Closed for Maintenance

On By D. EndoIn Ports, Ship LifeLeave a comment

I didn’t forget. I’ve just been quite busy.

We just did something kind of rare for cruise ships. We just did a wet dock. This means we got all the passengers off the ship and then tied ourselves to the pier so we could do a little maintenance all over the ship. With no passengers, we could focus on fixing things and improving the guest experience. Normally we would try to avoid disrupting the guest experience which means some things get neglected because they are in high traffic areas. Not everyone has work to do during the time we’re tied up. Housekeepers have much less to do as do the cruise staff. As a result, some people get this time as basically a vacation. These people could be put on fire watch. Basically, they get to sit by the people welding with a fire extinguisher and put out anything that catches on fire. What’s worse, you can’t be distracted while doing this. Your attention needs to be 100% on making sure the area doesn’t start to burn.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me, the theater was busy with several agendas. We had vendors and contractors coming onboard to make sure our equipment was running properly. We also had a new cast come in, so part of our time was spent in rehearsal with them. I am a little disappointed I couldn’t go to Busch Gardens like some of the more free crew members, but it was good to fix up the theater. In addition to fixing up the ship, we were also installing a new cast. This means we had to do extra rehearsals to make sure the shows with new cast were just as good as the previous ones. That also made us work longer hours as we worked through everything.

In case you’re wondering, there are also dry docks. These mean we pull the ship out of the water to do other work on the hull of the ship. This is much less common than wet docks as it is not always necessary to inspect the hull every single time you do maintenance. My first ship spent a month and a half in dry dock while I was on it. That was an interesting experience.

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.

What Took Me So Long

On By D. EndoIn Goals, Home, Ship LifeLeave a comment

It took me a while, but I’m finally back to working on ships. One big thing that stopped me from going to sea was living an unhealthy lifestyle. Since I got sent back, I found I had low motivation to exercise. This led to me gaining a lot of weight. Now, I’ve never been especially healthy to begin with, but this caused more complications in my body. You see, in order to work on a cruise ship, you have to take a physical examination in order to be considered for employment. After all, if your ship is in the middle of the ocean and you have a medical emergency, where can you go? While the ship does have medical facilities on board, there is a limit to how many medical equipment, supplies, and team members you have access to. I’ve been on ships that had to make detours so guests could be helicoptered to land for one reason or another. Some medical problems aren’t too bad. You may just need a prescription to cover the issue. I found out that if your liver is working too hard, the only option for you is a lifestyle change as no medicine is available to solve this issue. For me, it meant I had to lose about 10% of my weight.

I really had to buckle down and focus on exercising and eating right. I probably could’ve been on my second contract since the pandemic if I did this from the beginning. Instead, I missed several chances until it became clear that I would have to let them know when I was healthy enough to return to service. After months of hard work and hundreds of miles of running, everthing was finally back in order, and now I’m writing this on the deck of the ship.

I probably should be careful, though. I’ve been too busy to go to the gym since I got here and the crew mess is all you care to eat. Here’s to hoping I can control my appetite and get to running again.

 

The Daily Schedule

On By D. EndoIn Ship LifeLeave a comment

I’m often asked what my hours are on the ship. Because of the nature of my work, my schedule varies. Some things that can affect my hours include if we are at sea, if there are any special events happening, if we are docked overnight, if I’m on duty when we’re in port, what maintenance needs to be done. I usually work a minimum of six hours every day. This includes any daily needs such as the theater being used for lectures, afternoon rehearsal for the act, tech runs for our in house shows, and, of course, the shows in the evening. The absolute longest I have ever clocked was a twelve hour work shift during a dry dock. We were installing a show, so hours were already long. When I went to go to lunch, a drill was called and I had to report to my emergency station. I was not happy. Thankfully, this was an extremely atypical for a work day. The point is, I can guess what my work hours might be, but they do vary a little day to day. Then there are the special events. These will include, but are not limited to holidays. There are also other special events that may happen on the ship. One of those I was able to watch was the ceremony that gets performed when the ship crosses the equator. If you are ever on a Royal Caribbean ship when this happens, there are several guests and crew members who are voluntarilly hazed in honor of them crossing the equator for the first time. As a stage staff at the time, I was not elgible to take part in the ceremony apart from crowd control. Thank goodness because it got pretty messy.

While my work hours are relatively light and generally consistent, I can’t speak for other crewmembers. In fact, there are now international labor laws that apply cruise ship workers specifically because of some of the abusive practices that were being used. We are not allowed to work more than 14 hours in a 24 hour period. This really does mean any 24 hour period, though I tend to use the start time from the last long rest I had. In addition we must have 2 breaks that are at least an hour long and that add up to 10 hours with one of those breaks being at least 6 hours. In addition to the 24 hour rules, a person cannot work more than 77 hours in a week. If you’ll notice, that does come out to 11 hours a day average, meaning you should expect more hours off later on in the week if you have a few 14 hour days. Complicated? Kind of, but you eventually find your rhythm. Ultimately, it’s just there to make sure you get proper rest and that there will be consequences for those companies that abuse their employees in this way.

I’m still stuck at home with no way of knowing when I can get back on the water. If I’m going back to the Serenade, I shouldn’t expect to sail with passengers until at least the beginning of next year.