Category: Science

Hurricane Delay

On By D. EndoIn Ports, Science, Ship LifeLeave a comment

We got a surprise sea day yesterday. With Hurricane Idalia hitting Florida, we were lucky enough that our home port of Tampa wasn’t hit directly. Idalia was a category 3 hurricane when it made landfall, classifying it as a major hurricane with winds up to 129 mph. While I normally don’t have to deal with tropical storms and hurricanes, I was still quite surprised at how far the effects of a hurricane can go. Idalia pushed a lot of water in front of itself, striking all of Florida’s shores that face the Gulf of Mexico. Tampa is about 150 miles from where the storm hit and it still saw a storm surge of up to 7 feet in some places. This was not helped when the tide came in which added even more to the huge amount of water there. For safety reasons, we cannot go into
Tampa until the channel checked for safety and water levels recede. We’ll still try to do a modified cruise for our customers, but they will no longer have a leisurely day in Cozumel as we’ll be getting in much later than intended, having lost a day of sea travel. There were tentative plans to cancel this coming cruise, but our captain has deemed it possible to make it and still have a satisfactory cruise. Doing the math, we will probably arrive early to mid afternoon if we rush there at top speed. I’m guessing this will turn into a shopping trip for most guests now as some shore excursions will probably not be possible.

I was not surprised by the plans to cancel the next cruise due to the way US maritime laws work with cruise ships. I actually learned about this in my time working for American Cruise Lines. If you are a passenger vessel and you only do US ports, your ship must be American. This means only American made parts and American steel while only hiring American workers. Our ships don’t qualify for this so we must have at least one foreign port on any of our cruises with Royal Caribbean. If you’ve ever been with a major cruise, this is why you can’t have just an Alaskan cruise with only American ports. You will always stop in Vancouver or have that be your home port. This got me wondering if we would even have the cruise having lost a day of travel. There are no close foreign ports we could go to while going out of Tampa. We’re on the wrong side of Florida for a quick trip to the Bahamas. The Yucatan peninsula is also pretty far. Key West doesn’t count because that’s still Florida. Even if we had the proper paperwork, we’re too big to get into Havana. Everything else is even farther away.

While there is a bit of a scramble right now, my plans to go home don’t seem to be affected at the moment. I still have about a week before I fly home, so (fingers crossed) everything should be fine by then.

UFB

On By D. EndoIn Science, Ship LifeLeave a comment

I was walking along the open deck one night when some guests stopped me. They asked me what was flying next to us. I didn’t see it at first so I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for. Then it flew alongside the ship in full view. It was definitely a bird of some kind. It seemed to glow slightly as it flew with us. I was confused. Not only was it night, we were also in the middle of nowhere. It was a sea day and we weren’t expecting to make landfall until 12 hours later. I’ve known some sea birds like to fly behind ships during the day as the white waters turned up by the ships tend to kick up fish that the birds take the opportunity to snatch up. I also know that birds will sometimes hitch a ride on ships, though not always on purpose. They may fall into the trap of following in our wake too long and all of a sudden, the ship is the only place to land and rest.

Upon researching the topic, I was quite surprised to find that there are seabirds that have bioluminescence. I didn’t think that was one of the adaptations any birds had, but albatross are known to glow to attract squid at night. I couldn’t find any pictures of this, but I think it was too small to be an albatross. My guess is it was a normal seagull that was lit up by the ship’s lighting. In my research, I also found that artificial lighting is a problem for seabirds. The added lights of human cities tend to disorient the birds. This is also why seabirds can be lured to follow cruise ships as they are beacons in the night.

Dive! Dive!

On By JoeyIn Goals, Ports, ScienceLeave a comment

I finally went and did it. I ticked something off of my bucket list. I took a ride in a submarine in Aruba. An actual submarine that took us to a maximum depth of 135 feet below sea level. It was amazing. In addition to the natural reef, the company who owns the submarines has actually sunk three vessels into the water for our viewing pleasure. Two of the crafts were wooden and the third was metal. It was interesting to see how the ships were actually becoming the bases for new coral reefs. Wood vessels are actually very good materials for new coral reef formations. Coral can latch on to the ship in a matter of a few years. When a metal ship goes down, not only does it hold its shape for much longer, the coral also takes longer to attach itself to the surfaces. Due to the depth, it wasn’t very colorful due to the natural light being filtered at such depths. David’s red shirt ended up looking grey as we traveled deeper.

In addition to the local marine life, we also got to see a lion fish which is actually an invasive species here in the Atlantic. They originally come from the Eastern Asian waters, but due to hurricanes and flooding in residential areas, some where released into the wild. Lion fish populations are normally controlled by predators eating them when they are small, thus they use the shotgun approach for their species survival like sea turtles. This means they lay many eggs with the knowledge that many will be eaten before they reach full maturity. Unfortunately, there are no species that naturally know to eat the baby lion fish in the Atlantic. Add that to the fact that lion fish eat pretty much anything they find and you can see how much trouble they are to the ecosystem. The only known predator in the area to eat lion fish are humans. In case anyone gets nervous about that, lion fish are venomous, not poisonous. They inject venom through the spines on their fins rather than poisoning something upon being swallowed. Once the spines are removed, the rest of the fish is perfectly fine to eat. Even better, the fish tastes good and is healthier than most common options on the menu like snapper, grouper, or mahi-mahi.

David was pretty exited to be a part of the 1% of the human population to ever dive in a real submarine, but I’m pretty sure I’m the first drop bear to go in a submarine.

Red Sky at Morning

On By D. EndoIn Ports, Science, Ship LifeLeave a comment

We had some rough seas going to Halifax with what seemed like 20 foot swells. That’s about as tall as a two story building. It reminded me that there is an old saying for sailors that goes “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” Believe it or not, this phrase is ancient wisdom that works well for the most part. You see, weather usually goes from east to west while sailing. The beautiful red sunset at sea can be caused by water and other particles in the air, but because of the way the winds usually blow, the likelihood of a storm is actually low. On the other hand, having the red with the sunrise means that whatever system is there is likely to come your way. We have much more sophisticated equipment now that gives us lots of data and more accurate predictions. Being from California, I have a hard time reading the clouds and have had to run up to protect band equipment from rain on more than one occasion.

In the event of a storm, the captain is the one to make the decision about what happens next. One of the possibilities is to stay in port longer and try to wait out the storm. This hinges on a few things including the protection the port provides and if there are other ships schedule to take that spot later on. This does not always work out as sometimes the storm lasts longer than expected and there is a limit before a ship has to leave or else it may miss the next port. On Majesty, the ship ended up doing a double overnight in Havana and not doing the next port of Cozumel as this would have taken us right into the back end of a Hurricane. The other option is to sail around the storm. We did this on Serenade and ended up switching around the itinerary order to stay away from the storm but still make all the ports. If there seems to be no safe way of sailing, there is the possibility to cancel the cruise, but that cannot happen just because of a few bumps along the way.

Of course, what affects us the most is the rockiness of the ship for shows. We ended up canceling and changing shows in order to make sure our dancers were safe due to a storm system that hung around. Our juggler was also not sure about what balancing tricks he could perform, but did not want to cancel the show until he was sure he could not perform anymore tricks due to safety. We told him that the audience would understand if he felt unsafe. I also added what I usually tell jugglers on rough sea days, “This show is either going to be even more amazing or a total disaster.” He laughed and did two awesome shows much to the delight of the guests.

Studio B

On By D. EndoIn Science, Ship LifeLeave a comment

When I was working on Majesty, there was only one show venue. On the Explorer, we have two main venues. You have the Palace Theater which looks as you would expect a theater to look like. The other venue is an ice rink called Studio B. As it turns out, one of Royal Caribbean’s claim to fame is the only cruise line to offer ice skating on the ship. Not only is there free time to skate on the ice, but there is also an ice skating show. The international ice cast are able to do amazing things even during rough seas. It becomes more impressive when they land their jumps in choppy waters. There have been times when the show had to be cancelled due to weather.

As a part of the not-so-glamourous side of my job, I had to stay up late for a mini-melt. I finished work at 1:45 AM and still had to start the next work day at 9:00 AM. A mini-melt is when we let the top layer of ice melt so we can remove it. During normal operations in order to keep the ice smooth, we scrape a thin layer of ice off the top to get rid of the lines created from the ice skates cutting into the ice and then add water on top to fill in any gaps from the deeper cuts. Ultimately, the water added raises the level of the ice faster than the scraping can take it away. Thus, every now and then, we need to do a mini-melt. As the name would suggest, there are full melts as well. The ice is normally kept somewhere between -10.5°C and -9.5°C. The older and/or thicker the ice is, the colder we have to keep it in order to maintain it. Before the mini-melt, the production manager of Studio B had to keep the ice colder due to seeing puddles during the ice shows due to the lights heating up the surface. The full melt is a long process that requires constant attention. Once everything has melted, the ice is made by adding thin layer of water, letting it freeze, and repeating the process until everything is properly frozen. This ensures smooth ice that is to the level desired. The last thing skaters want are dips or hills in the ice.

I found out while talking to the ice cast that skate for figure skating and hockey are designed differently and the two should not mix on the same ice for best results. Figure skates, which is what the ice cast uses, are designed for a deep cut in order to have better control during skating as well as including those spikes at the front of the skate known as a toe pick. Hockey skates go for a shallow cut in order to be able to react to the game faster. The hockey players will complain about the deep channels created from the figure skaters, and the figure skaters complain about the torn up surfaces the hockey players make.

Australia’s Big Five

On By D. EndoIn Cultural, Ports, ScienceLeave a comment

Australia is home to many unique and interesting animals. They are known for having the most deadly creatures in the world. These range from obviously dangerous salt water crocodile and southern cassowary to the cute blue ring octopus and textile cone. We had a group called Rusty and the Other Guy sing a comedy song listing some of the dangerous animals in Australia and beckoning all tourists to visit the continent. I couldn’t stop laughing. They also added a song welcoming people to New Zealand where the most dangerous and only creature on the list is a spider. If you are bitten by one, you should see a doctor within the next few weeks to double check on the bite as it may cause mild irritation.

While not official like in Africa, what I consider to be the “big five” Australian animals are the kangaroo, koala, Tazmanian devil, platypus, and wombat. While Australia does have other unique animals such as the bandicoot and kookaburra, when I think of these five animals, I think of Australia immediately. They are definitely worth seeing in person once in your life. Granted the Tazmanian devil is now only on Tazmania and that is where my mind goes, but they used to live on the mainland until the dingo arrived some 5,000 years ago. I still consider that close enough. You might also have noticed that I have not included wallabies or wallaroos on the list. That’s because the way you differentiate between kangaroos, wallaroos, and wallabies is purely by the size of the adult. It’s kind of like how a dog is a dog, regardless of whether it’s a great dane or a beagle.

The kangaroo is incredibly adapted to desert life in Australia. They are able to conserve water to such a degree that can delay giving birth to a joey until a suitable water source is found. A koala’s diet consists of only the most nutritious eucalyptus leaves which means the koala only has enough energy to be awake for about four hours every day. Tazmanian devils are now the largest living carnivorous marsupial in the world. The platypus is so strange, not only is it one of the very few egg laying mammals, it was orginally considered a hoax back in England after it was discovered. And the wombat… well, I’m not sure why the wombat is so well known. It used to be a food source until scientists realized the animals were threatened and that the invasive rabbits were much easier to come by. Regardless, it has become iconic to Australia, even being an unofficial mascot when the olympic games were held there.

If you are interested in seeing these five up close and happen to be in Brisbane, check out the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It’s full of native species and even has a kangaroo feeding ground which is basically a free range park where the kangaroos are docile enough to eat from your hand. You can also get your picture taken holding a koala. You should get in line early for that. They do sell out of tickets.

And now we sail for Dubai.

Rough Seas

On By D. EndoIn Science, Ship LifeLeave a comment

When I saw the itinerary for Explorer of the Seas, I expected smooth sailing all the way through. Ok, maybe not all the time, but I expected to have smooth seas when there wasn’t a storm. When I was on Majesty of the Seas, the water was pretty smooth pretty much the whole time. Every now and then a storm would kick up and we would get tossed around, but that usually only lasted a day or two if it was really strong. The New Year’s cruise from Dec. 29th to January 6th was the rockiest cruises I’ve been on. I took seasickness pills as a precautionary measure to make sure I didn’t throw up during the shows. I don’t think I would have, but it’s best not to take chances when other people are involved.

Motion sickness can be a real problem on the ship. Anytime a cruise ship hits rough seas, the medical facilities see a spike in patients checking in. The biggest problem with seasickness pills is the fact that, while effective, they don’t work right away. They take time to get into your system and start working. If you can take them the night before you need them and then at regular times after that, you should be able to stave off throwing up. Mind you, you may still feel nauseous even if the pills are working.

If you don’t know how motion sickness works, it is caused when your body gets mixed signals as to whether you are moving or not. Your body has two ways of telling if you are in motion. The first is your eyes, and the second is your inner ear. While on a boat, your eyes may say you are standing still inside a room, but your inner ear says that you are moving due to the rocking of the boat. The opposite is true when people get simulation sick playing video games, especially those first-person games where the camera bobs up and down as you move.