigeon hole. We’d measured the boats very carefully and I’d then drawn a couple of lovely sketches showing all the dimensions, only to find that all the C/O wanted was length, breadth and depth so he could put in an order for people to come out and measure up and put in quotes. Doh!

Having downed three strong cups of coffee on the 4-8 am watch, I was too wired to sleep in the afternoon, so after faffing about on the internet for an hour I decided to go back up to the bridge and carry on with the fire attack plans. While I was up there the C/O and ChEng were talking about how they were going to measure something and trying to figure out how to do it. The C/O said “What we need is someone intelligent, that either means the Cadets or the Carpenter”. I don’t think he realised I was there until I piped up asking “Was that a compliment Chief?” It was, and when he asked why I was up there working and I answered “I was bored” he had the perfect antidote; helping the ChEng! What needed measuring was a lift wire, while in situ. We ended up using wire cable with a weight on the end, and while the height of the shaft was easy enough to do, the machinery at the top, where it goes around several gears, was not so easy. I got covered in grease doing this, and made a classic blunder; I put the coil on a girder so I could use both hands to guide the end to the ChEng who was below, then knocked the coil off, all the way down the shaft. It took quite while to pull it all back up, and then I was left with a big old mess of a coil, so once we’d finished I sat up on the Top deck, back against the funnel, untangling and coiling the wire onto the second reel. I actually felt extremely content and happy doing so as well, which no doubt sounds weird, but, well, anyone who knows me will know that that’s pretty normal!

25^th Jan – Virgin Gorda

I cracked on with my fire attack plans this morning after watch, the C/O asked what I was doing the other day, so I told him, and told him I’d been told not to type up the ones that were in the folder (which I had started on cos the folder was in a shit state and most of them weren’t on the electronic copy) but he has overridden that and said “Yes, get the whole thing up to date” So I feel vindicated in my decision to use my initiative.

Went ashore in the afternoon, just went and lay on the first beach I found. Tried out the underwater camera, but there wasn’t anything to see. I noticed a fly on my legs a few times and brushed it away, but it was only when I was getting back on the tender that I noticed I’d been bitten. The guest entertainer was on the same tender and gave me some bite relief stuff and I thought it would be fine…

26^th Jan – Sopers Hole, Tortola

4-8 anchor watch in the morning as the ship had left VG, popped outside 4’ for a poo and a wee (Discharging treated grey water and black water) and then come back in and anchored off Roadtown for the night, so I got to do another departure prep instead of arrival. Then daywork until 12 doing fire attack plans. The C/O wants them finished/set aside as of tomorrow so I can another big admin job for him before he goes.

The bites had got really bad by lunchtime, and I was going nuts, one of the girls from the spa gave me some Hydroquaterzone (sp??!), but it didn’t seem to help much. They had swollen up to the size of a beer bottle bottom and itchy as hell. Went ashore anyway, hoping to find a beach but it’s a marina. Luckily, there was a Pusser’s. This one was Pusser’s Landing, and I found a bunch of crew there already. I got myself a Painkiller, the cocktail they are famous for, in one of the tin mugs that gets included in the price of the drink. They serve them in two sizes, regular or large, and three strengths: 2, 3 or 4 (number of shots). They claim that ladies will only be served a 4 when accompanied by a man or a Captain, or if they really insist. I had a 3. They are utterly delicious, and potent, so I stuck to one and then went for a long wander around the Pusser’s store. Tried on a few bits of clothing but nothing really suited me, but I did get some presents (Mother would KILL me if I didn’t bring anything back from Pussers!) as well as a mug for my coffee on the bridge (the tin mug wasn’t going to be very practical I decided) and a poster expounding the medicinal qualities of the Painkiller. I had pretty much recovered from the first one by then, so I decided to waste the rest of the afternoon on a second Painkiller, 2/O Navs had just arrived when I came out of the store, he was ordering the large mug, strength 4, so I figured another one couldn’t hurt as I was back on watch 4 hours after him :-)

27^th Jan – Gustavia, St Barts

4-8 in the morning. The bites were so itchy that I couldn’t bear to have the legs of my shorts brushing against them, so I rolled the legs up a couple of turns. I didn’t think it looked too odd, but was aware that someone would probably say something… when the Captain and C/O came up, though nothing was said. Then I went down for anchoring. On my return, I stood in the doorway and nearly wet myself with laughter, as the Captain, C/O, 2/O Sails and the 3/O had all rolled their shorts up as high as possible in tribute. I wish I’d got a picture! They knew why I’d done it, and sympathised, but it wasn’t going to stop them from taking the piss! I went to the doctor after breakfast, she and the nurse made the kind of face you don’t want to see on a medical professional and promptly gave me 5 days worth of steroid pills. The rest of my morning was taken up by some hardcore auditing. The C/O has told me he wants a manual going over with a fine toothcomb, checking for spelling errors, typos etc, so that’s what he’s getting. I’m also checking all the references to the relevant codes and SOLAS (mainly cos lots of them have typos..)

Went ashore with S in the afternoon. Gustavia is swanky as anything, designer shops on the main street and lovely French colonial Caribbean architecture (I love all the French Caribbean islands, they make them so pretty). We had a mosey round several shops (not the high-end designer ones mind) and went to a pretty well stocked supermarket. We were shopping for things like sanitary products and stain remover, so it was not the time to be chatted up by two French boys, one of whom had seen the bites on my legs and started asking me (in French) about them. After escaping them we left, gleefully clutching 85% cocoa chocolate, wine and new razor blades (me) crisps, toothpaste, BN BN’s, shower gel and a new razor (S). In a shop further down I found the cutest skirt for a little girl, which I couldn’t resist getting for someone back home, it’s for age 8 so she’ll have to grow into it I think, but better that than too small. We then went on to Shell Beach, which is very aptly named. The tide line is all shells. It’s lovely, not too crowded, not too empty. S stayed until 3 and then went back, taking my wine and chocolate for me in return for me taking her snorkel gear back.

28^th Jan – Sea day

4-8 watch, 8-12 auditing. Went back up to the bridge for about 3 hours in the afternoon to (ab)use the internet and trawl through old cadet folders for stuff I can use (research).

Watched a film in Als room in the evening, it was his leaving do down in the bar and I wish I could have gone but I felt like a zombie and wouldn’t have been any kind of good company, and I was on watch at 4 in the morning.

29^th Jan – Mayreu

4-8 am, felt like death as I’d only had 3 hours sleep, silly me. 8-12 auditing, getting really bored of it now. Went ashore with Al to the beach for an hour or so. I went for a snorkel, and I saw a ray!! Huge great gliding spotty beast with a long tail. He was very cool, but I didn’t want to get to close, so when he started rising up from the bottom I backed off, I did get some pics though with my little waterproof camera.

30^th Jan – Bridgetown

4-8 watch, tried to work on the audit, but was muting fire alarms for 2/O Navs every minute or two ( he was going round the ship testing them with smoke spray). Al left today, and the C/O left too, I’m really going to miss Al he’s been my best buddy on the ship, although I’ll probably do more work from now on. I’m going to miss the C/O too, for all his bullshit and bluster he’s actually really sound. The best thing was his parting shot, just before the taxi door was shut he said to us “When you’re good, you’re good. When you’re bad, you’re better!” After they left I went round to the shallow draft marina and found Sue and Andy, who are friends of my sister and her fiancée, they crossed the Atlantic in December and got de-masted, poor things. Being stuck in Barbados probably doesn’t sound too bad, but their boat is tiny and they have none of the luxuries I get on here, like unlimited running water, cold drinks and AC! I spent a lovely afternoon chilling out with them on their boat, and we then went into town for some food with them, Sue got very merry on 2 rum punches at the Boatyard! It was SO nice to see friendly faces and get away from the ship and everyone for a few hours.

31^st Jan – Sea Day

4-8 watch

Auditing for daywork, it feels like a neverending slog!!

12-4 watch. The shore-ex manager rocked up to the bridge and asked if I would go on tour tomorrow, I jumped at the chance but told him he’d have to clear it with the C/O as it meant I’d miss about an hour of watch in the afternoon. The C/O (we have a new one to replace the one who’s just gone home!) cleared it, which means I’m going to have a very long day tomorrow, but ooh it’s going to be fun!

Went to Intros and ended up chatting to several guests after in the Compass Rose, I even got bought a drink by one couple too, which was very kind of them, and I didn’t even mention cadet wages!

1^st Feb – St Kitts

4-8 watch.

Dashed off watch, grabbed some brekkie and went on the snorkle excursion. There was a slight balls up at the start- the guys running the tour hadn’t fuelled their boat yet so we had to wait for a short while, but they soon decided to get us onto the boat and go through the briefing while we waited, and the fuel turned up while that was still going on, so it wasn’t too much of an issue. The ride to the snorkel sites was about 20 minutes, and because we were running a little late, they decided to take us to the site they usually go to second, first. Which we all decided was the better way around, as, while we enjoyed the first site, we liked the second place better and all felt that we would have been disappointed if we had gone there first. Neither place was quite what I expected, I guess Finding Nemo has a lot to answer for in building peoples expectations of what they’ll see under the water! I did play a private game of Spot-all-the characters-from-Finding-Nemo, and saw quite a few, although Nemo himself remained unspotted. There were some fantastically bright and beautiful fish though and at the first site I saw a turtle (and couldn’t help saying to myself “Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude”) AND, at the second site I saw 4 squid, all swimming together. They really are funny looking creatures, they remind me of elephants. (OK, I know how odd that’s going to sound if you’ve never seen a squid swimming, but trust me…)

1300-4 watch with 2/O Navs. I was shattered by the end of the day, but it was worth it.

2^nd Feb – Marigot, St Martin

4-8 watch

Daywork, trying to do auditing but was muting fire alarms for 2/O Navs so got nothing done really

12-4 watch, mostly doing chart corrections

Went shore with T in the evening, S had lucked out and had gotten off watch an hour early to go Go-karting (a possible crew tour that Shore-ex wanted to check out). To be fair, the Captain had been asked if he wanted to go and he’d declined and she and 2/O Sails were in the right place at the right time, and I did get an hour off watch the day before, so fair’s fair. T and I had expected to find other people ashore but after walking up and down the whole strip (me in bare feet cos my flip-flop had broken as I got into the tender) we found no-one, so decided to have a drink in the lobster bar, guessing that people would turn up when they’d finished the Go-karting, we were right, and ended up having a second dinner of lobster pizza, calamari and snails with the Go-karters. (Om nom nom!!)

3^rd Feb – Gustavia, St Barts

4-8 watch, we departed and arrived this morning, as Gustavia is only 30 miles from St Martin the Captain had decided to stay late, which also meant a very peaceful night’s sleep for me :-)

Finished off the audit this morning, thank god!! Fire drill took up most of the morning though and then I had a fairly relaxed watch with 2/O Navs doing publication corrections and passage plans.

The previous Captain is back, only for 4 days though, we get a new one next Barbados. I was sad to see Captain J go, he was particularly fun and liked doing things that are a little unusual, like the sail past the Wind Spirit and putting the shadow of the ship on the Pitons, I think I made a good impression on him too. (Fingers crossed!)

4^th Feb – Iles des Saintes

4-8 watch, 9-11 daywork, updated editions of COSWOP (a fun bit of light reading if you ever want to get to sleep) around the ship and then 12-4 watch this afternoon.

So there we go; a whole month. Sorry it’s taken so long, and I promise to try and get another episode up sooner than next month!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

29^th Dec – Bequia

My day started off well as I got a wee lie in; the tour was due to leave at 0900, and I needed to be there 15 mins before to check passengers in. I’d asked the C/O if he wanted me to work half an hour in the morning (allowing 15 minutes to get ready for the tour) and he said no, so I allowed myself a leisurely breakfast and was in the lounge in plenty of time. It turned out that my tour wasn’t going until 0930 but I was put to use counting passenger numbers for tenders as they left the lounge. Once my tour was assembled we tendered across to the shore and met our guides, they put us in open backed jeeps and we set off across the island to Mount Pleasant. Driving through Bequia’s landscape was pleasant enough in itself, the island is delightfully unspoilt and relaxed, none of the aggressive spice sellers from Grenada or the pounding music in St Kitts here, just brightly painted Caribbean timber plank houses and a myriad of plantlife. An amazing range of different acacia trees, with brightly coloured sprays of flowers and seed pods developing; coconut palms, traveller palms, fan palms, banana palms and other palms I can’t yet name, all in different shapes, colours and sizes. There were mango trees with small green mangoes hanging temptingly from them, almond trees spreading their branches languorously wide, creepers and vines hanging and twining from tree to tree, and a host of brightly coloured and patterned plants, the sort you can buy in supermarkets back in England that never get very big, but here they are used as hedging!

Mount Pleasant is one of the highest points on the island and we had a great view of St Vincent and Mustique, which is one of the other Grenadine Islands, Mustique is a private island though, apparently Mick Jagger has a house there, the lucky git! From Mount Pleasant we wound our way down the interminably steep and twisting roads, pausing to admire the view across Admiralty Bay, with it’s bright turquoise waters framed by the lush greenery of the island. We then went to the other side of the bay, to Fort Hamilton, a tiny outpost, barely bigger than a car garage but with four formidable cannon pointing out to sea. There’s not much of it left, but again, the views were wonderful. From admiring the view we went to admiring the wildlife, a drive across the island to the windward side took us to the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary. Run by one man, Orton ‘Brother’ King, it is a testament to his love of the Hawksbill Turtle and the environment on which they depend. He carefully collects eggs and re-buries them in places that won’t be disturbed, and then when they are ready to hatch he gathers the baby turtles and keeps them safe in the sanctuary’s pools and tubs until they are grown enough to be released back to the sea. He has a few old guys too, that are kept as pets, though I was warned that they would still be liable to take a snap at a finger! It was truly a privilege to get so close to these wonderful creatures and see them at so many stages of life too. The patterns on their shells are works of art, each is different, each is beautiful, and all are very difficult to photograph through the water!!

Our last stop on the tour was at The Whaleboner, a bar and silkscreen print shop, I found a lovely green top and was so caught up with the contents of the shop that I nearly missed the free rum punch! The bar is small but lovely, the main attraction being the front of the bar which is made from a huge whale bone (Bequia has a long history of whaling).

From there we were taken back to Port Elizabeth where we were free to do as we wished for the rest of the day. I had a meander along Front St, which has so many bushes and trees you can barely tell it’s a street, and had a lovely lunch in one of the restaurants before heading back to the ship for a wee snooze before watch.

4 – 8 watch in the afternoon.

30^th Dec – Mayreau

Day work in the morning, the C/O gave me a list of things that had been noted by the BV surveyor and asked me to go and investigate them for him, I took photos and made notes on their locations and status. I then started on a project which will probably take me quite a few days - I am helping the C/O with his review of the ISPS manual, which involves cross checking references with the ISPS code, SOLAS and the SMS.

The ship had to move at around midday, as the swell was causing problems for the tenders and it was becoming dangerous, so the ship weighed anchor and moved round to the northern anchorage.

4 – 8 watch in the afternoon, the wind was playing up, and we took the sails in twice, first to 50% and then to 30%, I was out on the bridge wing while they were being taken in for the second time when I heard a tearing sound. I told the 2/O immediately and then went back out to see what the damage was. Sail 2 had torn on a seam unfortunately, so it was furled and noted as out of action. The Captain was, of course, informed and it will be repaired as soon as possible, probably in Barbados.

31^st Dec – Portsmouth, Dominica

Day work in the morning, I carried on with the ISPS manual review for the C/O. The vessel arrived into Portsmouth in poor vis so as I was up on the bridge I helped out as an extra pair of eyes and when the 3/O went down to let go the anchor I kept the rough log book for him and plotted the ships position when we let go.

In the afternoon we attended a Fire Team training session with the 3/O and fire teams Bravo and Charlie. Once the teams had practised correctly donning the gear S and I tried on the kit as we are hoping to become involved in the fire teams soon and wanted to be familiar with the kit before we are in a drill situation. I need to remember to tie my hair back in a low bun as I found I had a problem with the mask face seal because my hair got in the way.

In the evening Al and I went to the Compass Rose for a couple of drinks, got talking to a passenger who insisted on buying us more drinks and then went to the lounge for the big moment. After that we went down to the crew bar, I went to bed at about 2, the first of the cadets to crash!

1^st January 2011 – Pigeon Island, St Lucia

Day off. Slept and read, bliss.

2^nd Jan – Barbados

Day work in the morning, the C/O called us at 0630 to be at work for 0730 so we could see the sail being taken down, but the sailors had already got it down by then. We were going to be working on the marina, but the swell conditions were too bad to open it, so instead we went with the Bosun and learned how to repair the lifeboats with fibreglass. I had some time to study in the afternoon, with the Passenger muster drill at 1730.

3^rd Jan – Sea Day

This morning was spent doing more odd jobs for the C/O and watching the Bosun do a good impression of Spiderman as he went aloft to repair a sheet line. It was impressive how quickly the crew got it back in working order; these things happen sometimes, no matter how well you look after rigging, as I well know from the Pelican, but they were well organised and got the sail back out in a very short time. We also had a Bomb search drill just after smoko. S and I got sent to search the lifeboats, but found nothing there. 4 – 8 watch this afternoon. I’m not going to bore you with the details of every watch, as it’s going to get rather repetitive, but should anything exciting happen I will of course let you know!

Work hard, play hard.

2010-12-28T19:27:00.000-08:00

I last posted from St Barts on the 16^th, before I went on the 4-8 watch in the afternoon. And blimey time has flown, in 8 days my first month will be done! I’m afraid the first few days of this entry are a bit repetitive – day work and watches don’t provide much in the way of excitement, but life at sea isn’t always exciting, despite the best efforts of a 4 strong team of gadgets!

So, once again I went forward on my own for weighing anchor, there was quite a strong wind and the first two shackles up lead under the bow. As I told the bridge how it was leading they moved the ship so that the cable was clear. 2/O Sails gave me the responsibility for keeping the rough and official log book, and plotting positions. I also got some more of the familiarisation priority tasks signed off in my workbook. There was not much traffic, just one vessel that we did not need to alter course for.

17^th Dec – Iles des Saintes

Day work in the morning, consulting ships plans and such fun, I am really looking forward to getting these projects boxed off!

4-8 watch in the evening, I did the CPP tests by myself and kept the logbook and chart. We had two anchors out as it had been quite windy in the morning when we arrived, so 2/O Sails and I both went down to the mooring deck to radio information to the bridge. I was on the starboard anchor and he was on the port anchor, we heaved on the stbd anchor while paying out on the port and then once the stbd anchor was home we heaved in on the port anchor. Once we were clear of the islands we put the sails up. I learnt how to set them, using three controls to furl out the sail, sheet in and move the traveller aft all at the same time. The traveller moves the sheet line forward and aft so that it is at the optimum angle to the sail, this prevents undue stress being put on the sail. We turned off the PMs (propulsion motors) and DGs (diesel generators) and sailed for a while, once the sun had set and all the passengers had gone we then put the DGs and PMs back on and motor-sailed for the rest of the watch.

18^th Dec – St Lucia

Day work in the morning, I chipped and primed the two vents on the aft mooring deck. After lunch us 4 cadets went to the beach bbq, Al had made a pinky promise that he’d get in the water this time and I held him to it. He did me proud and even dunked his head, next time I’ll get him to take his feet off the bottom :)

4-8 watch in the afternoon. The ship was sailing at 4 so all the checks had been done and the cable was being heaved in as I arrived on the bridge and we were full away on passage (FAOP) at 1600. We put the sails out and cruised south along the coastline, down to the Pitons. We were about a mile off so I was using the radar to get range and bearings to fix our position every 6 minutes. We went back to Stand By Below, slowed down and engaged hand steering to go in to the bay between the Pitons, spent about half an hour manoeuvring in the bay and then went back to FAOP once out of the bay. From there we motorsailed toward Barbados. The wind picked up as we left the lee of the land and the sails were brought in to 50%, 40 minutes before the watch ended the wind was gusting 35 kts apparent and we furled the sails fully.

19^th Dec – Bridgetown

Day work in the morning. I put a second coat of primer on the vents on the aft mooring deck. After smoko we helped with the weekly test of remote watertight door closing. Each of us took a different section and radioed into the bridge to tell them that they were working correctly. S and I then went with the carpenter as he took soundings of the ballast tanks and void spaces.

4-8 watch. Harbour watch. I have had my safety number changed to 505, which is passenger muster assistant for muster station 2. When the announcement for crew to go to their passenger muster drill stations was made I went down with my lifejacket. G is the muster leader and demonstrated how to don a lifejacket and step off the side of the ship. I helped a couple of people with their lifejackets and ticked off late arrivals. In an emergency my duty is to keep passengers and crew informed and calm. It’s not a very demanding role, although in a real emergency I can imagine it would be, but it’s also really useful to see how things work from the other end.

20^th Dec – St Lucia

Day work in the morning, put a third coat of primer on the vent fittings and a first layer of top coat on the vents themselves, which had been put up on the aft mooring deck by the bosun the night before. I then went and got on with the PPE locker project, putting the updated lists in the lockers, shortly after I started that S found me after her breakfast and we got called to the bridge. The C/O wanted us to go and sound all the tanks again, so that they could do a lightship calculation for the vessel. We sounded the tanks and I then showed her how to work out the volumes in the tanks, using the ship’s hydrostatic tables.

After 12 I went ashore to the bbq, the food was lovely but the weather wasn’t very good so instead of sunbathing I took one of the kayaks out for a spin, I think I might try and do that quite often as I could feel the burn in my arm muscles after a while. As it wasn’t a Saturday the boys weren’t with us, so I pootled back to the ship early.

4-8 watch. Did all the pre-departure checks, including extra steering gear tests via the talkback system with the surveyor, went forward for weighing anchor on my own again, kept the log book and charts and discussed the bridge equipment with 2/O Sails.

21^st Dec – Iles Des Saintes

Day work in the morning, the Bosun had finished painting the vents for me the afternoon before so we put them back together and fitted them. The C/O has asked us to sort out some lines to make a pathway on the fwd mooring deck as the passengers are going to be allowed to go up to the bowsprit on sea days, under the supervision of the Sports dept. We are using halyard lines, which are multiplat so we seized an eye into the end of each one and then took the reels up to the mooring deck to measure them out. I started splicing a small 3 strand rope to make points to attach the guide ropes to and we then went for lunch. I believe the bosun finished the job after lunch, probably taking a lot less time over it than I could have!

I went ashore for a few hours, had lunch in the café I ate in nearly three years ago and sat there happily reminiscing. I also had a chance to practice my GCSE French, as the waiter didn’t speak English, and I wanted to know why all the shops were shut. Continental siesta time of course, and they didn’t open until 1500 and as I was on watch at 1600 I failed to buy anything for my secret santa present. I say secret, but we all know who’s getting who’s present, when we picked names, someone always got their own name until we got bored and just swapped them over!

4-8 watch. Did CPP and steering checks, went forward for weighing anchor with 2/O Sails, as both cables were out. As we went FAOP I set the sails and throughout the watch I kept the log and chart.

22^nd Dec – St Barts

Day work in the morning, started distributing PPE to PPE Lockers. Fire drill at 1015. When the two tone alarm sounded, as I am Pax Muster Assist I went to Reception and collected the muster list for boat 2, I also passed G, who is the muster leader, he told me he was on tour and was exempt from the drill. So, I went to the muster point and checked off everyone by their safety number. Two other crewmembers had already collected the GMDSS emergency radio and reported in that our station was all present save two who were exempt. (G, who was on tour, and a sailor who was on tender duty).

At the General Emergency alarm the embarkation assistants go to their stairwell points to guide passengers to the muster points and search cabins, so when the boats signal is given (a continuous tone), the crew are re-checked in on the muster list. I reported in that they were all present, save the two exemptions. The boats were lowered and meanwhile I quizzed the crewmembers mustered on what actions to take on discovery of a fire, what extinguishers are to be used on what types of fire, where the fire was for this drill (incinerator room) and how many people can go in each boat.

Watch 4-8 pm. We were due to leave at 1900, so for the first couple of hours I worked on getting my nav workbook up to date. We gave the engine room 1 hrs notice at 1800 and I was then busy with pre-departure checks, completing the whole list on my own. Went forward for weighing anchor with 2/O Sails as it was dark by then, (two torches are better than one!). Once we were FAOP, I set the sails and then caught up with the log book.

23^rd Dec – St Maartin

Day work until smoko and then I went and got cleaned up to go on tour, the C/O told me the day before that I was going on the Americas Cup excursion. I was bouncing with excitement when he told me, S will have the same chance in a couple of weeks time, but when she was told she pulled a face and said she didn’t want to do it. (She’s not a sailor like I am, so fair play to her, but I think she’d enjoy it if she tried it). I met up with the Guest Services Manager just before 1100 and she gave me the list of people going on the tour and we checked off people as they arrived, handing out packed lunches at the same time. Getting into the tender was quite interesting as there was a big swell (we had been due to go to Marigot Bay, which is on the north west of the island but due to the swell the Captain had decided to go to Phillipsburgh instead). On the Quay we were met by a guy from the Americas Cup crew who told us some of the history of the race. He split the group into two teams and we then got onto one of their tenders (basically a barge with patio chairs nailed down on it), which took us out to the boats. The other team (Canada 2) got off first and then we went over to True North. While we headed for the boat everyone was asked whether they’d like to do a low activity, medium activity or high activity job, and was assigned a role accordingly (bar tender = low activity, primary grinder = high activity). The tender ties up alongside the boat and then they call out for people by job so that the boat is filled up from the back. Once on board the crew put our bags below so that our stuff wouldn’t get wet, went through some basic safety things and taught us how to do our jobs. I was a reserve primary grinder, which meant that, along with 3 others, I was driving the winch that controlled the jib sheet, but on each leg we swapped around so everyone got a rest. After a little bit of practice we headed for the start line, and then had to mill around a bit because Canada 2 was taking it’s time. There were three boats racing that afternoon, Stars and Stripes being the third, which I think was being crewed by folks from the QM2, who was also in port that day. The crews encourage rivalry between the boats, so shouting and international sign language was the order of the day when they finally rolled up, and then the 6 minute start was called. You can’t cross the start line before the 6 minutes is up, or if you do there’s a penalty, so it takes skill and timing to be there just at the right time to cross as soon as the race begins. The first leg is tacking up against the wind, and then on the downwind leg the bartender is called into action, as the leg is also known as the first beer leg. On the upwind legs it’s also important for everyone to keep an eye out for the marker that you’re heading for, and where the other boats are. Sailing rules dictate that a boat on the starboard tack (wind on the starboard side) has right of way over a boat on the port tack, and there were some dirty tricks being played by the other teams, but despite that, at the end of the third leg and for the whole of the second beer leg, we were in first place. However, things can change in a heartbeat in a sailing race and I’m sorry to say we were pipped to the post by the other two. It was great fun nevertheless, with the boats passing ahead of each other a hair’s breadth apart as they tacked and beat up-wind. We were taken to the yacht club after for a celebratory rum punch and the obligatory opportunity to buy t-shirts and photos. I had a nice surprise there, as crew members get a free t-shirt as a promo, so I have another crew shirt to add to my growing collection!

I had asked to C/O if he wanted me back for watch that afternoon, to which the answer was a swift No, so I took the chance to go shopping for my secret santa. I hadn’t a clue what to get Al, until I had the genius idea of going to the music shop! I got him a harmonica and some guitar strings and then a little rattly drum thing from a stall. I’m sure T won’t thank me if he decides to play them at 3 in the morning, but it’d be an impressive feat of multitasking if he managed to play all three at the same time! I found a bunch of crew at a bar on Front St, including my fellow cadets and joined them for a drink. I ordered a rum punch, and the bartender assured me that his was the best in the Caribbean… most potent certainly. I watched in horror as he poured in about half a glass of white rum, followed by some gold rum, followed by a smidge of fruit juice and then grenadine and then, topped it off with some dark rum! I didn’t finish it, I gave about half to someone else, it would have killed me, especially considering the swell was still up, making getting in and out of the tenders a fairly hairy experience! Despite not drinking all of it I felt fuzzy headed enough to crash out for a few hours when we got back to the ship at 1900. I got back up at 2300 to go down to the crew bar for the final of “Wind Surf’s got Talent”, taking with me a bottle of water, for which several people gave me funny looks, but I had just woken up and didn’t feel like drinking any more. Al performed first and did really well, despite some technical difficulties with sound, but the competition was stiff, everyone had taken the judges previous comments on board and had come out fighting. In the end the judges decided that they needed more time to confer about who should win so they announced that the winner would be announced at the Christmas party the next day.

24^th Dec – St Kitts

Day work in the morning, we are reaching the end of the PPE saga, just a few more spares to put out and then make a list of stuff that needs ordering again. Then we can hand it back to Security and hope they keep it going.

4-8 watch in the afternoon. 2/O Sails has gone now but his relief hasn’t been able to get out here because of the weather back in the UK so the C/O is doing the 4-8 for a few days. As we departed from St Kitts the Captain decided that he wanted us to do some scenic cruising along St Kitts and Nevis. This wasn’t what the passage plan said, so I had to quickly draw up the chart with new courses and PIs (Parallel Indexes), meanwhile the C/O told me that I was driving and I should take the handover from the Captain. Talk about a chucked in at the deep end poo your pants moment! He didn’t leave me to it alone though, and there wasn’t much traffic about, so once I’d got myself sorted out I did alright. We skirted around the 12 mile limit so that we could discharge food waste and I felt semi confident by the end of the watch. It’s the best way to learn really, and I knew at the end of the day if I had made a blunder he would have been right there asking me if I reeeeally wanted to do that!

After watch I chilled out for a while and then we got our glad rags on to go up for the crew show, and when I say glad rags, for once I don’t mean our formal uniform, I got to wear a frock! The crew show is usually a bit of a variety show but for Christmas a choir had been put together. We had made it to a total of two rehearsals, so had the general idea of what we were doing. I sang with a big smile on my face, having had a couple of glasses of wine for dutch courage beforehand in the cabin, and the passengers all loved it. I’m sure I even saw one cry. We left to a standing ovation and I went back to my cabin to grab my smokes and then it suddenly hit me that it was Christmas and how much I miss my family. Most of the time I’m so blasé about being away from home and my family because I’ve done it for so long now, but I’ve always made it home for Christmas. I pulled myself together and went down to the crew bar, but had a little moment later as well (for which I have subsequently received a bollocking for, crying in front of the crew cos I miss my family makes the deck department look bad). For the most part though I had a ball, dancing in my 50’s frock always makes me feel good, and the bar was free, which also helps! I was one of the last to leave, at about 4 am there were 4 or 5 of us having a sing song with Al and his guitar.

25^th Dec – Sea Day

Oh the joy of a lie in! I didn’t feel brilliant after the night before, but at least I’d made it back to my own cabin, and remembered getting there, unlike someone else. We surfaced at about 11 and lazed, S disappeared for ages so we waited for her to get back to exchange our ‘secret’ santa presents. I got a teddy bear that plays jingle bells when you press it’s paw, which only got annoying by the 4^th time of playing. His mouth is supposed to move, but he only manages one movement each time, If he stays silent though he’s rather cute, and brings a little festive cheer to our otherwise undecorated cabin. Al liked his presents, though whether he’ll actually learn how to play the harmonica remains to be seen, for the time being he’s a one man noise making machine!! We snoozed some more in the afternoon, and then got ready for dinner, I’d presumed that it was in the mess, but in fact we ate in the Veranda, which is where the passengers eat their breakfast. The Captain had said that crew could wear either uniform, or smart casual, so we took the chance to dress up nice again. Dinner was nice, a really good side of beef and some (slightly dry) turkey, along with mash, roasties and cranberry sauce. I couldn’t bring myself to try the sprouts, but had some very nice courgette salad instead. After that we all crashed out, a combination of the last vestiges of hangovers and being rather full from dinner.

26^th Dec – Barbados

We had been given Boxing day off, but were then told that we were needed for the arrival in Barbados at 4am, so there was no lie in for us! We were needed because the ship was berthing alongside the sugar loading towers, which stick out a bit too far and there is a danger of damaging the lifeboats if we didn’t moor in the right place. I was sent aft with a radio to give distances and clearances for the boats and make sure we were far enough forward of the towers. We hung around while everything was made fast then had some breakfast in the Compass Rose before heading back to bed. 3/O then called us at 1000, telling us we were wanted at the Bridge Resource Meeting at 1100. It was turning out to be not much of a day off at all, especially as I had to be there for the passenger drill at 1730.

The 4 of us decided to get off and go to the Boatyard for a couple of drinks and some pizza, but when we got there at about half 7, the kitchen had already closed, so we had one drink and then went to Chefette, which is a fast food joint near the port. My pizza was delicious, not because it was actually that good, though by no means was it bad, but it was much needed comfort food; having had our day off messed up by the arrival and the bridge meeting and the bollocking I got for crying on Xmas eve, I needed it!

27^th Dec - Sea Day

I got an early surprise at 0420, when S woke me up, telling me that I was wanted on the bridge as well as her. She had tried calling me but I hadn’t heard the phone over the engine noise, so she had come down to the cabin. During the night there had been a medical emergency and the ship was heading back toward Bridgetown to get the patient and their family off the ship and to a hospital. I wasn’t actually needed per se, but the Captain and C/O thought it would be good for me to be there as they don’t do a medical evac very often and it’s good experience. The ship anchored off the port, as there were a lot of cruise ships getting in that morning, and berthing takes quite a while anyway. The patient, who had been in the medical centre, was brought up to the bridge deck on a stretcher and carefully put in tender 5, the doctor, nurse, C/O and a family member went too, and the boat was lowered to the water. The boat took them to the quay where an ambulance was waiting and the boat returned to collect luggage and the other family members. They tried lifting the boat on the falls but it was swinging too much because of the swell so the decision was made to put it down again and rig the tender platform and gangway. The rest of the family and their luggage was disembarked from the platform and once the tender had been recovered the anchor was weighed and we set off from Bridgetown again. The decision to turn back had been made in the early hours of the morning, so 2/0 Navs had had time on his watch to work out a new passage plan. Instead of going to Mayreau, it had been decided that we would spend the day at sea and the go to Mayreau on the day that had originally been scheduled to be a sea day, otherwise the schedule is unaltered. The Captain made an announcement to the ship at about 0900, when most people would be awake by then.

Day work for the rest of the morning, boxing off the PPE locker project. It felt so good to be able to hand it to 3/O and tell him we were done! Slept most of the afternoon.

28^th Dec – Grenada

C/O told us to go see the tours manager first thing this morning, which was really nice of him, so I’m off on a sightseeing tour of Bequia tomorrow, and S is doing the Rainforest Canopy tour on St Lucia on Sat. My job this morning was making an inventory of the Pest Control locker, while S sorted out the new Pest Control manual. All thrilling stuff!

4-8 watch in the afternoon. We were due to leave at 1800, so I took my laptop and workbook up in case there was nothing else to do in the first hour of watch and I could do some catching up on my log. I got as much of the departure checklist done as I could do before 1 hrs notice to the ECR and then did a little work on my laptop. After 1hrs notice I did the rest of the checks and tests and then on departure I stood on the port bridge wing giving the Captain and C/O, who were on the Stbd bridge wing, information on any vessels behind us. After FAOP I went down for some dinner, when I came back up the sails had been set and 2/O Sails (Who had finally arrived in Barbados) handed the con over to me. It wasn’t nearly as scary as the last time I’d been given the con, as there was no traffic and nothing happened.

I get a wee lie in tomorrow, I asked the C/O if he wanted me to work for half an hour before I went off on tour at 0900 and he said no, so I’m a happy little bunny tonight! Might just visit the bar... ;)

One minute you're eating lobster on a beach, next you're scrubbing decks..

2010-12-16T10:01:00.001-08:00

I wrote last as we sailed from Mayreau (and yes Mum, I sent your love to Mayreau!) The next day was a sea day, 2/O sails took us round the ship showing us the various workshops, lockers and stores that the ship has. It’s not a very big ship compared to my last one so it didn’t take too long. In the afternoon we cracked on with identifying mystery vents with the aid of the engineers down in the ECR and were going to get the stencils and box the job off that afternoon. As I walked along the bridge deck I passed a couple of deck guys painting the scuppers, a little further along we passed a vent and I thought, “Ah yes, that’s cofferdam 3… No, hang on, that’s further back… didn’t I already do this one!?” The deck mafia had painted over our lovely stencils! I nearly cried, but at least they’d only done two before we noticed, and they’ve promised not to do it again. We couldn’t paint on wet paint so left it for the next day, and the C/O had another fun little job for us – sorting out certificate files. The job is proving to be more of a pain than it sounds, we’re having to hunt things down and it seems to get more complicated every time we look at it! It does mean that we’re getting to poke around on the ships maintenance computer system, which is huge and complicated, but not as scary as I thought it would be.

From now on I’m going to break this down into days, it’s easier for me as I use my daily log as a basis for this, which will be going into my workbook, so isn’t very exciting as it is, but I’ll add in the fun stuff for you!

10^th Dec- Dominica

We were anchored off Portsmouth already when I got up to the bridge, but the Captain decided to move the ship closer to the tender berth. I went fwd to the anchor station with the 3/O. There was a strong wind and when re-anchoring after moving the anchor dragged. We put an extra cable out and it held. Our new anchorage was right next to the berth I was on on Pelican 3 years ago. Seeing it brought back so many memories and I can’t wait to go ashore there again. We do the same two cruises again and again so there’ll be chances for me to see all of the islands at some point over the next 4 months, but for the time being, all I could do was look longingly over at the island as I worked. We had a fire drill and boat muster in the morning and the afternoon was taken up by the jobs the C/O has given us. The Captain invited all 4 of us cadets to dinner in the restaurant that evening which was really cool, we were joined by the Hotel Trainee and the Windstar Publicity Director, who was on the ship for the week. I had caviar for starter and then mahi-mahi, followed by a chocolate terrine. Needless to say it was all extremely good! Straight after that we went to watch the crew show, which is put on by crew members for the guests; dancing, magic tricks; bands and at the end, line dancing, which S and I had been rehearing for earlier. I stayed at the back, cos I’m still not very good at it, but it was good fun. We stuck around for a drink upstairs and then went down to the crew bar for the first round of “Windsurf’s got Talent”. Al had entered, playing his guitar, he’s really good, so I wasn’t surprised when he was one of the 4 (out of 6) that got through to the final. I couldn’t really hear what the judges were saying to the contestants, but 2/O Sails, who was playing it like Simon Cowell certainly got some boos! After the contest various crew bands played and we danced like crazy fools for the rest of the night. (I had a stiff neck the next day from when I was moshing!!)

Dec 11^th – St Lucia.

We carried on with the projects from the C/O in the morning, S went ashore to try and find some safety boots (still no luck) so I carried on with the wires project and we checked some more PPE lockers when she got back (another of the fun little jobs we’re doing for the C/O). At lunch time the C/O told us to take the afternoon off, so we went to the beach bbq on Pigeon Island. Oh it’s a tough life I tell you, crew are allowed to use the loungers as long as they keep away from passengers and don’t prevent them from using them, and after 1330, when all the passengers have eaten, the crew get to eat too. There’s a huge selection of salads and meats, at the end of the meat options there was one dish with it’s lid down, further investigation showed it contained lobster tails, and next to it was a steak station, with lovely juicy steaks being carved off a hunk of meat. So steak and lobster for lunch it was, and very delicious it was too. All 4 of us cadets swam and enjoyed the sun and generally pondered on our extreme good fortune to be on this ship!

Dec 12^th – Barbados

We watched 2/O Sails go up the mast first thing, he inspects one mast a month and is hoisted aloft on the capstan next to the mast, which is specifically for that purpose. He has two lines, one hoist and a safety line which is kept just a little bit slack. We didn’t watch him do the whole inspection though as we were needed by J2/O (LSA) and 3/O to help with the manual remote watertight door testing. Initially I went to the doors that were closing to visually check that they were closing properly and S stayed up in the safety room to help with the pumping. She found it very hard though and was sent to join me and we checked each section as it was closed together. Once each section had been closed we had to go down to the engine room and manually open the doors down there. It was hot work running about the ship and pumping doors and I was dripping like a tap! In the afternoon we carried on with the C/O’s projects, and then, as the ship wasn’t sailing until 2200 we went to the Boatyard. When 2/O Navs asked if we wanted to go, I wondered why the hell I’d want to go to a boatyard, until he explained that it was a beach bar in Bridgetown. After checking with the C/O if it was ok to chip off a bit early we raced down to our cabin and got ready in minutes. It was a short taxi ride to get there, and worth every cent. The beach is perfect, fine white sand and crystal clear water, the bar serves a mean rum punch and happy hour runs from 11-12 and 3-10!! A few hours later we returned, some more worse for wear than others, I just felt extremely chilled out and sleepy and decided to curl up in my bunk instead of going to the crew bar with everyone else.

Dec 13^th – Sea day

First thing we were tasked with scrubbing oily footprints off the deck which had appeared outside the safety room, the shoe prints weren’t actually ours (different sole), but that’s a cadets life, you get blamed for most things that go wrong and you gotta roll with the punches. We scrubbed all the places where there were mucky footprints, which was outside most of the technical spaces so it took us all morning. It’s not all beaches and cocktails you know!! The afternoon was a fairly dull affair, the projects that the C/O has given us keep getting more and more complex and I can see exactly why he’s delegated them to us- they’re a complete pain!

Dec 14^th – St Martin

We were both up at 4 for the 4-8 watch, we were coming alongside, so S went fwd with 2/O Sails for mooring stations and I stayed up on the bridge keeping the rough log and plotting positions. We did day work til 12 working on the PPE locker project, visiting security to find out what spares they have and then updating the list on the computer. So by 12, we’d done our days work and had the rest of the day free. I had a little snooze as I’ve found it hard to sleep for a couple of nights due to the noise of the engine. It’s alright when they’re only using the port propulsion motor or sailing, but when the stbd propulsion motor is going it’s so noisy in our cabin and I can’t sleep properly. My snooze plan didn’t really work very well and I only dozed, but it was better that nothing. S had run ashore as soon as possible, the lure of shopping had her all excited! I bimbled ashore at about 3, and got a water taxi across the bay, I went to the supermarket first and got some dhobi dust (that’s washing power to you landlubbers) and hunted for filter tips, to no avail. As I was walking along Front St I spotted Al and one of the 2/E’s sitting in a bar, and figured it would be rude not to join them. The 2/E had to go back for watch but I hung out with Al for the rest of the day, we went on another shopping mission and then went back to the bar for some food. I had Caribbean conch and dumplings, delicious, but extremely filling! (Al, being Scottish, had a pizza). More crew turned up a bit later as the ship was sailing at midnight, so we had a great night out, with much silliness and then when we returned to the ship we went to the crew bar and played pool and danced some more.

Dec 15^th – St Kitts

S did the 4-8 watch and we both did day work until 12. The vent signs we painted are going to need a more permanent solution than painting signs in the scuppers as they get painted every month. We were going to cut paper stencils out and paint the labels on the gooseneck, but then one of the AB’s suggested to us that we use the sign router instead. He showed us how to use it and we cracked on, although didn’t get very far as we got called to go and see housekeeping about formal uniform; they’re going to order some female jackets for us, which will be nice! I did the 4-8 watch this evening. I went forward on my own for weighing the anchor, the carpenter does the heaving and I gave the bridge information on the lead and weight on the cable. When I came back up the Captain complimented me on my radio procedure and clarity of information, a very nice little confidence boost! Once we were out and moving along the coast of St Kitts there was a bit of traffic and I started to get to grips with the radar equipment. I tried getting the sextant out to practice taking sights with it, but it was too dark and I gave up quite quickly, will try again next watch.

16^th Dec- St Barts

Well I doubt I’ll have much luck with a sextant tonight as it’s been cloudy and raining on and off all day. We had another fire drill this morning, and S and I have just been cracking on with our little jobs, hopefully we’ll manage to finally box some of them off soon! I’m on the 4-8 watch again this eve so am just going to post this up and then get some kip for a couple of hours.

From Snow to Surf

2010-12-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

It feels weird to think that 5 days ago I was in the snow and wearing as many layers as possible. Now I’m wearing as few as possible! I know everyone in England reading this will think I’m being a cow and rubbing it in, but it’s quite a major theme I’m afraid! I have heat rash, as per usual, which is a pain, but I’m being good and trying not to scratch it. My face is bright red, not from sunburn, but because I’m a true brit and am also sweating like a pig, it’s running off me in rivers during the day at the moment, but I’m hoping that I will soon acclimatise and start to look a bit more human!

So, what’s been happening? A hell of a lot actually! The last few days have been surprisingly action packed, but I’ll start at the beginning….

I met S in the airport, who I sailed with on my first trip on the Patricia, and we got through all the usual airport gubbins without any fuss, although we were fairly late in checking in so didn’t get seats next to each other. Then in the baggage drop off que I saw a face I sort of recognised and he asked if we were joining the Wind Surf, it turned out he was a guy from college who had qualified in August and was joining the ship for his first contract as 3/O. On the plane I found my seat and once sitting down, the guy on my left asked if I was joining the Wind Surf. Out of all the people I could have ended up next to I was next to an ETO cadet who was also joining the ship! The flight was long and uneventful, although we were about an hour late for take off, not because of the weather I think, but because of luggage loading issues. It was very warm as I stepped off the plane, but it was cloudy so I didn’t get that smack in the face feeling of a really hot day! We were all being put up in the same hotel in Barbados for a night, so once we had dumped our bags in our rooms and freshened up we all went out for some food and a drink. It wasn’t a late one by any means though, we were all shattered, the taxis were coming to get us at 0800 the next morning and although the clocks said 2130, our bodies said 0130!

Arriving at the ship, I lugged my cases along the quay wondering why they felt so much heavier when I actually had to carry them somewhere. I thought I’d packed fairly light, albeit in two bags! On the ship we signed on the articles, handed in certificates, saw the doctor (who stuck two needles in me, one for flu, and one to see if I have TB) and then went up to the bridge to meet the Captain and officers. Nothing very exciting happened that day, it was all the usual inductions and getting uniform and wandering about the place trying to work out where we were. There is another cadet on board, A, he’s an engineering cadet so we won’t see him that much during the day. He showed me where the crew bar was that evening, and it was quite late when I hit my bunk. Speaking of my cabin, I’d better tell you a little about it, as I will probably be mentioning certain aspects of it quite often. Sizewise, it’s fine, with two wardrobes and plenty of storage space although the bathroom is a little small,(While the shower is a good size, I run serious risk of bashing my nose on the door every time I go to the loo!) I have a fore and aft bunk which has 4 tiny little steps up to it and I have a porthole too, which is wonderful. There’s only one problem really: we are right down in the bottom of the ship, right next to the steering gear and next to the propellers too. It’s not a quiet cabin!!

The ship sailed to Bequia overnight and I was up on the bridge in time for anchoring, we then tagged along to a safety meeting with the C/O and then went in search of formal uniform for the Introductions cocktail party. To be fair, the C/O actually described it to us as ritual humiliation. He and all the other senior staff and officers have to line up and get introduced by the Captain. But it’s only once a week, and there’s free drinks, so it can’t be all that bad. Life got even better after that too, as the C/O told us to go and have a swim in the afternoon. The ship has a platform aft that lowers down whenever the ship is at anchor, from there you can swim, sunbathe on the rafts, go waterskiing, kayaking or windsurfing. I couldn’t believe my luck, second day at work and I get this!

The only negative so far is that the storekeeper doesn’t have any ladies formal uniform so S and I have the mens uniform instead. I feel a bit of an idiot in it, but having it does mean we can go upstairs in the evenings. Having sailed on the QM I figured that the drinks would be limited to the cheaper stuff for us, and that we would have to be accompanied by a senior officer if drinking in the public bars at any other time. This is not so… At the cocktail party I’m allowed any drink I like for free, and as long as I’m in uniform I can go to the public bars at any time, where, as a cadet, I get $15 a week for free (higher ranks get more), and then all other drinks are 50% off!! This ship is extremely good to it’s crew, and I am already of the opinion that I had better work damn hard and make a good impression, because I want a job here when I’m qualified!

The ship was already alongside the quay at Greneda when we got to the bridge at 0800, and the last lines were being made fast. The berth isn’t sheltered by a harbour and although there was only a small swell the wind was pushing the ship off the berth and she was surging quite a lot. As they have to use the anchor windlass for all mooring lines it is difficult to make them all even so some lines were taking more strain than others. While the sailors were still on the deck one of the lines parted, and actually hit the 2/O, grazing his elbow and scraping his arm as well as hitting him in the chest. He was incredibly lucky though, and aside from the graze he was unharmed. The C/O sent him to the doctor anyway and meanwhile photos were taken of the rope and the area for the report.

After another set of inductions we got our boiler suits on and started on a task the C/O has set us, as we walked down the bridge deck 2/O Navs called us back and gave us a master key, asking us to go down to the pool machinery room right aft on deck three as a flood alarm had gone off in there. Alarms often fault, and while you always go and check it out, you never actually expect to find something, however…. We got down there at the same time as A (Engine cadet) and opened the door to find that there was indeed a flood, with water spraying out of some part of the equipment. We called the Bridge immediately and told them that the flood was very real. A tried to find the valve to shut off the water but is unfamiliar with that machinery and couldn’t find the right bit. We went down to deck two and found that water was coming through the deckhead, as we were next to the marina (which was closed) we grabbed the dirty towel bins and used them to catch the majority of the water coming through, as well as getting towels and laying them over the wet carpet to minimise the damage as much as possible. The 2/E arrived soon after and was able to shut off the water. There wasn’t anything else we could do so we went back to the bridge to give them an update on the situation and then went back to the original task we had started on.

The ship has a loadline survey coming up so we’ve been asked to check that all vents are correctly labelled. This isn’t quite as easy as it sounds as the plans we are working from are from when the ship was built in France, and none of us can speak French to a level where technical terms can be translated. Online translators it turns out, are almost as useless!

While S was using the computer to try and translate, I heard a bang from outside. I went out and looked down from the bridge wing, and saw a line had parted. I told the bridge immediately and then went down with 2/O LSA and the new 3/O to the mooring deck. The line that had parted had been stopped off on the windlass so we removed the broken rope first and then looked for a spare line, the only one left was the extra large one (known as the Anaconda) so, with the sailors who had by then arrived, we pulled it out and led it to the windlass, it weighs a ton and took all of us. The 2/O threw a heaving line to shore, and we fed the huge rope down to the sailors on the quay. Once it was over the bollard he tried to start the windlass to heave it in, but nothing happened. Because the line was on the windlass when it snapped, it must have tripped something. He called an electrician, who was unable to fix the problem immediately, so we heaved in the slack by hand, not an easy task! We weren’t able to get it very tight at all, so once it was made off, the line on the other side of the windlass (which still worked) was stoppered off and put on the bits and we then put the large line on the windlass to heave it in. I hope we don’t get many days with problems like that, but on the other hand, it’s good to be around when the bad stuff happens as one day I may well have to deal with stuff like that on my own.

Today was much quieter, we spent the morning stencilling labels, and were going to go see an engineer this afternoon to see if he could help us identify the ones we couldn’t translate. But the C/O decided instead that we would be much more useful on the sports platform. I kid you not, our job this afternoon was to go and drive a boat around. It’s had a new engine put in and apparently needs to be driven for 50 hours before it can be used. I went down a little early so I could have a swim first, (well, who wouldn’t?) We got some practice berthing it and generally pootled about in it until the platform started getting busier and the sports guys were needed.

I can’t believe my luck really, this ship is brilliant. I may feel a bit less enthusiastic after 4 months, but I think this is going to be the best trip so far out of my cadetship. It’s bigger than the Pat and smaller than the QM2, so there’s lots of people to hang out with, but not so many that you stand no chance of getting to know everyone. She has sails, and they use them! Last night was wonderful as the engines were turned off and we sailed to Mayrau, meaning I got a lovely quiet night’s sleep :)

I sit here with a glass of rum....

2010-12-03T15:16:00.003-08:00

I'm sorry, this is another update that is mostly out of date, but it's the last one, I promise, and there is some new news too....

We were due to be going back to college in January of this year, but as our group is so small, the college decided to amalgamate us with the FD group that had started in May '09 and bring us back in February. I found out about this in mid December and, as much as I love my parents dearly, the thought of sitting around on my backside at home for that long didn't appeal. I was struggling with the Work Based Learning (the project work we have to do for college while we're at sea) so I asked if I could be put back onto the Patricia for a few weeks. My company were very obliging and I joined the ship on the 30th December. I did 6 weeks this time and I am unbelievably grateful for that time, as I was able to get all my loose ends tied up and produce a body of work that made my tutors faces fall as I plonked the huge folder on their desks! This was mainly due to the fact that, on several occasions, when I went to see the Chief Officer in the morning to find out what I'd be doing that day, they asked if I had any project work to be doing, and told me go and crack on with that. This then is the abridged version of the log I kept over those weeks, with as much of the fun stuff as I can remember thrown in. Days that are missing I was either doing work in my cabin. Or greasing. There was a lot of greasing.....

30th Dec 2009

Falmouth
I joined the ship in the afternoon, having once again stayed with my friend who lives down there, and once again feeling slightly jaded from the night before. This time I was not sent below to the cabin I had been in before, but was sent up to the lower bridge deck, where the Captain and Chief Engineer also reside! This was not because I had been promoted though, it was far more practical; the berths below were needed for the maintenance crews who we would soon be taking out to various lighthouses and I was simply being put somewhere out of the way, for the moment anyway. I wasn't complaining though, I had lots of space, a lovely big desk, two windows, (one on each side, which gives the cabin it's nickname "The fishbowl") and oh joy of joys, a bath! I never actually had a bath, but knowing that one has that option is always comforting.

31st Dec
Falmouth
The ship didn't sail that day, so I had the day to re-familiarise myself with the ships layout, and then in the evening I went out to celebrate New Years with some of the crew. As I'd sailed with them before I didn't feel like the 'new girl' and we saw the new year in with the help of quite a lot of drink!

1^st Jan 2010
Falmouth - Bridport

We had a lifeboat muster in the morning and then sailed for Eddystone Lighthouse to drop off some maintenance workers before heading to Bridport to anchor overnight.

4^th Jan

Penzance.

Am. I learnt how to drive the stores crane, moving gear around the heli-deck in preparation for heli-ops tomorrow. I knew where to move the crane by following hand signals given by one of the ABs who was watching the heli-deck below. It's fairly easy, once you have worked out which direction to move the levers on the control unit - it wasn't as obvious as it sounds!

The work boat was lowered to go ashore but when it came to hoisting it to take off the tricing pendants it was found that there was no power to the winch. The engineers found that several things were without power due to the main breaker malfunctioning, and set to to repair it. Meanwhile we lowered the searider on the stores crane to get people ashore.

Pm. Finished the stores crane checks with Boatswains mate then went to the Heli-deck to help with the last bits of preparation. The engineers had managed to fix the problem with the power, but when we’d lowered the port boat it wouldn’t engage it’s gears, so we lifted it back up and put the starboard one down instead. I was on the davit brake, which controls the lowering of the boat. I found it quite difficult to lower it slowly as you have to lift the brake enough to get going, but once it’s going it goes quite fast, so you have to slow it down by lowering the brake again, this meant the guys in the boat had a bit of a jerky ride unfortunately. Second go I started to get the hang of it, but I still need a lot more practice.

6^th Jan

St Peter Port.

Anchor aweigh at 1120, standing by.

The ship was due to meet the helicopter in order to receive back the remaining water bags sent to the lighthouses, but due to the weather we were unable to do so. (Helicopters cannot fly in snow as it restricts the visibility). The crew were on standby for heli-ops and were called up and stood down several times before it was finally decided to call it a day.

9^th Jan

Looe – Whitsand Bay - Penzance

Am. The searider was lowered to go ashore for newspapers and I went too, climbing down the buoy jumping ladder to get in, which felt pretty hairy as I had to make a bit of a drop to actually get in the boat. It was nice to get a little leg stretch ashore, and Looe harbour is quite pretty. The icicles on the cliffs we passed on the way in would make me think twice about getting out on the water in a row boat, but the local gig team were out. (All gig rowers I have ever met are mad...) I drove the searider back to the ship, and took it alongside to let one man out before we raised it. I then attempted to get the boat into position for lifting on the stores crane but struggled with the choppy water and stiff wheel, more practice required!

17^th Jan

English and Welsh Grounds

Am. I spent the morning in the engine room as they had opened up the port fuel service tank for survey, it had been ventilating for three days and was ready to be inspected. It was smaller than I had thought it would be, and the hatch access was so tiny they had to do a sort of limbo to get out!

20^th Jan

In port, Swansea

Crew change day.

Am. Bomb search drill: it's not nearly so exciting as it sounds, the C/O hides a couple of blocks of wood with the word BOMB on them and everyone hunts round a given area, I found one in an electrical locker. I think if it was a real one we would have maybe done a little more than pick it up and take it to the bridge, but I don't think bomb deactivation is on the OOW syllabus so I'm not going to worry about it! We also did a paint store fire drill, which I 'discovered'. It was very straightforward: use the talkback system to talk to the bridge and then pretend to put it out with the conveniently placed CO2 extinguisher! It sounds silly really, but if you catch a small fire it's better to just get on and put it out, rather than waiting for a full fire team to kit up, in which time a small fire might well have got a lot bigger.

Pm. I helped load the new food stores, filling the cage on the quay, and then went and helped on the fore deck stowing the new chains. The chains come in big bundles which have to be untangled (they're not meant to be tangled but, sh*t happens!). This is done using the crane to lift them up, and then flake them out. The crane driver can't do it all though and crew are required to heft sections about using long hooks.

23^rd Jan

Barry – Swansea Bay

Am. The workboat was put down to inspect a buoy that had been reported as a casualty, which brings wonderful images to my mind of a buoy needing bandages and a drip, but in fact it was just that the light wasn't working. The crew then lifted and replaced two buoys, I was on deck for this and helped where I could, which admittedly, isn't much, but I was allowed to drive the capstans a few times, and there's always the crud that gets washed off the buoy to sweep up!

25^th Jan

Milford Haven – Skokholm – The Smalls – Milford Haven

Am. I spent the morning on the bridge helping the 2^nd mate and doing a compass error (one small part of the process in celestial navigation), the ship steamed to Skokholm to transfer supplies and personnel to the lighthouse by helicopter and then moved on to The Smalls.

Pm. The heli-ops continued at The Smalls and I had the opportunity to go for a ride in the helicopter over to the lighthouse.This involved putting on a full flight suit, (slightly too big but close enough) and watching the videos, (again) and then, clutching my camera, I was strapped into the back seat, excited as a five year old. It didn't feel nearly as weird as I thought it would, there was no sudden stomach lurch or anything, just an elegant glide. At the lighthouse I got out to get a couple of shots, it's a very small platform, and I didn't feel like taking a stroll to the edge (not that I'd have been allowed to). The lighthouse is literally perched on top of some rocks that the sea constantly washes over, no island or anything, quite how they built it I'd love to know!

At around 1600 the helicopter had just landed on for re-fueling when a warning light came on in the cockpit, there was a problem with the engine and they couldn't fly any more. The ship returned to Milford Haven and anchored for the night, ready to steam to Swansea at 0630 am. The problem wasn't as major as it sounds and the pilots reckoned they could have kept flying, and they would have had they not landed, but once on the ground they can't take off again with a warning light on. Dems de rules.

26^th Jan

Milford Haven – Swansea

Am. Did the arrival stability with the Chief Officer. The ship arrived in Swansea at about 1215 and I went forward for mooring stations.

Pm. I watched the helicopter being lifted off by crane.This involved taking off the propellers first and then lifting it onto a flatbed lorry, very, very carefully! I did the departure stability for the Chief Officer and went down to confirm the draughts just before we sailed at 1545, I then went forward for mooring stations.

Anchored overnight in Barafundle Bay (Stackpole Head)

28^th Jan

Standing off Bardsea Island and St Tudwells Islands

I spent the day on the heli-deck as an extra member of the fire team, there's a lot of stand up sit down involved in as the helicopter makes lots of short trips. The team have to be ready with hoses each time it comes in and out, but while it's off flying and at the lighthouse there's time to take off the massive Darth Vader helmets and sit down.

31^st Jan

Walney Wind Farm – Lancaster Sound

Am. On deck helping with the buoy work, we laid four new Cardinal buoys around Walney Island Wind Farm. The ship then steamed to Lancaster Sound

Pm. This watch do all their maintenance jobs (greasing) as a team so everyone got on with their bit, getting the whole lot done in a day, whereas on the previous watch it had been just me and the Boatswains Mate, which took much longer! I was given the job of exchanging all the fresh water in the lifeboats. Some had developed algae in them so I left them to soak in a with a chlorine tablet in them. At anchor we had a boat muster drill and then a stowaway drill. This was basically a game of hide and seek, something I was very good at as a child! While counting life jackets a few days earlier I had noticed that the small locker on the port aft side was only half full, leaving just enough space for a me sized person. So after the muster drill, I hung about, waiting 'til the coast was clear and then hopped in. It wasn't as comfortable as I had hoped but I wasn't expecting to be in there for long.... I waited. People came past. I waited some more. More people past me. By now I was bored and wondering what was for lunch. I heard voices again, and this time the lid was opened. The guy who found me was rather surprised to find me there though, he'd noticed that the catch wasn't fastened on the locker and had, apparently, been about to just snap it closed without checking inside, assuming of course that the locker was full of life jackets! I was very glad he did check though, although had that happened I would have phoned the bridge (I'd taken my phone, just in case!)

2^nd Feb

At Anchor, Llandudno (weatherbound)

Am. Rinsed out and refilled the lifeboat water bottles that had been chlorine soaked. It's not a dry job, by any means!

Pm. The Chief Officer asked me to write the scenario for the fire drill and then take charge of the incident party under his supervision. The brief was a deep fat fryer fire in the galley..

We began the drill with the Junior Catering Rating raising the alarm using the manual call point in the aft alleyway (using the test key), this set off the Yodalarm. He then closed the shutters to the mess, closed the doors from outside and isolated the electrics using the emergency buttons outside the galley. He then telephoned the bridge to inform them of the situation and the actions he had taken. Meanwhile the fire teams were mustering and the incident party arrived at the scene, we established comms with the bridge via radio and requested the fire fighting team and first aid team to muster in the alleyway.

The no 1 BA team arrived and I briefed them on the situation, suggesting the use of the fire blanket on the fryer and the AFFF extinguisher on any overspill. They went on air and entered the space, the fire was extinguished and they were able to evacuate the casualty, using the EEBA to provide him with immediate oxygen. I informed the bridge when they entered the space and when they came out.

On the stretcher the casualty was given first aid for burns, copious amounts of cold water was put over his burns and they were then wrapped in cling film. The Chief Steward administered pain relief and asked me to get the bridge to call for a Medivac, ask for radio advice and for permission to administer morphine. I relayed this to the bridge and the medical team prepared to stretcher the casualty to the heli-deck.

In the debrief I ran through the scenario and what had happened. Everyone had mustered quickly and correctly and no issues were raised. No boundary cooling had been required because the fire was contained in the fryer and had been extinguished quickly.

8^th Feb

St Brides Bay – Swansea

Am. Study while the ship steamed to Swansea.

Pm. Went aft for mooring stations, controlling mooring lines on the towing winch drum and then making them off on the bits once they had been stoppered.

I then went to the foredeck and helped get the new buoy stores on deck. I was also allowed to drive the speed crane (that's the really big one!) under the Boatswain’s Mate’s supervision. I slung a chain which involves laying it out in fleets on the deck over a loop in the end, the end is then passed over the laid out chain, passed through the loop and pulled tight so the chain can be picked up and moved in one bundle.

Pics from this trip can be seen here .

So, that's the end of my first sea phase, I'm sorry it's taken quite so long to get up to date, but, as you may have gathered from earlier entries made over the last 9 months, college has been keeping me busy! Anyway, there's not much I can blog about while at college, not much happens in Fleetwood and I have no desire to bore you silly with details of lectures, and I can never remember enough of the nights out to make a good story! But it's over now, and I'm feeling a little bit smug (OK, very smug but I'm trying not to!) ..... I came top of my class, with an overall mark so far of 95%. It's not over yet though, I have some more of the old WBL to do, and this time it counts for something like 40% of the overall mark, so no pressure then!

I am off in the morning, catching the National Express to Gatwick (damn snow's buggered up the trains) and from there I fly to sunny Bridgetown, Barbados to join the Wind Surf, a cruise ship with sails. (I realise you all hate me now). And, now that I am up to date, I intend to keep up to date, although as we all know, the road to hell is paved with such good intentions... Anyway, if you enjoy this, would you let me know? I sometimes feel a little lonely on here, with post after post bereft of comments... I am also on twitter, @size4riggers should you wish to hear random snippets of ships life and/or my general musings, and I have been proudly cultivating my flickr photos, (I was 2 years behind a few months ago, there has been some serious work going on!). They go back through the whole of my first Caribbean experience on the TS Pelican, and I will be interested to see if some of the places I visited then have changed. It's all neatly organised, if you have a peek at the collections and sets...

I'll stop the shameless self promotion now, and go get another glass of rum. I would have cider, but I'm at my sister's, and one has to make do!

A daily diary - 1st Trip THV Patricia

2010-11-23T05:26:00.000-08:00

Apologies in advance for what is probably a rather more dull blog post than you have become accustomed to from me, but on the other hand, life on ship isn't always that fun and interesting and there are often long periods when life is fairly dull and monotonous. Plus, there's really no way of making brass polishing sound interesting!! This blog is my way of catching up quickly on past events, as I only have about a week and a half before I am off to sea again, which I will be telling more about soon!

To make it more interesting you might wish to read it while also looking at the photos from this trip, which tell the story just as well really. Click here to go to the photo set!

2^nd July 2009

In port, Liverpool

Am. Final polishing of the cannons on the boat deck aft.

Pm. Leave ashore. VC (Visiting Committee) joined the ship in the afternoon and held a big dinner party, which went on a bit later than expected, so it was 2330 before the guests had gone ashore and we let go lines.

Vessel steamed overnight to Workington.

3^rd July

Workington – Moelfre, Red Wharfe Bay

Am. On the bridge, I read and signed the Masters standing orders, and got on with finding out the ships particulars and details for record book.

Pm. We were shown around the engine room by the Chief Engineer and gathered more information for our workbooks.

When the ship arrived at the next buoy (a class 1) I went out in the work boat to watch one of the AB's and the second mate replace a racon beacon.

Anchored overnight.

4^th July

Molefre – Pwllheli, Tremadog Bay (North Cardigan Bay)

Am. Polishing brass.

Pm. Study.

Anchored overnight.

5^th July

Pwllheli – Bardsey Island - Pwllheli

Am. Study.

Pm. 1200 -1600 watch on bridge

Vessel steamed overnight to Caldey Island.

6^th July

Caldey Island - Swansea

Am. 0800- 1200 watch, I spent a good hour and a half holding the ship in position standing off Caldey Island using the bow thruster and props

Pm. Study.

7^th July

In port, Swansea.

Day off.

8^th July

In port, Swansea.

Am. Polished one of the cannons on the boat deck again, they now need to be shined up before being oiled and wrapped which will, hopefully, prevent them from being in such a state next time they’re brought out.

Fire Drill at 1130, my station is on the bridge.

Pm. We exercised the Starboard lifeboat as part of the vessels planned maintenance routine. Both S and I had a turn at steering her. The lagging on the exhaust had worn through and it started to smoulder as we returned to the ship. The Engineers inspected it immediately and replaced the lagging.

The Chief Mate showed me how to fill out the stability spreadsheet from the daily tank readings and we then checked the resultant trim against the actual draft marks on the ships side.

Vessel steamed to anchorage near SWIGG (South West Inner Green Grounds) lightbuoy, Swansea Bay. Anchored overnight.

9^th July

SWIGG L/b – Caldey Island

Am. On deck observing buoy work.

Pm. On the bridge, 1300 -1700

Anchored overnight.

10^th July

At anchor off Caldey Island

Am. Run ashore to Caldey Island.

Pm. Brass cleaning, I got the Elder Brethren’s compass binnacle, bell, vessel’s God Mother’s plaque and clock clean and put away below. Then we were re-shining the taff rail tips before oiling and wrapping them.

Anchored overnight.

11^th July

Caldey Island – Lundy Island

Am. 0800- 1200 Watch. The weather is predicted to worsen in the afternoon so after servicing two buoys the ship steamed to Lundy Island for shelter.

Pm. Study.

Anchored overnight.

12^th July

Lundy – Minehead

Am. Attended security and health and safety briefings.

Pm. Finished polishing, oiling and wrapping the taff rail tips on the heli-deck.

Anchored overnight.

13^th July

Minehead – Coombe Martin Bay

Am. Went out on the motor boat with 2^nd mate to check firing range buoys off Minehead and then I was on deck for the last lift and service of the trip.

Pm.1200-1600 watch.

Anchored overnight.

14^th July

Coombe Martin Bay - Swansea

Am. 0800-1200 watch, helmed for an hour, and then helmed under pilotage for an hour as well, bringing the ship up the Swansea channel and into the docks.

Pm. On the bridge for harbour watch. Bunkering commenced at 1456.

15^th July

In port, Swansea

Crew change day.

16^th July

Swansea – English & Welsh Grounds, Bristol Channel

Am. Went through the steering gear checks on the bridge with the 2^nd Officer and went below to observe the emergency steering gear checks. Went aft for letting go.

Pm. 1200-1600 watch, position plotting and got an hour and 15mins steering. Watched the Breaksea class 1 buoy being replaced.

Anchored overnight.

17^th July

E&W Grounds – Barry Roads

Am. Checking all the immersion suits and life jackets on board.

Pm. Started on checking the supplies in the lifeboats.

Anchored overnight.

18^th July

Barry Roads – Lundy Island

Am. Watched safety videos on heli-ops then continued checking the contents of the lifeboats. After smoko I was told to get up to the bridge to get some more steering in, and also after lunch.

Pm. Swapped with S and carried on where she’d left off with the life boats. Only thing left to do was change the fresh water in the canteens. The ones for the work boats were fine but the ones in the open lifeboats had gone rather green from sitting in such a warm place under the covers.

Anchored overnight.

19^th July

Lundy Island – Milford Haven

Am. Run ashore in the morning to see Lundy.

Pm. Steamed to Milford Haven, I helmed for a couple of hours on the way and then took the helm to take her in.

Anchored overnight.

20^th July

Milford Haven – Skokholm – Bishops Rock – St Brides Bay

I helmed us out of Milford Haven. The ship then met a helicopter off Skokholm to supply the lighthouse with water, and then moved on to South Bishop to supply the lighthouse with oil, water and building materials for the roof renovation.

Anchored overnight.

21^st July

St Brides Bay - Swansea

Am. Steaming to Swansea, I helmed for an hour, the weather was rough and vis poor.

Pm. Spent the afternoon photographing any parts of the ship I hadn’t already taken pictures of.

22^nd July

In port, Swansea.

Signed off.

Schools out!

2010-10-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Finally, exams are over. It feels a little strange knowing that I have now completed the entire academic part of the course and the only exam left to do is the big one. But I don’t want to think about that for now, it’s too terrifying for words!

My last exam was the day before yesterday, ship stability, and this was the one we had all been dreading. I think I did well on it though, I finished an hour before the allotted time was up and left feeling confident, and having compared answers with various course-mates since I am happy that I’ve done alright. Assuming that is, that I didn’t make any silly mistakes and make numbers up out of my head, which has been known to happen before! But, I tend to do that when I’m distracted and I was in full concentration mode in the exam. Results should be out next week, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed until then!

Meanwhile, we got our celestial navigation exam results back, and I am incredibly pleased to be able to say that I got 100%! No mean feat considering we only started lessons on this subject 5 weeks ago and had a total of 7 lectures. The first few lessons were utterly confusing and I was convinced that I was never going to get the hang of it. However, our tutor, Mr Warren, is a fantastic teacher and he somehow managed to make it comprehensible. I actually like cel nav now, and I think this is a lot to do with his teaching.

Looking back, the last 9 months have gone by in a whirlwind of law, management, engineering, cargo and construction, nav aids, passage planning, cel nav, stability and dissertations. A lot to take in, and long time to be stuck in Fleetwood, which isn’t the most prepossessing of towns. I’m looking forward to getting back to sea enormously, and am anxiously waiting for my sponsors to tell me where I’m going. Meanwhile I’m getting photos on flickr (the link to my photostream is down the right hand side of this page) up to date, as I’ve just uploaded my first trip on the Patricia I thought I’d take a jump back in time and write about that.

I got less than 36 hours notice that I was joining a ship; I was in the car with my sister driving down to Dorset from Reading on a Monday afternoon when I got the call telling me I had to be in Falmouth on Wednesday. Thankfully I have a friend who lives in Falmouth, so I got the train down on the Tuesday and stayed a night with them. The next day, after a good brunch to dispel the slight hangover I had woken up with, I joined the ship at about 3. As I walked up the gangway some of the crew were sitting about on deck chairs, these were guys waiting for their counterparts to arrive with the hire cars that they would take home, but I didn't know who anyone was so cheerily introduced myself and asked where I should go. I think I came across as a bit over keen as they all took the mickey out of me, but they sent me up to the bridge to find the officers and find out where my cabin was. Up on the bridge I met the Captain and Chief Officer and then someone showed me where my cabin was, right in the bowels of the ship, underneath the galley. It wasn't a bad sized cabin though, and I had it to myself. The only problem with it, as I soon discovered, was that I got an extra early wake up every time the galley crew set to in the morning with the potato peeling machine! I got myself settled, got into my uniform and found the other cadet, S, who'd joined a little earlier in the day. She was also a first trip cadet and we were both as nervous as each other and equally unsure as to what we should do next! We went around the ship to get a feel of where things were and then when the ship was due to depart we reported to the bridge, expecting to be told to go down to mooring stations, but instead we got to stay up on the bridge and watch as we sailed out.

We sailed overnight to Swansea, where the depot is, and the Chief Officer decided to give us shore leave for the day as the crew were busy with loading and discharging buoys, which wasn't something we could get involved with yet. (I think they wanted to spend a bit of time with us to assess how responsible and safe we were before letting us out while operations were going on). Not complaining, we happily bimbled off into town and did some entirely unnecessary shopping! That evening we steamed to an anchorage off Tenby and stayed there for the night, ready to start buoy work in the morning.

While most of the crew got on with buoy work, S and I were detailed to help with preparations for the VC. VC stands for Visiting Committee; once a year the Elder Brethren of Trinity House go around the lighthouses to inspect them, and the easiest way to get to many of them is via the ships. My first job was helping put the stanchions for the awning on the helideck up to clean and check them. We then got told that the awning wasn’t going to be used, so, we took them down again! After that it was brasso detail, which turned out to be a regular feature of my life for the next week or so. It's a fairly boring job, but I actually quite like the satisfaction I get from making something that's blackened and filthy looking become shiny and clean. The frustrating thing is when the rain comes down and undoes all you hard work... Needless to say, it started to rain after afternoon smoko, so I helped rig the screen that goes around the boat deck at the stern and we knocked off after that.

The next morning we were on brasso detail again, which lasted about ¾ of an hour until the rain started up again so we had an early smoko and then S and I scrubbed the scuppers and deck on the heli-deck with sugie (soap) and brushes.We carried on in the afternoon with the fresh water hose, which is pretty weak and so progress was slow so at afternoon smoko we asked if we could use the fire hose, which comes off the fire main and has some serious kick, we got the job squared off easily with that!

The sun came out the next day so it was a good day for painting; we started on the gangway giving it a fresh coast of grey metallic paint. Once that was done S and I started on the rails around the heli-deck with undercoat where the crew had already taken the paintwork back to bare metal with grinders the day before.

We finished off the undercoat first thing the next morning and we were joined by the boys to crack on with the topcoat. The afternoon was spent finishing off any missed bits (holidays) which S was and cutting in, after smoko I went to find some rope to make new steadying lines for the gangway with. I pulled the wrong end out and it all ended up in a terrible mess so I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting it out and recoiling it neatly as well as cutting the lengths I needed. We were told to knock off at 1630 but we stayed on the foredeck to watch the crew lifting and servicing buoys for an hour.

Next day I got the rope (from the right end this time) and all the bits and pieces to do whippings and spent the morning splicing the new ropes on to the gangway and whipping the ends. It was nice to be doing something that I knew would remain there for a decent length of time and was also suitably salty and seamanlike. I showed S how to do a splice and have promised to teach her how to do it properly and some knots too, all that time spent doing knots and ropework on Pelican has certainly paid off! The afternoon wasn't nearly so much fun though as it was back to brasso duties, polishing the Elder Brethrens Clock, bell and binnacle.

By this time we had slowly worked our way up the Welsh coast, servicing buoys by day and anchoring overnight, and were just off Liverpool by the Bar light float. The racon beacon on the top of the float needed checking so one of the second mates got sent up it, much to everyone's amusement as he's not the slimmest chap in the world. He did it though, and the next morning we went into Liverpool and berthed on the cruise ship terminal. I went forward for mooring operations and raised the bow jack when the1^st line went ashore. Trinity House have quite a lot of protocol and etiquette when it comes to flags because they're such an old institution, it seems as if everyone important has their own flag and there's a few more chucked in for good measure! After that it was back to brasso and then deck scrubbing in the afternoon. The ship has a large industrial scrubber, rather like a floor polisher, and the crew made it look really easy to use, but when I had a go with it I found it has a tendancy to run away with you all too easily!

So, that was my first week, I'll try and write some more about it soon, but it's now time for some celebratory tea and cake as I've just had news about my stability result. Our tutor can't give us our actual results yet as they have to be verified, but we arranged a Green, Amber, Red code for him to email us with to give us a heads up on whether we needed to start revising again. He's just emailed me saying "Your test was a brilliant shade of GREEN! Clearly you put in the effort - Well done!" So I'm on top of the world!!

So, what does being a cadet involve?

2010-09-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm still massively behind on this blog, but, I'm not as behind on here as I am on flickr! I am trying to catch up, and to be honest, there's not much more to tell you about, so I'm debating with myself as to whether to bother. In a nutshell, I spent the rest of my time on the QM2 on the bridge for arrivals and departures, doing the same stuff as I've already talked about, but getting better at it. We did the UK cruise, during which I started to learn how to calculate compass errors using the stars. We then went back to New York tracking south to avoid some more bad weather. In New York I got a massage which f*@ked my back up for about a week (tip- when you've had a massage and are on your back, roll sideways to sit up, don't sit straight up!!). After that we did a short 3 day cruise to Boston, Bar Harbour and Halifax before returning to New York where I finally got off and flew home. If there's interest, I will expand on that, but you'll have to ask!

I got off the QM2 in November. I was due to return to college in January, but college, in their infinite wisdom, decided to put our return date back til mid feb. So, with all that time to go I asked my company if I could go back to the THV Patricia, and they obliged. The Pat is the polar opposite to the QM, she's 84m compared to 334m, she does take passengers, but only 12 of them, and she's a buoy tender, going around parts of the UK coast looking after the lights and marks that we all use to navigate by. Quite a difference, but equally interesting and involving!

For now though, something different: Someone I sailed with on the Pelican is thinking about joining the MN, and he asked me what it involved, I wrote back to him with this. It struck me that a lot of people don't know what being a cadet involves, so I thought I'd share...

I'm in the last couple of months of the academic stuff at college, which is pretty hectic- I have 4 assignments and three exams coming up in the next 2 months (which I should be cracking on with but it's friday evening and my motivation is low!). I'm doing the foundation degree course, the other option is the HNC course, the FD covers all the theory for OOW, Chief Mates and masters while the HNC just covers the OOW, this means the FD course is more intensive, but the pay off is that when I have enough sea time to go for my mates ticket I won't have to do a long college stint, I'll just come back to do the orals prep, which is 4 weeks. On the other hand I'll have to remember everything I've learned in college now in a few years time!

It is a big commitment, as you spend several months at college at a time and then several months at sea at a time, the courses don't run like uni terms, and the holidays are less than at uni (2 weeks for xmas, 3 for easter and 4 for summer), plus if you're on a sea phase you don't get the college holiday. You do get some leave during your sea phases though, between trips and if you have something big like a family wedding and you give your sponsor enough notice (ie a year in advance) they will try to arrange your sea trips so you can be home for it. But it's only three years like that, once you're qualified the leave periods between trips are much longer, it depends entirely on the company you end up working for mind, so you could end up doing three weeks on three weeks off, or three months on two months off, or 6 months on 6 months off...

Cadet wages vary according to sponsor companies quite a lot, from about £550/month to £1000/month, some cadets get their accommodation paid for on top of their wage, most of us have to pay for it out of what we get paid. I get an extra bit of money for uniform, some cadets get their uniform provided by their sponsor, which includes being sent a bunch of stuff you're never going to wear, I'll never forget my girly coursemate's tiny white see-through shorts!!

The course covers everything, in the first phase I covered maths skills, introductory ship construction and cargo work, general ship knowledge, buoyage and rules of the road, meteorology and chartwork, tides and sailings. In my sea phase I did Work Based Learning, in which you relate what you did on college to what goes on on ship, to demonstrate you have learnt and understood stuff. You also have a training record book, in which the ship's officers sign off tasks you have done on ship. To back that up you keep a navigation and operations workbook, which is essentially writing about stuff you're done.

This phase we're doing celestial navigation and passage planning, navigation aids, ship stability, engineering, advanced cargo and construction, management, law and professional development (PD involves a 4000 word "dissertation", which we can write about anything we like). In my next sea phase I'll be doing more Work Based Learning, as well as getting the remaining tasks signed off in my training record book.

The HNC course cuts out a few of those subjects, such as the PD, engineering and law, and others are only taught to the OOW level, (stability, and possibly cargo and construction too). The other difference is that you don't do the Work Based Learning when at sea, but you have other reports to write instead.

I've really enjoyed it all so far, well, there have been shit days and the maths in cel nav and stability makes my brain bleed, but I still have my eye firmly on that OOW ticket at the end of it and have no regrets at all.

Not going to St John

2010-07-03T14:38:00.000-07:00

It's official, I am the queen of procrastination! When I have work to do I will do laundry, hoover, cook large and time consuming meals, clean the bathroom, re-do the silicone seal around the bath, buy stuff I shouldn't on the internet, blog, edit the photos I've been meaning to get around to editing for two years.... anything but the thing in hand! And so, in that spirit....

Before we didn't go to St John, we went to Halifax, my nav work book starts to get a little more technical here, with tide print outs and lists of instructions on the use and set up of radar and echo sounders and steering and propulsion tests; I was getting a bit more comfortable in my surroundings on the bridge by then. I got ashore in Halifax too, we didn't go far, just down the wooden boardwalk to the first decent looking restaurant we saw, where I recall eating a very good lobster sandwich.

Next day we were due to go to St John, which we had actually been to before as a 3 day cruise from New York, but I failed to mention it when I was writing about early September (my excuse is that my brain was fried at the time of writing, having only recently got home. It wasn't a big event anyway; I did get ashore, but only as far as the nearest restaurant where I devoured as much lobster as I could!) Anyway, I was rather looking forward to getting to see a bit more of it, as we were due to spend a longer time than normal there, due to the tides and depth of water at the entrance to the harbour.

The weather wasn't good, and there had been much discussion on the bridge over the days preceding as to whether we would be able to make it in, but the final decision was only made when we were a few miles off the pilot station. We would have been able to get in, but the forecast for when we were due to be leaving was simply too bad and it would have been too dangerous to try it, which left us with the chance of getting in but not getting out and thereby screwing up a lot of people's holidays by making them late back to NYC, or not going in. That's it in a nutshell, but for the more technically minded I thought I'd put in what I wrote in my nav workbook here, I'm afraid you'll have to do without the charts and diagrams that should accompany it, but I hope it's vaguely interesting (If it's not, just skip to where the italics end!)

The ship was due to call into the port of St John today, arriving on the flood at high tide and departing on the flood of the next hight tide. The ship is only able to get into St John at high tide and has a very narrow window of opportunity to get up and down the channel. The port authority will only allow ships to enter or leave between 2hrs before High water and 2hrs after high water, and they must have at least 5meters clearance over the bank at the entrance. Chart datum at the bar is 8.8m, QM2 has a draft of 10.3m and also has to take squat into account. Squat occurs in shallow waters when a ship is travelling at speed, water is displaced more than normal and so the depth of water is reduced (though the ship's draft stays the same). For the channel at St John squat is estimated at 1.5m, the ship therefore has a clearance of 0mover the bar at datum [datum being the height of water the lowest astronomical tide] and so needs a Height of Tide of at least 5m to be allowed into the harbour.

Looking at the tidal graph for St John that day it was apparent that the ship could make it from the pilot station to the berth by slack water (when the tide turns) but there was not much margin for error or contingency, even without the bad weather that was developing. The forecast for our due time of departure showed a large depression right over St John, bringing winds of 35-40kts. As a depression passes over, the cold front comes first, as this happens the wind tends to alter direction suddenly, first veering slightly and then backing dramatically. If this was to happen when the ship was in the narrow channel the ship could be pushed off course and grounded very easily.

The forecast showed that this bad weather would be likely to happen when the ship was leaving the port, so while we would have been able to get in to St John, we could have been stuck there for much longer than the itinerary allowed and therefore all the passengers who had to catch flights from New York would have missed them, so the Commodore took the decision not to to in. It was not a lighthearted decision, and was only taken at the last moment, when the most up-to-date information was at hand and much advice from shoreside support had been listened to. At the end of the day, it's the master's responsibility to keep the ship safe first, and being on schedule comes after, and we could not have done both.

To fill the time we should have spent in St John, we took a slow scenic cruise down the Grand Manan Channel, heading for New York. However, it wasn't quite as simple as that and the navigator had to work out some extra legs for the ship to sail so that she could go fast enough to be able to keep the water making plant working. The ship uses approximately 1000 tonnes of water a day, and there's no way she could store that much! She has three evaporators, which, when making a speed of 26kts can produce 1500 tonnes of water a day. To be able to run one evaporator the ship needs to be going at a minimum of 13kts so the navigator had to extend our passage to enable the ship to travel at that speed and not reach New York too early.

So much to learn, so little time!

2010-06-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

Assignments, assignments, assignments!!! Being a student is harder than I remember!! Or maybe it's because I'm engaged in the subject and actually care, which is more than I can say for the last time I was in education! I'm rather enjoying using this blog as a memory jogging exercise for all the things I've done on ship, and the reason I'm here. I know there are folk who would prefer I had kept it a little more up to date *waves at CunardCritic :D* but I do have a fair bit on my plate so have to prioritise.

Luckily for you, I kept notes throughout my voyage, they started out as the long rambling descriptives that I posted on here in my first month, but as I settled into life on board and started on the written work for college and my workbook I had less time for that and the notes I made became lists of tasks undertaken. In my last month I didn't need to make notes on my computer as I was up on the bridge and logged all my activity in my Nav workbook. Obsessively. Most cadets don't write their nav work book every day, but I did. Most of it consists of lists, a typical entry simply lists what I did that watch, i.e. filling out the log book, position fixing, ticking off items on the checklists etc, and there's a fair amount of sailings calculations in there too, but there were also the days when we hit interesting weather or I got to do something different, which inevitably meant a big write up in my book, along with copies of charts and pictures glued in. I'm hoping for a gold star when the MCA read through it!!

So, my last entry brought us up to the beginning of the first North America/Canada cruise, and I was shadowing A up on the bridge....

Filling out the log book sounds as though it should be an easy job, but the space you have for the narrative on a 4 hour watch is pretty tiny, so there is a list of abbreviations to be used which is printed in the front of the book. Some of them are fairly easy, but when it gets to 5+ letters it starts to get confusing, especially as there are several which could easily get mixed up. For a long time I actually kept a rough log on a scrap piece of paper and then got someone to check it over and tell me what was unnecessary and what I could abbreviate before writing it up neatly in the log book. My handwriting was a secondary factor there, it looks like a drunken spider has crawled across the page when I write fast!

Our first stop off was Newport, Rhode Island, where we anchored in what seemed to me to be a rather tight spot, we kept the azipods on standyby that day! On the way in I was starting to practice my fixing techniques (range and bearing form the radar and three point bearings from the compass repeaters) and learning how to set up the bridge wing radar consoles. After my watch I got some breakfast and then went down to the tender pontoons until 12. I had a much needed rest after lunch and was back up on the bridge for departure, my fixing techniques were improving and I was rather pleased with myself when I compared the paper chart to the ECDIS track. When land is in range it's preferable to use manual fixing techniques, this is good practice to keep your hand in (in case the GPS breaks) and also enables you to cross check the accuracy of the GPS.

Next morning, on our way to Boston, the visibility went down to below three miles, this means extra precautions and vigilance are required, and therefore yet another checklist. Once safely in and alongside we had a MOB muster and boat drill, this time we didn't actually chuck a dummy over the rail but I did get to go down in the rescue boat, and I got to drive it too! It's weird to drive because it's propelled by waterjet, rather than a propeller, so when going in reverse the boat turns the opposite way to what you would expect and at slow speeds it's virtually impossible to keep going in a straight line. I had some fun with 3/0 G, seeing how well I could approach a buoy as if it was a casualty, and then we went right up to the bow of the ship to see it from below, which is an incredible view of her, looking straight up the stem and seeing the flare of the bow sweep out either side. My watch that evening was extended by an hour as we only left at 2000hrs so A and I were still needed for position fixing etc while the ship was under pilotage.

Bar Harbour was next on the itinerary and lucky for me, as we weren't due to arrive very early and I'd done an extra hour the night before, I only had to be up on the bridge at 0530 and work 'til 0830, it's amazing what a difference an hours lie in makes to someone's mood! Bar Harbour is an even tighter place to get in and out of than Newport, and is made even more interesting by the lobster fishermen, who appear to either not know or not care about where the channel is and place their pots all over the place! We let go the anchor and I learned about swinging circles and how to mark their limits on the radar and set up electronic bearing lines as well as using visual bearings to monitor the ships position and ensure she's not dragging. Because Bar Harbour is such a tight anchorage we couldn't even allow the ship to swing freely so it needed careful monitoring and the pods were kept on standby all day. I spent some time on the bridge for the rest of the morning keeping an eye on things while the senior officer got on with his paperwork in the Safety Centre, which is on the bridge, they weren't about to leave me alone up there!! I got ashore for lunch, and spent a lovely hour sitting under a tree, I'm a country girl by origin, so I do miss the greenery sometimes. I had a little wander around the town too, it's very pretty, but a bit twee for my liking if I'm honest, I'd love to see it in the full flush of autumnal glory though, but sadly we were just a bit too early in the year for that.

When I got back I had a special job from the C/O; film directing! The tender fenders get a bit of a bashing when they come alongside the pontoons in choppy water, despite the best efforts of the ABs driving. So, the Officers wanted some film footage of how they were getting damaged for the shoreside operations team, in the hope that some new fenders could be found or designed to prevent this. I and my cameraman started up on the bridge, looking down on the tendering operation, before moving to deck 7 and then the pontoons themselves for some close up shots. In the half hour we were down there I think we experienced a full years worth of weather - it went from bright sunshine to wind and hail and back with alarming rapidity! The sudden winds meant pausing the tendering operation for a few minutes, but thankfully it passed as quickly as it had come over. I did feel very sorry for the passengers who were out in it though, looking out from the shelter of the shell door I could see the rain and hail going practically horizontal at one point!

Crikey, it's late, again, and I have to try and beat the boys to the bathroom in the morning... Next time; why we didn't go to St John.

Getting in on the action.... gulp!!

2010-06-08T15:52:00.000-07:00

Coming back into Southampton from the med cruise I did the fwd station comms on the radio, under the 2/0's supervision of course, but it was nice to be allowed that little extra bit of responsibility! Once again we had a round of MCA surveys that day, one of the inspectors wasn’t arriving until 1230 so I stayed on the bridge for the morning, filling out the stability log book, doing rounds with one of the 3rd Officers and then once the MCA were there, I stood at the CSS console (Computerised Safety System) acknowledging alarms and door closures while the Chief Officer went around with the MCA setting them off. I had a visitor on for the afternoon, and then all too soon I was back on the mooring deck again for stations at 1600, I operated the winches aft this time, it's more complicated than it sounds as you have to be watching several things at once, but I was getting the hang of it.

The trip across to New York went rather slowly as we had some pretty dull jobs to occupy us - refilling the tenders that had come back from their maintenance ashore with the small gear (there's a lot of it, it's all very small and it stored in some rather difficult to reach places!), inspecting mooring ropes, checking the rescue craft gear, fixing new fenders to the pontoon uprights... oh and an engine room fire drill in which the Chief Engineer was taken out and we simulated a full CO2 release in the engine room, so it wasn't all dull!

We spent a day and half going around the ship and colouring in tiny bits of fire plans as a result of that exercise, which was a thankless task as they were being replaced soon. I'm suspecting it was one of those jobs cadets get given to keep the out of the way when there's nothing else for them to do, but I could be wrong...

Anyway I was set for bigger and brighter things after that, I finally had my first bridge watch that night. Not that I actually got to do much, but it felt rather fine to be up there in an official capacity, as opposed to just being up there for studying on a Sunday or getting our day's orders. I read the standing orders and the bridge familiarisation programme, which is quite a hefty document and there's a lot of equipment up there! A, who had been doing all the bridge stuff was leaving in a week so I was there to shadow him before taking over as he left, so he took me through the radar and GPS and gave me an overview of the rest. I was also introduced to the maintenance management system AMOS, through which all of the ship's maintenance is programmed and overseen. I had some data entry fun ahead of me!

The next morning I was up there again, we were coming in to New York so I had to be up there extra early for the beginning of standby at 0330. Not my favourite time of day I have to admit! As I was only shadowing A I got to enjoy the view a little as the ship slid majestically under the Verrazano bridge. From up there it really looks like you're going to hit it, but the ship has 4m clearance at high tide so there's no real worry, as long as the ship is kept bang in the middle of the channel anyway....thankfully the helmsmen are well practised and the officers keep a close eye on everything. And there's a lot of them up there - the Bridge Team, when entering/leaving port and other tight situations consists of the Master, Pilot, Staff Captain, Navigating Officer, 3rd Officer, Cadet and 4 quartermaster/lookouts as a minimum. There's a lot going on and at that point, having tried to do 6 minute fixing and mostly failing, even without trying to do the log book and telephone at the same time, I couldn't imagine how on earth I'd be able to ever do 3 minute fixing, plus the log, phone and checklists......

You'd think after being up since 0330 I might have opted to go to bed for a bit before going through the whole thing again that evening on the way out, but no, I had booked myself onto the New York bus tour for the day instead! I thoroughly enjoyed it too, we went up to the top of the Rockerfella building which gave us some amazing views of the city, stopped off at a pier on the river for lunch and visited ground zero, well, we viewed it from the building across the road anyway, the place is now starting to rise up again, in hot pursuit of getting the record for the worlds tallest building. The won't have it for long as there's another building in Dubai that'll trump it within weeks, but I guess it's a matter of pride!

All too soon it was back to the ship for a quick cup of (extremely strong) coffee and then back up to the bridge to do what we'd done in the morning, but in reverse!!

A Mediterranean Odyssey Part 2

2010-04-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

It sounded wonderful- two days off.... Unfortunately, they weren't lazy days spent chilling out in the sun and sightseeing lovely places at my own pace, no, they were spent herding passengers (around some of the most beautiful cities in Italy admitedly) which was not, I assure you, restful!

Florence and Pisa were as stunning as you would expect, incredibly detailed decoration on some of the bulidings, and doors which were works of art on their own. Thankfully it wsn't as hot as the day before had been, although I would have liked some sunshine for photos. The day did brighten up in the afternoon at Pisa and I happily wandered about on my own for an hour or so. The leaning tower is in a large courtyard with a couple of other, equally impressive, buildings so the tour group had been unleashed and allowed to roam free :)

Back on board that night I was on the bridge again for more steering training. My family are still gobsmacked that I was actually given the helm, which I find mildly insulting, seeing as I've steered a Tall Ship often enough and got my steering certificate on the Patricia on my first trip. To be fair, QM2 is a wee bit bigger, and we did start off with a quartermaster standing beside us to instruct and take over if necessary, but the wheel itself is the size of a go-cart steering wheel, and the ship is delightfully responsive (hurray for azi-pods!). We were treated to another lightning show that night, this time with intermittent rain showers, much to the entertainment staff's pleasure as it meant they didn't have to do the stargazing evening! If we'd not had such a tight schedule we could have steered around the rain, but as it was we had to go at pretty much full pelt to make it on time.

The next day we were at Monte Carlo, which as the harbour is way too small to berth in, was a tender port. We were going to go to anchor but when I got to anchor stations, the duty 3/0 arrived and informed me we weren’t anchoring after all, but just hovering on the thrusters and pods as there were too many yachts around, so I went for breakfast instead. I spent the morning on the pontoons, giving the passengers the old "Good morning! Watch your step and mind your head!" in the same singsong way that the Filipinos do, it just comes naturally after a few minutes! After lunch I was back on the pontons for a bit and then was allowed to go with a tender & start learning to drive it on runs with no passengers. So I got to see a glimpse of Monte Carlo, it all looked terribly posh and expensive, the boats in the marina were fantasticly expensive looking and there was a mister by the quay for people to cool off in. What I really liked were some of the bigger boats that were anchored out off shore, some really sexy looking old 1930s style things, with funnels and lots of shiny! And there was some kind of tall ship too, which always sets me off drooling! The tender I was on was the last one to be lifted home, so while waiting to be called in we took a little detour to take some pictures of the ship, the light was just perfect and I got myself a stunner :)

When we arrived in Barcelonca, our last stop of the Med tour, I got to operate the mooring line winches, not a major thing really, but enough to give me a small frisson of excitement and feel pleased that they didn't think I was a complete muppet who shouldn't be allowed to do anything that might go wrong.
The rest of the day was taken up with tender repairs, the poor little things always seem to take quite a bashing from the pontoons, the slightest swell creates a lot of bobbing!! Because we had to work on the outer side of one of them we had to lower it, drive it round and come in to pick it up the wrong way round, and the same in reverse when the repairs had been done. This gave us a chance to do some more driving practice, which, frankly, I could still do with a lot more of!

The next few days at sea on-route back to the UK were spent emptying small gear and provisions out of a couple of the tenders, which were due to go ashore in Southamton for maintenance. It's not such an easy job as it sounds as things like the drinking water are stored in lockers under the floor, so you have to lie flat out on the floor between two benches to reach in and grab the bags of sachets out. We actually removed a bench to make getting at them easier, but it made me wonder how on earth you'd get at them when the tender was full of 150 people. I also got to indulge my artistic side when re-painting the 'fire' that's used for the basic fire fighting demonstrations, test about a million fire screen doors before they got tested by the MCA in Southampton and lay out yet more lifeboat gear for the MCA inspectors to inspect.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the ship gets an MCA inspection almost every time she goes into Southampton because she's so big and has such a tight turnaround schedule. Instead of inspecting the whole ship in one go anually, the MCA come aboard and inspect a zone each time. When all the zones have been done they then come and stay on the ship for a few days to watch drills and things and then, and only then, does the ship get issued with their certificate. Of course, a month or two later the whole process has to start all over again!

A Mediterranean Odyssey, part 1

2009-11-15T10:28:00.000-08:00

Mmm, yes, again, apologies for the delay, stuff keeps happening and getting in the way of writing about it! So, where was I? Oh yes the med......

We set off from Southampton once again and had one day at sea cleaning tenders, followed by cocktails and a show. Over the three months I have attended innumerable cocktail parties on board, the thrill of which I have to admit, palled somewhat by the end of my time, but it was nice sometimes to put on a bit of make-up and heels and remind myself that I was a girl. We were allowed to sneak in at the back of the shows when they were about to start, on this occasion there weren't any seats free so we stood to watch Apassionanta, and I tell you, those dancers can go some!

I was rather excited the next morning at stations, as we were coming into Lisbon, one of the places I sailed into 10 years previously when sailing in the Tall Ships Race on Astrid. This time we made our way up the river at dawn and I was treated to a beautiful sunrise with the bridge's silhouette coming closer and closer. Passing beneath it we heard the most bizarre roaring noise, caused by the traffic above. The bridge isn't tarmacked, it's just metal grilling, so you can actually see the traffic as it passes above you, which I found slightly disconcerting. I didn't get ashore in Lisbon, my day was spent cleaning out the tenders ready for use in Gibraltar the next day instead.

Gibraltar was slightly more exciting, I had yet another lovely sunrise, this time with the Rock silhouetted in front of it and I then spent most of the day on the pontoons, telling passengers to mind their step and please could they not try and barge the people in front of them on. It's like they think the boat's on a timer and if they don't get on as fast as possible it'll go without them. There's also the people, mostly men, who, when offered a helping hand when bridging the gap between a stable platform and a bobbing boat, take it as a personal affront and huffily snatch their hand away. It's always them who nearly go flying as the boat lurches too. Small victories.

Anyway the lovely part of the day was getting to go ashore and visit my friend N for lunch, she'd been away from the homeland for a while so we spent a fabulous 3 hours nattering about life and it's myriad of complications. And, I got to wear the dress. I bought the dress in Swansea when I was doing my first trip on the THV Patricia. I'd wandered into a shop called Blue Banana selling the most divine retro and alternative clothing, the kind of stuff I'd love to buy and wear on a regular basis if I could a) afford it and b) wasn't so lazy and actually put in the effort to do hair and make up and such things that are needed to make it look good, most of the time I live in jeans and only wear make up for parties. I oohed and aahed over the dresses for a while and was then pounced upon by one of the shop assistants who demanded I try the object of my affections on. I did, and while it was nice, I wasn't convinced, mainly due to my socks and bad hair. She then produced the most glorious pair of black patent leather peep toe wedge heels with a red trim. Needless to say I bought the lot.

I digress, sorry, I am a girl after all.

I didn't wear the shoes that day but the dress needed to be shown to N as she is my Dita Von Teasesque icon. I did however, wear the dress for the next two days ashore, (I only had the one smart thing to wear) which felt delightfully subversive as I was escorting tours and therefore representing the ship. Razor blades and 1940's pin-ups never struck me as a Cunard look, but they didn't seem to mind when I rocked up in it, after all, I was wearing my badge.

My first big day out was Rome, I collected my tour group from the theatre and led them to the bus with my little placard. The worst part was having to stand at the front and say in my best posh voice (which I do very well, I would point out) "Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, I am your escort for the day". I then tried to point out that I was not the tour guide and knew nothing about the places we were going to see as I had never been there either. I was just there in case someone lost something or fell over. This didn't stop people from asking me everything from how long it was going to take us to get there, to which things we were going to see. Some people just don't listen, but hey, I was seeing Rome for free!!

After an hour and a bit on the bus from Civitavecchia, during which I gazed out of the window wistfully at olive groves and umbrella pines, we arrived in the city, making our way through narrow streets on foot to the Trevi Fountain. As you round the corner and see it you realise that the term fountain doesn't really accurately describe it, not at all in fact, it takes up the entire side of a square, and most of the middle of it too, it is the side of a building, not some small architectural afterthought added on later. From there we were taken to Venice Square, past the huge white building known unaffectionally by the locals as "the wedding cake" and on to the Forum. I can't possibly do justice to any of these places with description, and truth be told, I am writing this many months later, but I have photos, many, many photos, which, will one day make it onto my flickr account when I have had time to tweak them. I wouldn't hold your breath though as I am still behind on photo editing by over a year!

We moved on to the Colosseum before lunch, it is a splendid ruin, though horribly over-crowded by tourists, which I hate, especially when I am aware that I am one of them. I managed to get most of my photos without people in them and so left happy. We were all hot and flagging by then, and I was discovering which of my wards I needed to keep an extra eye on so we didn't lose them as they stopped to photograph everything on route. The term "herding cats" is appropriate here. Lunch was in a hotel, and as we arrived I felt something on my dress go ping. To my horror a button had become unstitched and one shoulder strap was hanging lose. I managed with the help of our tour guide to beg a safety pin from the receptionist and get it temporarily fixed and sat down with some of my tour to eat. It went again during lunch but one of the ladies helped me out, for which I am eternally grateful.

Suitably refreshed we went on to the Vatican. Again, words can do no justice (sorry mum!) the painted ceilings, the architecture, the sculpture, mosaic floors... oh and the small matter of the Sistine Chapel. Which one is absolutely not supposed to take photos of inside. None of us did of course. OK so we nearly got the tour guide in trouble and get kicked out but everyone loves a chancer don't they! After briefly visiting St Peters Basillica there was time to get an ice cream which sustained me on the walk back to the bus. Our tour was one of the last back and as I was excused from mooring stations I took the chance to go up to deck 13 to see us sail out. Very soon after that I went and crashed for an hour or so, Rome in a day is rather exhausting!

There's no rest for the wicked unfortunately and after dinner we went up to the bridge to start steering training. I got up there and very nearly asked which muppet was taking photographs, I soon realised that it wasn't a camera flash I was seeing, but lightning. We had an incredible light show that night and debated what would happen if the ship got hit, thankfully we didn't have to find out!

Early September, the highlights......

2009-11-11T10:48:00.000-08:00

Well here I am at home again, and finally I have some time to catch up with this! My lack of posts for the last couple of months has not been due to a lack of anything to say, nor because I felt discouraged by strangers reading my tuppence worth, no, it has simply been due to my lack of time! I kept writing a daily log, but it rather degenerated into a daily list of jobs done, or a detailed description of how one should dismantle, clean and put back together a fire extinguisher, or some other deeply dull job, which is, I felt, not very exciting reading, unless one is the MCA examiner.... and even then..?!

So, allow me to catch you up on the more interesting aspects of life on ship. As I mentioned in my last post, my second month was spent with the deck POs (petty officers). There are 4 of them and, under the Safety Officer, they are responsible for maintaining all the safety equipment on board, which for the most part consists of the fire fighting equipment, tenders and lifeboats. There are, unsurprisingly, a lot of these on the ship and the monthly, quarterly and annual inspections are done on a continuous rotation.

We did get to do other things over the month though, on the 4th, in New York, we did our first void space entry. A void space is, as you might imagine, an empty space, most of them are located in the bowels of the ship and are fairly inaccessible. Getting into one involves quite a lot of preparation, not least the paperwork, but also a lot of kit that has to be lugged to the tank entrance to be there should anything go wrong. This one was particularly fun because it was right underneath the engine room, and within this space, lube oil tanks were suspended. Lube oil has to be heated before it's allowed near an engine, so not only was being in the tank incredibly noisy, it was like a sauna, only not nearly so nice! After the nice chap from Lloyds had been in to survey the space, the Chief Officer had us gadgets get in there to mop out the inch or so of water that was sitting in the bottom, an inch really doesn't sound like much, until you work out the area over which it was sitting!

We also started getting much more involved in the drills, that week all three of us made up a cadet fire team for the IPM drill (In Port Manning). The "fire" was in the paint store, right f'wd on deck 5. We had to pretend that the paint store was filled with smoke, and did a right hand search (keeping your right hand on the bulkhead at all time so you don't get lost). I was no 3, pulling the hose through, which wasn't to difficult, but bear in mind that the hose was not charged, if it had been things would have been a teensy bit more difficult. We put out the "fire" and recovered 2 casualties, getting the secondary team to come in and take them off our hands each time so we could continue searching. As we started to make our way back to the exit, having searched the whole space, the Chief Officer, who'd been watching and asking questions the whole time started putting obstructions in our way and throwing boiler suits at us, and he's a good aim! While I held the hose my two team mates tried to clear the way, meanwhile he kept lobbing boiler suits at my head and then told me I had been knocked unconscious by debris falling from the deckhead. He then did the same to S, leaving A who was number 1, calling for help on the radio and feeling a little, er, flustered! It was a very good lesson for us, the BA cylinders only have a very limited amount of air, and when working hard (i.e. when it's hot and you're pulling a charged hose and lugging real people around) we'd have used up much more air than we did and could well have run out by then. I did have to giggle though when the second team came in to rescue us and saw us two lying on the floor, their whole body language said "Oh B.......!" Luckily for them, and us, they didn't have to carry us in our BA suits, we were miraculously classed as walking wounded and helped up.

The next outing for the cadet fire team wasn't quite so exciting sadly, we got all kitted up in the gear and went to join the Search and Rescue team, whereupon we all stood around and waited, and, er, waited. The deck fire team did such a good job that we weren't required, but we filled the time up by going over stairway procedures with the third officer, so it wasn't a total waste of time.

With all this work going on, you might start to think I didn't get to have much fun on the ship, now let me put your mind at rest. On the 11th, to celebrate several of the deck crew leaving us, including Staff Captain C and SECO, we had a little deck party on sailor square. Just a few huge trays of food, a couple of bins full of ice and beer and much exceedingly silly dancing by senior officers and crew alike. We spent the whole afternoon decorating the place with flags of all nationalities and streamers and tinsel, and of course there was the karaoke machine to get things started. If you have never sailed with a Filipino deck crew you probably won't understand the significance of karaoke to them, so let me put it like this.... it's like a national religion. They adore it, whether they can sing like an angel or wail like a banshee, they all have a go, and then insist that you do too. Now let me explain something else; I. Don't. Do. Karaoke. Never have, never will..... yet, somehow, I suddenly found myself with a microphone in my hand singing "How deep is your love?" by the Beegees at the top of my voice. Luckily for all concerned, Jerry started DJing and the lads started dancing. Alright, the lads and I started dancing, and then I made Staff get up to strut his funky stuff too and the party was well and truly kicked off. I'd love to share the pictures with you, but I would like to keep my job too. Suffice to say that, mops were used as wigs, there was a Marylin Monroe dress in use and Staff dances like an aerobics instructor on speed... and he only had a couple of beers!

Finally that week, I got lumbered with the one thing I'd been dreading above all others. Reading in church on Sunday. Now I'm a fairly confident person, heaven knows I've done enough school plays, am-dram, not to mention my more recent exploits as a living statue and other things, but still, when I have to get up in front of people and just speak I turn to jelly. Standing on that stage is utterly terrifying, and I don't know why. But, despite my hands starting to shake like I was mixing a cocktail and my voice starting to go the same way, I made it through, and I made it back down the steps off the stage with out going arse over tit too! Problem was, I did it too well and realised I'd set myself up to be asked again!

So, that takes me up to the 13th September, the day after that we were in Southampton where my parents came and visited for the afternoon and then we were off on the Mediterranean Cruise, which I shall tell you all about another day. (This is mainly to keep my mother in suspense as she is dying to hear all about Rome and Florence and Pisa)
For now, I shall just say, how lovely it is to be home :)

Shock news... we've been painting!!!

2009-09-01T17:20:00.000-07:00

August 27th
I began the morning chipping paint on deck 11, just the undersides of the stanchions (rail posts) where they joined the wooden rail. By 0900 we had painted all the chipped bits with sealant and were vacuuming up the chips of paint from the deck so the guys told me to chip off as we has an engine room tour booked for 0930. G took us round, showing us everything, he managed to level it at two complete novices who have no idea what all the whirring, bleeping and clunking lumps of metal do, he did get rather excited showing us his area of expertise- the sewage works! We went painting on the aft mooring deck for half an hour after lunch as the engine guys get back at 1330, and then we went back to finish off with looking at the incinerator and electrical side. That took us up to smoko and then we returned to the aft mooring deck to carry on painting the yellow parts of the black and yellow danger area stripes around the winches.
The guys were having a party tonight on the f’wd deck, and insisted we come- about ten of them asked each of us over the afternoon, so we really couldn’t let them down. On top of that the Chief Electrical Engineer was having his leaving party- which we had also been invited to, so we went to both, the engineers party first and then the deck party, which was a bit more lively- karaoke is the Phillipines national pastime, and while it had been going on at the engineers party it was only background there, at the deck party it was the main event. For the first time in my life I sang karaoke, even though I swore I never would, after that there was dancing, someone made me drink tequila, more dancing and then S and I ran away as it was getting late, we went to the wardroom to check emails and have a glass of water and then chipped off to bed, just before the C/O came in apparently!

August 28th
This morning looked like it was going to be painting again but then we heard a call on the boatswains radio about cadets. We were being roped into helping empty the two tenders that are being put ashore in Southampton for maintenance. This involved getting all the supplies and equipment out of the lockers that are hidden under seats and in corners, it was a grimey job and took us all morning to empty both of them. We did get a break in the middle, smoko, followed by a lecture in the Royal Court Theatre about pest control, which nearly sent us all to sleep!
After an extra long lunch break (because we’d overrun in the morning into lunch) S and I were back on the aft mooring deck, painting black stripes on the floor this time!

August 29th
Back in Southampton and it was an early start for us as stations was at 0520, we were due to come alongside at 0700, but two tenders needed to be lowered before that as they are going ashore for maintenance. As it worked out things ran really smoothly and we were alongside and secure by 0610, which meant we had time for a leisurely breakfast and some catching up on writing up notes before reporting to the bridge at 0800. Our job for the morning was to go around the ship opening every fire screen door. It sounds simple enough, and considering that emails had been sent to every department to make everyone aware of this, and there were several announcements made by the C/O over the morning as well, you might think that all the crew would be aware of the test that we were doing this for… nuh uh! Thankfully we weren’t the only people doing this task as, by the time we had done decks 12 to 8, we started getting sent back to doors we’d already done because crewmembers had closed them again. We had to go back to some doors 4 or 5 times, which became a little, er, frustrating… The C/O actually told me to start finding the people who were closing them and hand out bollockings!! Finally though we were told to report back to the bridge, where we had a brief rest before being sent down to deck 1 where I was told to aft and stop anyone going through any fire door while the test was being conducted. When the announcement for the test was made I told the guys working in the area and anyone passing though that they had to stop and wait, and made sure no-one tried to pass through. Once the doors had been closed it took about 10-15 minutes while the bridge checked each deck on the computer system and noted any defects showing, many of which were due to crewmembers opening doors unfortunately, but still had to be checked individually later.
After that I had 3 hours with P, who I’d booked in as a visitor again, we had lunch in La Piazza upstairs on deck 7 and I showed him a bit more of the ship as I’d found a lot of places I didn’t know about before during the fire screen door closing!
Once he’d gone I went back up to the bridge where everyone was very busy making departure checks and getting ready to get underway. We stayed on the bridge for the sailaway, which was very interesting as we got to watch and listen in on all the briefings and checks that happen, as well as watching Staff drive us off the berth.
After that we decided to go to the spa, we felt we deserved it after the miles we’d trekked closing fire doors in the morning!

August 30th
Study day once more, we spent the morning writing up reports on things we’ve done until S handed the C/O her draft report on MOB, at which point he took us around the bridge going through the whole procedure, including any variations that might occur… S re-wrote her report!
We carried on writing things up in the afternoon and thought for a brief moment that we’d escaped our grilling- no such luck! N told us to come to the bridge at 2030 instead, straight after the cocktail party. We did alright actually, we’ve not got rule 3 verbatim yet, but we were close enough for him to be reasonably happy. We then talked about stability for a while before he told us he was sick of looking at us!

August 31st
Back to the aft mooring deck today, painting the black and yellow stripes around the winches. The morning was broken up by a technical drill at 1000 on damage control. S and I went with the 3rd officers into the control room where we were talked through the process of closing valves and what the options were for pumping water out of a space that was flooding. The damage control plan is a very important document if a space floods as it lists all the valves and doors that need to be closed if a compartment starts to flood. Back on the baggage handling area the deck and engine fire teams were going over the equipment for plugging holes, shoring up and pollution prevention. If an emergency occurs the first priority is safety of life and saving the ship, and then pollution prevention after that.
In the afternoon I joined the deck guys in their task of scraping 5 years worth of varnish off the deck, we’re going to paint an area of the aft mooring deck black, with anti skid paint and that is going to be the only area on which varnishing can take place.

September 1st
A new month brings new work, we are now working under the Safety Officer with the deck POs, (Petty Officers). Our first task was to go around all the fire screen doors that had shown faults on the full ship test in Southampton and re-test them individually. Most of the faults that had shown up were due to crewmembers walking through them while the test was being done, so there were only a few doors with actual faults. That took us most of the day but by afternoon smoko we were done and went to the SO for a new job. We pent the rest of the afternoon inspecting the low-location photo-luminescent strips around the crew areas (those strips we got put to work cleaning on out first day) This time we’re just going round noting any defects, thankfully, but we may well have to set to with the acetone again at some point.

Painting, NYC and heli-ops!

2009-08-26T16:53:00.000-07:00

Blimey,what a week, sorry it's taken so long to get this installment up, I keep getting behind on it as things have been so busy, but here it is...

18th August
We had an extra hour in bed this morning as the clocks went back an hour, wonderful! The only downside is when we come back we’ll be loosing an hour’s sleep each night.
So, feeling pretty fresh and awake, we went to find out what the boatswain had in store for us. The first job was helping pass down the new mooring lines from deck 4 to the mooring deck (3) through the hatch. The hatch lid is lifted by a wire on a crank handle and posts and chains are put up around the non-working sides. The lines had been put on board using the derricks on the foredeck, coiled around a cardboard drum and wrapped with paper and high strength sheeting. We cut the wrapping off and then it took 4 of us to push the huge coil nearer to the hatch, the line was then unwound from the drum and passed below where it was either coiled into one of the baskets or threaded around a set of bits and through a shackle to go directly onto a drum. The lines are all 12 strand multiplait and are extremely heavy. Once all 4 lines had been put in place we eye spliced a length of three strand rope around the eye of each line, which is used by the linesmen to pick them up. After that we cleared up the rubbish and went for smoko. When we got back we had a lesson on multiplait splicing, it’s not nearly as difficult as I’d thought it would be, once the rope is unlaid you take 6 strands on each side and work with two at a time, weaving them up in a straight line along the original lay. It gets very tight by the end and you need to use a setting fid to open it up each time.
After lunch I was on the f’wd mooring deck again, this time cleaning. First of all two guys went around with a bucket of metalbright and a paintbrush on a long stick, finding all the rust spots, then another deckhand started jetting the deck down, meanwhile we also started scrubbing down with soogie and brooms.
After an hour I had to chip off to meet the Safety Officer- we’d arranged to meet him to go over fire fighting equipment for our training books. When we’d done that I got back to the deck to find they were currently vaccuming up water from the floor. I got hold of a vaccum and cracked on. Once the floor was no longer puddley, we set to with mops to get it dry.
After a very active day, where both of us had sweated a fair bit, S and I decided to visit the spa again before cocktails, I had a Finnish Sauna to start with, before relaxing in the pool and then trying out the reflexology basin. Once cocktails was done with we had some dinner and then went to the bar where we had fun playing with flash cards- J, one of the 3rd Officers, was spelling out rude words for S with the code flags and then he set up some buoy channels for us to navigate through. Geeky, but fun!

August 19th
We started the morning off on the aft mooring deck, S was scraping old varnish off handrails and I was and oiling handrails that had been scraped and sanded.
At 1000 there was a Helicopter Fire drill, the ship uses the sundeck on deck 13 as a winching area. We mustered with the deck fire party on deck 11 and went up the stairs to deck 13 when instructed. It was blowing about 25kts out on deck, which made running out hoses slightly difficult as they kept flapping about. S and I ran around fetching extra hoses and connected them up with a nozzle, we were then instructed to help hold the hose as number 2 and number 3. The engine room fire team were also up on deck and went aft to the sundeck where there was a dummy casualty. Each fire party consists of two three man teams, in this case 4 people were holding 2 hoses, and two people were sheltered between them, ready to retrieve the casualty. The whole team edged forward, using the hoses to create water walls until they had reached the casualty and then edged back in the same manner. The second time they did this the hose I was on was used as another water wall, we edged forward to the wind screens that separate the deck areas with the water wall and number 1 turned it off briefly to put the nozzle through one of the gaps in the screen and then turned it back on, this gave the fire team additional protection as they moved forward, it was turned off to let them through and then put back on. Likewise when they came back with the casualty, the water wall was turned off to let them through.
Once the drill had been completed we all went below for a high expansion foam demonstration on the aft mooring deck. The fire teams took their kit off first to Sarah and I were there to see the first quick test, which produced a huge amount of foan in about 60 seconds. So when everyone else got down, we were at the ready with squeegees, to try and keep the foam from getting too far. Easier said than done as the squeegee blade just passed under the bubbles and only moved the water underneath. Once the demonstration was over we got the hoses onto it and eventually got the deck clean again.
In the afternoon we carried on with scraping varnish off hand rails, the rails are first painted with some blue gunk that corrodes the varnish, the first scrape down still leaves a fair amount of varnish on the wood and so the process is repeated. The blue gunk is evil and really hurts if you accidentally get even a tiny bit on your skin, I was wearing the right PPE (gloves and boiler suit) but still managed to get a little blob on my wrist. I washed it off immediately though and it was fine. Once all the varnish has been removed the rails have to be sanded with two grades of sandpaper until they are immaculate and ready for oiling with D1.
We went to the Queens Grill cocktail party in the evening where I met Commodore William …… who is the current maritime lecturer on board and a Trinity House Younger Brethren.

August 20th
Started off this morning painting the bits and roller fairleads on the aft mooring deck, we then had an early smoko to enable us to maximise on the time available to paint balconies. Passengers tend to spend the mornings out of their cabins, which is when the deck crew teams scuttle in and paint. In order to get the job done in time about 5 of us crammed onto the one (single size) balcony, so with two stepladders, the balcony furniture and the paint buckets, space was at a premium! Naturally I got paint in my hair as I was kneeling down to paint under a ledge at which point I was given a plastic shoe cover, which doubles nicely as a hat. Wearing that, plus the mask to protect me from the paint fumes, I looked delightful!
After lunch is was back down to the aft mooring deck, where S carried on with the painting and I got stuck in to some varnish scraping. I discovered the disposable boiler suits they have too, which are a bright red/pink colour and have a hood too, so I looked like a slightly deranged Teletubby wielding a paint scraper! Photo evidence of this exists, but it’s on my phone, which I don’t have the wire to my laptop for.
This evening I have been productive, taking advantage of the lack of cocktail party to do laundry, tidy the cabin and write up notes about anchoring procedures for when N grills us on Saturday. Once all that was done I went to the wardroom for a drink, to find most of the men wearing bibs with a large set of boobs in a corset printed on them, in honour of the German Tapas night. I always thought tapas was Spanish, but what would I know?

August 21st
The morning started off again scraping varnish on aft mooring deck until 0900, then it was early smoko and balcony painting. This time I was with S, working on the outside rails of the deck 8 balconies, which are easily accessed from the lifeboat platforms. All was going well until we got showered on from above, where one of the stewards decided to start washing down the outside of the glass balconies on one of the upper decks!
After lunch it was back to scraping varnish, broken up by smoko and a refresher talk on lifeboat hooks and engines. The statistics on lifeboats in general are a little bit worrying, so Cunard put all lifeboat crew through a refresher every 3 months.
After the World Cruise club cocktail party S and I joined SECO and ENVO to go and see the show, Viva Italia. The costumes were fabulous and I lost count of how many changes there’d been in the first 20 minutes! I had been expecting to maybe hear some songs I knew but they’d all been written for the show, the lack of plot also had me rather bemused for a while, and to be honest, it wasn’t really my cup of tea, but the performers put so much energy into it and it had some very funny moments.
We’d missed dinner in the mess by the time it finished so we all went up to the Lotus restaurant for some Chinese food, which was delicious. A quick change into casuals led to a couple of drinks in the wardroom and then a foray into the White Star party, which is held monthly for all crew in the luggage handling area. When we got there no one was dancing and I was reminded of school discos where everyone stood around the edge looking awkward. That didn’t stop us lot though and we hit the dance floor straight away. It didn’t take long for others to get the same idea and by the time I left an hour later the place was bouncing!

August 22nd
Study day, which has been lovely. Not having to get changed for meals, sitting down and getting all the bits of paper I’m accumulating organised. We had our grilling from N, which went really well in fact- seeing as we’d actually done the work he was very nice to usJ
The big excitement of the day has been hurricane Bill, which is perfect for my WBL, so I’ve been busy gathering as much info on the situation as possible and have even asked the Commodore if I could interview him about it all later.

August 23rd
NEW YORK!!!
Need I say more?
Oh, I suppose people will require a little more detail than that…
It was an early start, we were breakfasted and at immigration by 0630, immigration began at 0640 but we wanted to be first in line, had to be in fact as we were escorting a tour into Manhattan. We had been instructed on our itinerary “Day off- Book tour- Buy shoes and handbags” and so we decided to follow instructions to the letter. Conveniently for us the tour we were escorting was the shopping drop off tour, which meant we had the whole day to ourselves to, er, well, go shopping!
We were dropped on 7th Avenue, opposite the back entrance to Macy’s, which wasn’t yet open, it being about 0830. So we wandered toward Times Square, picking up a coffee in Starbucks and then hopping into tourist shops for the essentials, which as far as I was concerned was a giant pencil, which I didn’t find, and an umbrella, which were in plentiful supply. It was hot and muggy at that time of day, which had quickly become gentle, but annoying, rain. Over the day the rain ceased but the oppressive humidity remained, even when blue skies appeared in the afternoon, we were gasping in relief when we walked into a store and it’s air con hit us.
From Times Square we meandered on to Central Park and then to 5th Avenue where I felt glad that none of the shops were yet open as I would have felt disgustingly underdressed wandering around any of Tiffany’s, Gucci, Prada, Armarni etc. By the time we got as far down as the Rockerfella building though, the shops had opened and we went into Banana Republic, where I casually picked up a hat and tried it on.
It was love at first sight, I tried to say I shouldn’t really buy it, but S told me I had to… Ok, so I’m weak when it comes to hats. It is beautiful though, a 20’s style blue felt cloche (apologies to any men who are reading this, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much about this entry, it’s all about shops, shoes and handbags from here…)
We admired the Rockerfella’s architecture for a while, and then headed back toward 7th Avenue and Broadway where we stopped for an early lunch at Ruby Tuesdays, I had a crab burger which was very good, but I was most intrigued by the bun, which I think was brioche….Anyway, I digress. From lunch we stopped off at Mid Town Comics, which T has been sent to by G (G being one of the 3rd engineers and T his girlfriend) I got hugely tempted by several things but decided that buying all three volumes of Sandman (at $99 each) was a little excessive, especially as I’d have to carry them for the rest of the day. Likewise 6 volumes of SIP pocketbooks…
From there we embarked on my major mission of the day, which was camera shopping, my darling dad had found two stores which did cameras at sensible prices, one of which wasn’t too far from where we were so we cut across to 9th Avenue, through some slightly less classy streets, complete with guys yelling it each other about “Doin’ it the Nu Yoike way” or some such classic street banter. On the way we saw a shoe shop, and as I was after something cheap to wear with my whites uniform we popped in, where eventually I found a pair that would do, S also found some shoes, which made sense really as it was buy one get a second ½ price. From there it wasn’t too much further to the camera shop, and oh by gum what a camera shop, Dad would have been in heaven! There were different departments for film photography, digital, point and shoot, lighting, movies… You had to queue to see an advisor in the department you were shopping in (99% chance he’d be Jewish) They then looked up what kind of thing you wanted and got various models to show you, when you’d decided they give you a receipt for it and sent it to the collection point in a box on a roller conveyor system. You then had to go to the payment point, pay and then go to collect it further on, bit of a palaver! However I now have myself a neat little Fugi A150, which does everything I need and more, and only cost me $124.01 after tax.
We had less than two hours left by then so we headed back to Macy’s, where we perused the shoes and handbags at length. I am now the proud owner of a beautiful green leather handbag which has pockets galore and it’s own umbrella and purse! Happy then that we had fulfilled the C/O’s orders (“Book tour, buy shoes and handbags”) we went to the pick up point where a bus was conveniently waiting.
The ship wasn’t due to sail for an hour and a half when we got back so I decided to wander up to deck 13 for a spot of sunbathing on the phone. After half an hour of swearing at said phone and nearly throwing it overboard I gave up, it wouldn’t change to USA roaming, nor would it find any kind of network, turned out that the whole ship’s satellite system was down, so that might have had something to do with it. The sailaway was fantastic to be on deck for though, got some wonderful views of the city from there, especially when we went under the bridge only clearing it by about 4 meters!

August 24th
Today balanced yesterday rather nicely… I spent the day first following two of the guys, who were sanding, with grey primer and then re-tracing my steps (or to be more honest, bottom shuffles) with yellow paint. We were on Burma road, which is a crew area, but also the main thoroughfare for the working ship. Apparently, painting is a spectator sport!
Another cocktail party this evening, after which we caught the first bit of the Music of Sting show and then went for Chinese with Seco and Envo.

August 25th
Another day that started with painting, but not for too long, I phoned the C/O at 0930 to ask where we should be for the fire drill at 1000. Once again we joined the deck fire team at the muster station and were then directed to the fw’d mooring deck. The scenario was that two crew members had been last seen painting on stairway 1 which had filled with smoke, probably due to painting materials catching alight. From the mooring deck (deck 3) the fire teams had to search and rescue below first and then move up the stairway, which with a charged hose is pretty difficult, but when you have the added bonus of the stairway actually being filled with smoke and the weather being so hot and humid that you break a sweat without doing anything, then the scenario starts to feel pretty real! The C/O put us in the stair way to observe what was going on, the fake smoke made me choke so I used my hat as a mask as I didn’t want to start people worrying about me collapsing, but it was great to be able to see first hand what was going on as they found the two dummies and got them back down the companionways.
There was a full crew muster, which meant I had to get back up to deck 11 by the stairs to grab my lifejacket and then get back to my raft station, this job really is getting me fit!! After that we had touch drills on the bridge, where the officers have to talk though the procedures for different emergencies, ie steering gear failure, MOB, collision, grounding etc.
After lunch I was back on painting until after smoko when we went to the deck fire team’s debrief on the mooring deck. The guys had found it much more difficult with smoke taking vis down to 1/2mtr, and they learnt that their comms need to be better, gauge checks got missed, as did ladder and handrail cooling, also that casualties should be lowered down ladders/steep companionways not carried.
While we were getting ready for cocktails A gave us a heads up that there was a medevac happening later and there was a briefing at 1930. We showed our faces at the party for half an hour and then scooted back to our cabin to change and get some dinner before things started to happen. The ship had already started heading north in order to get closer to Canada where the helicopter was coming from, as we were pretty far out and they only have a range of 300 miles maximum. After the briefing we went to collect the high expansion foam kit with th SO and get it all up to deck 13 before we had a bit of time to relax. The fire team had been instructed to start getting ready at 2045, so they got there 10 minutes before and were all dressed and ready by the time I arrived! Up on deck we helped run out hoses, both deck and engine fire teams were there, with water hoses, foam hoses and high expansion foam so there was a lot to get ready for the rendezvous at 1045. The passengers had been removed from the cabins directly below the deck, and all had been instructed that the open decks were all closed and they must keep off the balconies too, so I felt rather privileged to be allowed to stand on the deck and watch (from as far back as possible). I videoed the whole operation with my new camera and we all breathed a sigh of relief when the helicopter left, the last thing anyone wants is to have to use any of the fire kit that’s standing by. People started clearing up and S and I helped put hoses away, which gained us brownie points for not just disappearing and we got told to turn to at 1000 next day as we’d not run off like most people. Bonus!

August 26th
Lie in- Oh what bliss it was to wake up at 0700 and turn over and snuggle back down for another two hours! And when we got to the paint store at 1000, all ready to go, the boatswain said, “Coffee time now!” Ah well…
The main part of my day was taken up by painting, although after afternoon smoko we joined the SO and the deck fire team for a walkthrough of one of the galley areas on deck 7. They’re going over a different part of the ship each day at the moment, and as S and I will be put into the fire team at some point it makes a lot of sense to learn as much as we can!

Off to NYC!!!!!

2009-08-17T15:15:00.001-07:00

Aug 14th
Today I sanded a deck chair. It took all day and it’s still not finished. The brass fittings are all covered with verdigris and each screw head has to be sanded back to shiny brightness.
I got to my cabin after work to find the hit squad (yes they’re actually called that) there sanitizing everything, they told me S had been taken ill earlier in the afternoon, which was the first I heard about it. Poor girl had been sick after lunch and got quarantined for 24 hours as a precaution.

August 15th
Stations was after breakfast, which was very civilised for a change. After that I went to the boatswains daily briefing, where he hands out the day’s work to the deck crew, once again I was on the rails, painting this time.
After lunch we had shore leave scheduled, S had only just been let out of the medical centre and therefore had to go to work for the afternoon, so I trundled off into Hamburg on my own. I walked along the riverfront, through seething crowds of tourists all out for Queen Mary 2 Day. Hamburg goes nuts for the QM2, I saw so many postcards and pictures of her for sale and there were countless boats, barges and steamers offering rides up and down the river to see her. I found a bar with it’s own beach to sit in and had a coffee before wandering slowly back. I resisted the german sausages and pickled fish in a bun stalls and got back onboard in time for a lie down before supper and then stations, followed by a fabulous sailaway. Once again the city was out en-mass to see us off, the pontoons and banks of the river all crammed with people taking photos and waving. There were fires one the beaches further along and fireworks going off as we passed, one hotel even had a person in every room window, flapping sheets at us. The party carried on downstairs in the bar when the music on the passenger deck finished, and I was sad to have to go to bed before midnight.

August 16th
Study day, which meant being on the bridge for 0800 in whites to be grilled by N, (Chief Officer) I was doing alright until I made a stupid mistake, saying I’d make one short blast before altering course to port… Doh!
We had safety induction no 3 at 1000, and then had to attend the interdenominational church service at 1100. I had trouble not laughing during the second hymn; an elderly lady had come in late and sat behind us, she managed to get about two beats behind the piano and quavered everything, all at top volume, I couldn’t look at S…
After lunch we went back up to the bridge to get information and signatures for our training books, and Staff came and chatted to us about how to learn the rules, there’s a method, which makes a lot of sense and makes it all seem a little less scary.
After we were done for the day we decided to check out the spa, as officers (albeit trainee ones) we’re allowed to use it between 1800 and 2000 if there’s not too many guests, so we asked very nicely at the reception and were allowed in… to heavan! Started in the whirlpool spa Jacuzzi, then into the bubble pool, which has different areas, including a high pressure jet that looks a bit like a kitchen sink tap- perfect angle for pummelling out those knots in the shoulders and back… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! There’s also a finnish sauna, a steam room, a herbal steam room, reflexology tubs for feet and a monsoon shower… and I get it for free! Will be going there fairly regularly methinks!!

August 17th
We didn’t have to do stations in the morning, or at least it wasn’t on our itinerary so we presumed we didn’t have to go. Back in jolly old Southampton, we had the MCA surveyors coming on for zone surveying- every ship has to be surveyed every year but as this grand lady is so big and only spends one day in port each time, they break it down so each time she comes in they do one zone (there are 9 zones in total). We were doing zone 8 this morning, my job was to follow the inspector and Safety Officer, carrying a smoke detector tester (a long pole with a cup arrangement on the end that encloses the smoke detector and squirts fake smoke at it. A little light then goes on and the bridge calls up saying “We have a smoke detector going off at ….. location” and we reply “ Yes that’s us”) What was much more interesting was watching the inspector and asking him questions about what he was looking for. He was very nice and explained lots to me as we went around.
This afternoon I had a visitor booked in, my boyfriend P, I showed him around the ship, learning a few things about where things were as we went round! His comment on the bridge was “Mmm it’s a bit bigger than ones I’ve been on before!” He was later than expected (due to my shopping requests- how was I to know that white socks would be so hard to find?) but it was wonderful to see him for a couple of hours. After that I went up to the bridge to find out what I was supposed to be doing, they were doing all the pre-departure checks so I stayed up there learning about what goes on and then S and I went down to stations for unmooring. We are now heading for New York, and the best thing is, 4 days with no stations!!

Just cruising.....

2009-08-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

11th August
Up at 0630 for stations this morning, but different stations this time, we’d asked if we could observe/help with the gangway side of things, partly for a change and partly to get a better understanding of the whole mooring process. It was rather cool to be standing at the open shell door as the ship came alongside, QM2 has no fenders so relies solely upon the protection shoreside to prevent damage, which in this case was just tyres along the quay, we squashed them to death as we came into position, but they did their job. What was more worrying to SECO (Chief Security Officer) was the barrier arrangements. There is supposed to be 50 meters between the fence and the ship, and the fence is supposed to be difficult to get over at least. What we got was some single wooden rails held up by little wooden cradles, the height of which as about a foot and a half off the ground, oh and they were painted red with retro-reflective yellow strips on, which, of course, makes all the difference...

The gangways were prepared to be lifted out by hand, using a triple purchase block and tackle to lift it, but the port provided a HIAB lorry instead. Once the gangway was down, rails and nets were rigged and the security team already had their ID and luggage checking equipment in place so the passengers were free to go and explore Bergen. As anyone leaves or joins the ship their ID card barcode is scanned, visitors are issued a temporary card and have their photo taken with a webcam. Luggage checks only happen when people return or join the ship, security have a scanner like at airports for bags and a walk through archway too.

After breakfast we went up to deck 5 f’wd to find out what our jobs for the day were, we met the boatswain on the way and he took us up to deck 7 where the deck gang had already begun chipping and sanding the next section of railings. I got going with that and S continued with the boatswain to find out what she was doing for the morning. The guys I was working with finished at 1100, so they could have their lunch before starting a bridge watch at 1200 and I carried on. I was quite happy there but soon the boatswain came and told me to stop and take my tools back down below, I was a little confused as to why, but as a gadget I don’t ask, (plus I find it very difficult to understand the boatswain sometimes!). I waited down there for a bit, thinking he’d be down to give me another job, but when I figured he wasn’t going to I asked the store keeper where S was working and took myself off to help her sand porthole covers in the crew mess until lunch.
After lunch we had a free afternoon, and took great pleasure in climbing on the shuttle bus into Bergen. On our arrival in town we managed to go the wrong way, but after a short while came to a place I recognised from being here a year ago with the Tall Ships, so I was able to navigate us to the fish market without any problem after that. I love the fish market, the smell of the sea and beautifully fresh fish, mixed with all the smoked fish smells makes your mouth water as you look at the huge slabs of salmon, the mountains of prawns and the piles of bright red foot long spider crab legs. There was a live shellfish tank too, in which were lobsters, crabs and the most enormous langoustine I have ever seen, they were the size of lobsters and had to be seen to be believed. After that we wandered down the Bryggen, the oldest part of the city along the harbour front. It’s a charming row of wooden built painted houses and is flanked each end with some rather more ornate stone buildings, most of the houses now are shops and bars, which made us consider the possibility of coffee. We found a place at the top of the street with a wide courtyard to sit out in, S and I share a fondness of sitting with coffee and watching the world go by, which is rather handy! Inside there were all sorts of alcoves and niches, and the walls and shelves were filled with oddments and eccentric antiquities, it reminded me very much of the Black Boy back in Winchester, until I got to the loos, where I discovered, with the assistance of a nice lady, that you had to have a code to get into the cubicle, which was odd.

Refreshed, we wandered up the street to the funicular railway, we had to scrape together our last kroner, but as it was our last shore leave in Norway it made sense to spend it. It was well worth it too, at the top we discovered a view that took in the whole city, and the hill and mountains beyond. The QM2 dominated the scene, even from such a distance amongst everything else. All the other ships around looked tiny compared to her, even the cruise ships, and I finally got an idea of just how big she is. There’s only one quay in the port big enough to fit her, the cruise liner terminals are far too small!

When we got back to ship, we got some extra work trousers as two pairs just isn’t enough, especially when you need one pair to stay smart enough to be allowed in the mess in (we change in and out of uniforms several times a day, especially when doing messy jobs!) and then headed to stations to watch the reverse of the morning’s procedure. We stayed with SECO after that for a briefing on a security operation and the subsequent execution of 6 simultaneous cabin searches – there’s been some thefts and the aim was to firstly try and find the stolen items and second to give a very clear message to all crew that the security team are out to get the perpetrators.
In the bar, after dinner S and I got given the fullest glass of wine in the world, which made us laugh so much we couldn’t drink it.

12th Aug
We were up at 0615 to get breakfast before being on station for tendering at 0700. The tenders had already been lowered to the embarkation point on deck 7 and I climbed aboard where I was greeted by SECO asking me where my camera was, as he was hoping I’d take lots of photos for him for his security dossier. At every port they go to, the SECO for a ship will take photos and write notes on it for subsequent visits so that any problems can be planned for in advance. As mine is quite bulky I didn’t have it with me so he gave me his to take photos with for him instead. The boat was lowered to the water where the pontoons were just being opened out and I helped rig the hand rails before hopping back on the tender and heading ashore with SECO, the boat’s first job is to get the shore team away so that security can set up and the sailors can set the mooring ropes up to the right lengths. Once that was done I returned in the boat to pick up the first load of passengers, getting Sarah, who was on the pontoon, to grab me my jacket (as I was freezing) and my camera (as SECO’s had run out of battery) while we loaded the passengers.

400 passengers went ashore at Hellesylt, I continued to crew in the boat, helping with mooring lines and asking passengers to please sit down for their own safety. When disembarking the passengers at the shore SECO would come into the boat and tell them firmly to remain seated while he disembarked them in an orderly fashion, to prevent a stampede and people getting hurt. Once the tendering was done the boats were lifted to the rail and the ship sailed slowly to Geiranger, accompanied by some classical music on deck. We had about an hour’s break while we sailed and then the ship anchored, sending stern lines to a small island near the shore to keep her in position.it was time to go and stand on a pontoon and say to every passenger “Good morning, watch your step and mind your head.” I also helped with mooring lines, throwing the light rope that controls the painter and passing the stern rope. After a brief lunch I returned for half an hour when one of the 3rd officers asked if I’d had a break, I told him I’d half an hour and he told me to go and have a cup of tea and a sit down as there were plenty of hands around.

I got back to find A had taken over. As he couldn’t leave the station, he asked me to pop up to the bridge to get a new battery for his radio. While I was up there I saw Staff, who was watching the whole operation from the bridge wing, and asked him if it would be alright to go on a boat that was going to the bunkering point. He said that it was fine so I hopped on the next boat that was heading there. I found S onboard already, she’d hopped off her pontoon to have a go crewing for a bit. After bunkering the boat was ordered to go to shore so I asked if I could hop off there and see the shore side of the operation. I started by just standing by the security officer who was checking passes at the gate, each guest has an identity card which shows the dates between which they are on board, so at the gate you have to check that each one has a disembarkation date after the day’s date today. When they get onto the ship they also have to show their card, where it gets barcode scanned. As the afternoon drew to a close it started to get busier so SECO gave me a clicker counter and I was stood by the entrance to the pontoon counting passengers on to the tender, they are built to take 120 people but as that would be very tightly packed and would take quite a long time to embark and disembark them all we were instructed to only put 60 on each. When everyone was back on board I watched the boats being lifted and went onto platform to see how they’re secured with skates and gripes.

We somehow managed to muster enough energy to go and have dinner and then chilled before popping to the bar for a quiet drink in our own clothes at 2100, where there was a quiz being held by the medical team, which meant it wasn’t nearly so quiet as I’d hoped!

August 13th
Another 0630 start for stations coming into Alesund, I went aft, helping flake out the lines and then watching closely how they rig the heaving lines, it’s quite complicated as lines have to be passed around parts of the ship on the outside, all done with accurate throwing of monkeys fists and long poles with hooks.
After an 0830 breakfast we visited the boatswain to see what we had in store, he took us to the laundry where he got the linen keeper to issue us with coats, I’d been wearing my Trinity House coat yesterday as after three days of asking we’d still not been given a Cunard one, the linen keeper is extremely protective of his stock! By then there wasn’t much point in starting any work as we had a fire drill at 1000 so the boatswain told us to wait for that. I caught up with the Chief Officer in the alleyway and asked what we should do for the drill, he told us we’d be with the fire team and to find the Safety Officer for more instructions. We paged the SO, who told us to meet the BA team at the deck fire locker when the alarms sounded.

The BA team comprised of 6 people, in two teams, they all kitted out in fire suits with BA helmets that have comms radios built in. From deck 11 we went down to deck B (two below deck 1). The scenario was that the settling tanks on the double bottom deck had caught fire, so the team we were following were doing boundary cooling on the other side of the bulkhead of that section. The engine room fire locker was too close to the fire and so couldn’t be reached. One team went down with the hose first and when they were running low on air the second team followed the hose down to relieve them. The “fire “ was put out with the high fog system but the drill continued as a full crew muster to lifeboat stations and exercising the starboard lifeboats. We followed the Chief Officer as he strode up and down the ship making checks for the first part of the drill and then he sent us to watch the liferaft inflation demonstration. After that we were involved in lifting the lifeboats and securing bits of equipment. As we were starting to help the boatswains mate secure the FRC there was a call for all officers, and the cadets, to go to the bridge for a debrief. When that was done there was one other matter to deal with- W’s birthday! An extremely decadent cake, covered in strawberries and cream, was brought out, along with smoked salmon sandwiches and we all tucked in.

After all that the afternoon was a bit of a let down, we were back to chipping rails on deck 7! We finished at 4 as the deckie we were working with had a watch at midnight (and so needed some rest) and the boatswain had no other work for us so we had a much needed little snooze before went down for mooring stations at 1730. We were due to sail at 1800, but there was some kind of problem with the steering, so we waited, and waited… eventually we got off at about 1900 and cleared down the deck. I got back to my cabin ready to just chill out and then get some dinner, until W knocked on the door and asked if we were ready to go to the cocktail party. Technically I don’t have to go to these things, but it’s recommended….
Anyone who says women can’t get ready in less than 2 hours is wrong, we showered, dressed, dried hair, did make-up and were out of the door in 20 minutes! I was very proud of myself this time, randomly starting up conversations with people I passed, and managing to keep my footing as we started to feel the ship move for the first time. Never felt the ship move before so it was quite a novelty to experience it for the first time in high heels!

I’m now sitting in the wardroom in my own clothes, having spilled gravy down my mess shirt at a late dinner, am not sure if I’m knackered or not anymore, I think yesterday may have been the worst and now I’m getting used to it all a bit more, still I’m looking forward to my bunk in a minute!

Oslo and Stavanger

2009-08-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

9th August
I woke up this morning purely by my internal body clock, it was around 6am and I was worried because we’d not been called for mooring stations yet. I lay there wondering what to do until about 0620 when S said “Are you awake?”. We debated briefly about the best course of action, my comment being “Well, I’m not going to worry about it” and rolled over to enjoy the last 40 minutes of sleep until we had to get up anyway. Naturally, at that point, the phone rang. Still, mooring stations at 0700 isn’t nearly so bad as last time!
I got to the aft mooring deck to find the deck crew had already been fantastically efficient and flaked out most of the mooring ropes so there wasn’t much to do until we arrived. So I had a few minutes to watch the world go by through the observation ports and ask D, the Safety Officer, random questions about the lights and marks we were seeing.
The cruise terminal quay was a bit short, to say the least and the stern (that’s the blunt end for those of you who aren’t sailors) was several meters clear of it. The rest of the quay was close enough to get ropes to though (seeing as the mooring ropes are about 200 meters long) but we did need the linesmen to pick up the ropes with a boat.
Once mooring was done I went for breakfast, and after that we headed for the Boatswains store to find out what we were doing for the day. Once again it was painting bulkheads, and this time S was coming too. We continued where we’d left off the day before, although by the time all the deck lads had got the gear together and we’d got there and had sanded the bits we needed to pain it was smoko. After that though we cracked on with the painting and got on well. Unfortunately, I managed to get some paint on the bottom of my shoe, and the tarps weren’t so good at protecting the deck either, so before lunch I had to go on a mission with some thinner and a rag to make the deck nice again.
We had the afternoon off but as Norway is incredibly expensive we ate lunch onboard, where we saw the Chief Officer who told us at the end of the meal that we had 33 minutes to get off the ship.. or else!! Oslo is lovely, lots of impressive buildings and after a look at the Place we found a coffee place to sit and watch the world go by in. After days of safety shoes and lots of walking, all we really wanted to do was sit down!
We returned to the ship in plenty of time to go to the crew shop and chill for a bit before mooring stations. I was hoping to get to watch us go out from Oslo, but as soon as we’d unmoored the deck crew started the task of changing some of the old ropes for new. This first entails taking the old rope off the drum and coiling it neatly in a basket. It’s a big rope, and a big basket, the kind that is welded to the floor. It’s hot hard work, and I was glad to see the AB’s and seamen sweating as much as me! Once the rope is detached from the drum and the new one attached, it has to be wound back on again, which involves passing it around a couple of bollards or a set of bits to tension it:- if the rope wasn’t pulled taught as it winds on it won’t all fit on the drum.
I helped with a couple of ropes and then the Boatswain called me over to the control panel, and I got to play with the buttons and levers, which was brilliant!
We were done by about 1800, at which point I had to leg it back to my cabin and get in to mess uniform for cocktails at 1830… it sounds like a real hardship, I know, but when your feet hurt from days of safety shoes and lots of walking, high heels are EVIL!! Ah well, free drinks cushion the pain!!

10th August
Another day, another port, this time Stavanger. Stations was at a very reasonable hour today, after breakfast in fact! I went forward in the morning and aft this afternoon, S and I work it so that we each get to see the port from the forward end once as the view from the officers’ platform is great.
After that we were set to on the port side railings on deck 7 covering the splodges of red primer with white. We had several guests come up and ask us questions, one couple called us “lady painters” saying they’d not seen any other lady painters around and were we the only ones? We explained that we were cadets and that we did get to do more than just paint, well hopefully one day we will! After we were done on that job the boatswain told us to have a rest before stations, and we didn’t need to be told twice!

Life on board in general is starting to feel pretty normal, it certainly feels like we’ve been on here for much longer than 6 days! The food is great, it’s like eating in a restaurant every day, The serving staff are all very friendly and we get a menu of starters, mains and puddings to choose from and a salad buffet too. Thankfully, the starter sizes are minute and the mains come in pretty small portions too so I don’t feel too guilty if I also have a pudding sometimes, most of the time I can resist the pudding, unless it’s chocolate, in which case it’s a lost cause! We also get a steward who comes round and cleans and tidies every other day for us, who we tip on a weekly basis, he’s called Christain and has been really good to us so far. Uniform gets laundered free as well, coming back freshly ironed and all! I tell you, it’s a tough life on the QM2!

First few days on the QM2

2009-08-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

Installment one, I didn't mean to write quite so much, but there's been a lot to take in!

5th August
Getting up at 0545 is never fun, and while I’m sure I’m supposed to say I was excited, I wasn’t. Nervous maybe, but mostly just tired and feeling a little fraught. Thankfully the drive down was uneventful and after a (potentially last) smoke outside I presented myself at the crew pass office at 0845am. I got my knife and spike taken away at the x-ray machine; they saw the spike on the scanner and asked what the heck it was, when I explained it was a marlin spike for opening shackles they looked at me blankly and when they found I had a knife too, well, being a sailor counts for nothing! At this moment I met one of the 3rd officers, W, who was checking in too, he told me not to worry and I’d get it back as soon as the security officer had picked it up.
On the ship we were shown to a holding room where we handed in certificates, passports and discharge books and waited to be shown where to go next. The captain’s secretary showed me where my cabin was and then took me up to the bridge where I met the captain and staff captain and was given my name badge. I was then taken back down below by a cadet, A, who’s been on the ship for a while He took me and my cabin mate, S, who’s also a phase 2 cadet, to the laundry to get uniform. I’ll have to visit them again to get more, mainly whites and formal mess uniform, but have managed to get enough to get by at the moment, borrowing some bits from S meanwhile. We had some lunch in the officer’s mess and then A showed us around the boat deck (deck 7).
We then attended a safety briefing for new joiners, a video on how to put on a life jacket, what the emergency signals are etc, we were also shown the fire screen doors and water tight doors. Also issued with “Blue cards” which tell you what your responsibilities, muster stations and life boats/rafts are in an emergency. The Safety officer showed us our muster points and then we had a little free time to get safety shoes from the laundry and hastily hem our work trousers before meeting on the bridge at 1600 for a brief chat with the chief officer and then heading down to mooring stations to observe. I went aft, the mooring deck is quite far down, and it was rather odd to me to have a deck head over us. There’s 5 huge winches aft and the AB’s made it all look very slick, Time then for a quick throw about with the basketball down there before I was shown deck 13 by W, A and one of the 2nd officers. Deck 13 is the crew area on deck, looking down aft on the stern and all the passengers, lovely view as we went down the Solent. Dinner (in whites) after that, followed by a couple of beers in the Wardroom.

6th August
Met the Chief Officer on the bridge first thing, he threw some questions at us to find out, we’ve been given a few days to find these things out, and managed most of it that day.
After that we had a talk from both the Staff Chief and the C/O about the rules and standards on Cunard ships, as the QM2 is the flagship of the fleet it’s especially important not to say anything or behave in a way that would reflect badly on the company.
We then went down to the Safety Officers office to be briefed on our first task- each accommodation section of the ship has in it’s fire locker a number of “CLEAR” door handle hangers which are used in the event of an emergency. When a muster is called, rather than ticking everyone off on a list, designated crewmembers check each section and once they have made sure each room is empty they put a hanger on the door. Therefore each fire locker is supposed to have the correct number of door hangers for each section, and we were counting them and amending numbers as necessary. Boring, but a good way of starting to find our way around the ship.
After lunch we started a task can only be described as “Let’s chuck this at them and see how they react”- cleaning all the glow in the dark strips along the bottom of the walls in the crew areas. The almost everyone who came past and laughed their heads off, one person even asked if they’d really given us that job… No, we just decided it would be fun. Really.

7th August
Woken at 0430 by a call from the bridge for mooring stations (and oh that feels like such a long time ago) I went forward this time, and helped flake out the lines from the 4 winches. I then stood on the officers platform admiring the view as we came into Hamburg. The sun was still below the horizon, and the cranes and spires of Hamburg were silhouetted against a glow of beautiful dusky pink, all framed on one side by the elegant flare of the bow as it rose high above me. One of those beautiful moments when you are reminded of exactly why you went to sea.
After breakfast we reported to the boatswain, S got chipping and painting duty on the port side rails and I started off deck scrubbing on deck 6 aft and then moved on to scupper wiping… mmm fun! After smoko I went with one of the deck crew to hoover up some water that wasn’t draining through the scupper on one of the outside stairways aft. Sounds so simple, but so much time seems to be taken up by the act of getting the equipment to the place you’re working, as the boatswain’s store is right f’wd on deck 5, it was a bit of a trek to get the hoover there and back!
After lunch I was with the deck crew on deck 7 starboard side, sanding and painting the bulkheads white. They were white already, but now the f’wd section is even whiter! Painting the ship is a non-stop job, and while it looks immaculate, it wouldn’t stay like that for long if the chipping, sanding and painting stopped.
We stopped at 1615 to be ready for mooring stations, I went f’wd again, this time with my camera. Once we’d let go I stood on the officers platform again to watch the spectacle of us leaving. There were a lot of small boats full of passengers who accompanied us down the river which means a careful watch needs to be kept in case any of them decide to cross in front where the bridge can’t see. As well as that there were crowds of people lining the riverbank, waving, whistling and taking pictures. After we were stood down I went up to deck 13 to see the view from the other end, which was just as impressive. It takes several hours to navigate the river, so after dinner S and I joined A and W for a couple for a couple of drinks up there to admire the German countryside and relax. As the sun set the sky turned an amazing hue of delicate sea green, dark clouds were heading towards us and the sky became a sinister mass of witches potion fumes, with the orange funnel, lit from below in a yellow hue which also illuminated the smoke rising from it in front, I was once again reminded of why I’m here, sore feet and all.

8th August
Another day of painting bulkheads for me, S got to sand a deck chair and fit a balcony rail so I’m slightly jealous at the moment! Although I did luck out as we were painting on the Queens Grill aft deck and while it was grey and not very warm, by late afternoon there were a few guests out, giving us slightly dirty looks for making the place look untidy and smell of paint, so we scuttled off. I asked the boatswain what he wanted me to do next and he said “Go and have a little rest?” I nearly hugged the man! This evening we attended a cocktail party, I managed to get the appropriate uniform this afternoon at smoko so we tottered up and tried to look interesting. We eventually managed to get talking to a guest, which is what one is supposed to do, and the Staff Captain saw us looking smart, which gets us brownie points when it comes to reports later! I realise there will be a general baying and demanding of pictures of me in my various uniforms, and I will try to oblige at some point, but right now I need to go to the wardroom, (in my own clothes for the first time!) and have a nice cold pint!

I sit here with a glass of cider....

2009-07-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

.... and I'm being watched as I type this, which is really rather unnerving... my boyfriend is rather bemused as to why I desire another online outlet for my ramblings- seeing as I already have facebook, myspace and flickr... and he's probably right, but I'm about to set off on a 3 month voyage on the QM2 (fancy eh!?) as a deck cadet.. aka gadget, and I have family and various people who want to keep abreast of what I'm up to, many of whom refuse to darken the pages of social networking sites, plus I like a blog that looks like a blog!

So, here it is, hopefully I'll keep this going as I progress along my newfound career, I've been at college since January and I've spent a month on the THV Patricia, a buoy tender, I'll try to fill in the details a bit more later, but for now I'm going to chill out with my cider and worry about packing for 3 months on a ship.