fair winds and following seas

Some animals are cunning and evil-disposed, as the fox; others, as the dog, are fierce, friendly, and fawning. Some are gentle and easily tamed, as the elephant; some are susceptible of shame, and watchful, as the goose. Some are jealous and fond of ornament, as the peacock. - Aristotle We are doing 7 day cruises at the moment which means less shows and more other stuff. My Boss let me off the ship for the morning to go and help on a tour for the guests, you're basically there to make sure they don't get lost and to be a face if they have questions, other than that you're doing the same things they are without the price tag. I was really keen to experience this tour, and happy to put in overtime hours elsewhere as a trade off. The tour I signed up to help on was a day at an elephant sanctuary in the jungle, we set off around lunch time and took a small boat to the pier where we got on a coach, the journey to the jungle took much longer than we expected because we were s...

“I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colors. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the color of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads. It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel. ”  ―  Anthony Doerr ,  All the Light We Cannot See Been on the ship a month now and I'm starting to feel settled, I've completed all my ship safety training which was … intense! I'm glad to have it out the way, although I'm yet to do my jump into the ocean in a life jacket which i've been dreading. I've learned my tracks for the shows so I have a little more free time now, b...

 “Some years ago, never mind how long precisely, having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.” -Herman Melville Had my first driving lesson this week… pretty sketchy, had to drive a Zamboni to cut the old ice away before shows, never thought I'd be learning to drive on ice but life's full of surprises. Ship theatres are a fairly different ball game, you can't wheel a piece of scenery to its preset and go for lunch, every thing needs to be strapped down in case the ship moves. The ship rocking so far hasn't been too intense, it's akin to the feeling you get when you get out of an elevator and feel like you're still moving. Weirdly I only get close to sea sick when hoovering. Every time we come in to dock my cabin vibrates, I'm told it's because we are using both sets of propellers and our stabilizers to pull up adjacent to the dock...

To see the world, things dangerous to come to, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, draw closer, to find each other, to feel, to see and be amazed, that is the meaning of life - life magazine motto / Walter Mitty I live on a floating skyscraper, it's pretty surreal, yesterday I had wheelchair duty on a port that was utterly beautiful and remote, there were scarcely any buildings and everything was green, as I looked out from the ship it wasn't hard to picture what an eyesore we probably looked in that environment. But my view from the ship in any given direction was a perfect postcard, every glance through a porthole was akin to any canvas sold to the Brits to depict Paradise. At lunch yesterday we were thrown an outside BBQ with DJs and huge vats of steaming seafood, I was over the moon because I've been moaning about what a tragedy it is that we can't take food outside into the open deck to eat in the sun and see the views. we are pretty vigalent here...