Cadiz- Dry dock

Naturally when you join a boat, some of the things you used to take for granted become sacred to you. When you join a boat that goes into dry dock, that list multiplies tenfold. I've never lived in a more dirty, scary, noisy or dangerous environment, and my last house was up for demolition ha! Every walkway is a demolition zone, every inch of the ship that's become familiar is strange once again. There's no cut off for power tools so the noise is night and day, every one of us is doing extremely physical work, and the ship has frequent power and water outages so we stink. Most of the contractors don't speak any English so you get used to reading body language pretty quickly. It's lucky I'm such a nerd because the new set of lights we've been given for our theatre and the amazing team that provided them are the only real highlight of this work for me. The ship also got a new lighting desk and I really like it, I spend most nights and a chunk of my day programming new pallets and updating the desk as to what the lights can do, I had a tonne of fun with this. I also got to take apart every light on the ship and learn the regular faults and what they're made up of. So I'm a good level up in my lighting knowledge.

We have our new cast aboard and we are taking them through the shows. I loved our old cast, especially because they were my first cast on ships, but it does feel great to have all this fresh energy, the crew here are all really drained from these physically demanding 10 hour days and we have all been cheered up meeting these new people and remembering the excitement we felt when we arrived.

Amidst all this craziness, there is Spain. Gorgeous weather that's a little easier to live in than the Asian weather I've had the previous few months. Cheap food and cheap booze, stunning views of the sea and plenty to do. There's a big focus on gardens and fountains here which I dig, and the windy narrow streets that always inevitably end up at a square with a cheap pub and decent restaurant hold a real charm. It's the closest I've been to home in a real while and it feels good that I could be there in a few hours if I needed, I'm definitely missing friends and family back there and already looking forward to September when I can be there again, although this has really cemented in my mind how much I want to travel more so I doubt I'll be back for too long!

We are days away from the crossing to Miami and the Bahamas, I won a competition to stay in a guest room for the entire crossing, I'm excited to have a window, I've been told these waters tend to have dolphins, so I'll be glued to the window, it'll be nice to have something to look forward to trapped on the ship for several days. We also get to test all the new facilities, I've not really looked at anything so I've had no spoilers apart from the things I've set up myself. So lots to look forward to!