I ran into one of David’s old ships!
Local Food
I’m back home now and am slowly adjusting to life on land. One of the things I started doing on the ship was make a list of all the foods I wanted to eat once I got back home. I hope I can get through the list before I get back on the waters (whenever that is).
I am in the habit of trying foods from the areas I go to. I have had key lime pie in Key West, a Cuban sandwich in Havanna, and stroganoff in St. Petersburg. I have been to Halifax and had donair and poutine. One of the best New England clam chowders was from a restaurant in Portland, ME along with a lobster roll. I have tried kangaroo, crocodile, buffalo, emu, rabbit, and moose. Sometimes I really enjoy the new foods and others, not so much. Every now and then, I discover later on that what I thought was a local food wasn’t really orginally a local food. The Cuban sandwich that I mentioned earlier is a good example of this. The Cuban part of the name more likely applies to the customer than the country of origin. It appeared in local communities in Miami and Tampa, Florida around the mid 1800’s where small communities of Cuban cigar factory workers lived. Traffic between Florida and Cuba was pretty common from then up until 1959 when a revolution took place. I’m sure the sandwich I had was there more for the appeal of having a “local” food while vacationing in Havana. Still, it was pretty tasty.
You never know what you will find when you go looking for food. Growing up, one of my favorite items to get from the hot lunch line was called a taco pocket. If you’ve never had one, its essentially a meat and gravy in a pot pie crust pastry pocket. I think that’s the best way to describe it. It was slightly spicy and full of flavor. When I left elementary school, I never thought I would be able to try that again. In Bridgetown, Barbados, there is a little stand just outside the terminal building. I had passed it a couple of times without giving it a second thought. One time, a couple of my coworkers asked if I wanted to join them for Jamaican beef panties. I went with them and was pleasantly surprised. I took a bite and my childhood memories came flowing back to me. It was the same taste or at least close enough to evoke the memories. I told my coworkers who shrugged it off, but I was ecstatic at being able to relive my childhood for a brief moment.
Movies
Most nights we have some live entertainment in the theater, which I’ve talked about before. Even if an entertainer is somehow not ready for that night, we have backup plans which may include switching the night’s entertainment with another night or having the singers do a backup show. Every now and then, we do get a dark night. This is usually done on a night when we know the ship will be pretty empty for most of the evening or to try to increase the variety of things to different things to do in the evening. We have had to have a few dark nights because of technical difficulties, but those were very strange circumstances. Now when most theaters say that they have a dark night, that means nothing is happening in the theater that night. When we have a dark night, that usually means we show a movie instead.
The movies we get to show are actually pretty specific. As it turns out, we actually don’t need a large number of movies licensed to us. Because most people are on our ships for less than two weeks, the movies simply get put on rotation so the crew may see the same movies over and over again, but the guests do not. Because our viewings are not considered private, we have to get permission to show any movies to guests on the ship. These movies are usually not newest releases, so don’t expect to see the latest block buster on a ship. There have been a few movies I’ve seen that were newly released, but those were unusual cases including one movie that was filmed on one of our ships. If we get a newer film, they tend to be just after the theatrical release is over or when the release is starting to wind down. I’ve actually seen quite a few big movies this way. There have even been movies I didn’t know existed because I was working on ships and not paying attention to movie releases. We don’t get all of them, though. I have no memory seeing a Pixar movie on the ship, but I have seen several Marvel movies. We also show a number of slightly older movies as well, to keep the variety of movies up. We tend to play movies for a few months before rotating them out for another one. We may get back ones we’ve played before if they are popular enough, but there are no movies that just stay on the schedule all the time.
Help! I’ve been marooned on a really relaxing island with a lot of pillows. Someone send snacks immediately!
Endless Sea Days
It’s been almost a month since we had guests and I’m currently still on the ship. We can’t get off and have been hanging around Barbados all this time. Up until now, the longest I’ve ever been stuck on the ship was when I sailed from Dubai to Pireaus, the port of Athens. That was eight days at sea. I thought I would go stir crazy, but I had work to do then to keep me occupied. The only bright side is that we don’t have any work to do so it’s basically a vacation for now. While that may sound like a lot of fun, it’s not really what you might think. Think of it more like being stuck on a small island. There are only so many places to go and I’ve explored all the places I’m allowed to go. We’ve shut down many venues since we no longer have the workforce necessary to keep everything working properly. This includes lounges, bars, the theater, and specialty restaurants. As a result, we have to make our own entertainment.
I’ve actually brought some games with me due to periodically having game nights on other ships. In addition to a Switch, I have a couple of small card games and some Magic: The Gathering decks. I haven’t really seen an opportunity to play these games until now. I never thought I would really need these games like I do. I’ve always been pretty good about keeping myself occupied with something. It’s coming in pretty handy now. I have to admit, though, I do find it a little hard to concentrate on all the projects I had planned to do at some point while on ships. What I’ve really wanted to do for a while now is do some more writing. I have several plays that need editing and rewriting, as well as a play I’ve wanted to write for a while but never got around to writing. Now that I’m not working for a children’s theatre company, it’s becoming harder to find the motivation to write those plays. I probably just need to buckle down and do those. I guess I should add that to my New Year’s resolution list since the whole “going for light tech” thing went by so fast.
Oh, and we’re also doing social distancing on the ship for now until we are absolutely sure that no one can spread the disease anymore. I’m assuming that as soon as this period is done, we can resume our lives until this whole thing blows over.
Dive! Dive!
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.
Change of Plans
With Covid-19 still uncontrolled, the cruise industry is basically shutting down until the world gets a better handle on the situation. Not only are ports being closed to cruise ships, cruise ships themselves are natural breeding grounds for diseases due to the close proximity of guests. I’ve talked before about our outbreak prevention plans. Thankfully, Royal Caribbean ships have not had any cases so far unlike other companies, but we have shut down the fleet until at least April 11th. When I first heard the news, I thought we would just be tied to the pier in Fort Lauderdale, but it sounds like we will be sailing empty until when we would normally be back I’m assuming due to the number of ships that use that port as their home port. With no passengers, it’s a great time to do whatever maintenance we can do, but the workload has been significantly dropped due to not having to do shows every night. Now it’s just a matter of keeping the crew occupied. Some jobs will still operate as normal such as the people working the ship side of things. Fortunately for us, no one is being sent home earlier than expected. At the same time, the number of new crew members joining ships will drop until the fleet is good to go again.
Normally this time of year is quite busy for the youth staff and sports supervisor. The whole month is usually filled with families taking a spring break cruise. We just went from one of the busiest times of the year to the least busy time due to the outbreak. Plus, I’ve been sent home early while they still have a chance. The cruising industry probably won’t die because of this, but we’re all going to be on a hiatus. Hopefully, we’ll come back to work soon.
Drop bears are friends, not food.
Bon Appétit!
For those of you wondering, no, I don’t normally get to eat the food the guests eat. Not without paying extra money anyway. We usually get a good variety of foods as there are two messes. The crew mess usually has more international dishes from India and the Philippines as they are the most represented nationalities on any of our ships as well as Caribbean dishes like goat curry and boiled bananas. Don’t bother asking what a boiled banana tastes like. I’ve yet to be adventerous enough to try it. The staff mess tends to do more western style food. It isn’t terrible food, but it definitely doesn’t have to be on the same standard as what the guests get served. The quality of our food varies depending on the head chef and any of the senior staff that chooses to dine in the crew and staff messes. So the quality is not guaranteed. On the Explorer, one of the captains actually made a point to visit the staff mess and try a little of all the food to ensure the quality and temperatures were good. Not all ships are so lucky.
I do miss having the options of Johnny Rockets on the ship, but my wallet and my waistline are thankful. The nice thing about the Johnny Rockets is that on the ships I was on, it was all you can eat for a fixed price. My usual order ended up being a Rocket Double, an order of onion rings, and chili. I know. Not the healthiest of options, but it was so good. We do have an Asian restaurant, an Italian restaurant, and a steakhouse onboard. While we do have to pay extra and it can be expensive, it is well worth the cost as an extra treat for us crew members.
That was Fast
A while back I commented on the changing of staff on a ship. Well, it seems my resolution may be fulfilled this early in the year. The light tech that was on the ship when I arrived is leaving and guess who volunteered to fill in for him because no one came to replace him. That’s right. This guy. Adjusting to light tech hasn’t been too bad. The part I was most worried about was maintenace of automated fixtures and dealing with a new light board. I’ve used the ETC Ion back on land and felt fairly proficient with it. The system used on board is a combination of the Hog light board and the Showman computer program. Interestingly enough, I’ve had a little Showman experience when I was working for Northside Theater Company in San Jose, though the application of the program was very different. The Hog system has been very similar to an Ion as far as the basic programming of the lights go, but it is able to do so much more. It can make faders move and control what is being shown on the screen automatically if you know how to program it. The biggest adjustment will be the fact that the shows will largely not be programmed by me. The Showman is used mainly for the projectors and screens though it can be used for basic lights as well.
One of the most different things about working in the booth as opposed to backstage is just how much you need to rely on the timer for the show which we will refer to as timecode. While I was aware of timecode back in my first contract, it wasn’t until I saw the light and spotlight cues that I realized just how much timecode matters. The whole point of the timecode is to produce a consistent product. As this is still live theater, there are things that can happen that make each show slightly unique. Sometimes, it’s a sick dancer. Other times, the ship is rocking too much so the pit won’t move for the sake of safety. The nice thing is, the show itself runs automatically so all I have to do is make sure the spotlights are doing what they are supposed to be doing during production shows.
Now all I have to do is go to the gym regularly and I’ll be good with my resolutions.
Shore Leave 