Dry Dock is Done

I’ve been supremely busy this cruise. It seems to me that dry dock caused more problems than solutions. Certainly it needed to happen, but when the contractors left and all the water and power was turned on around the ship, there was chaos. Pipes burst, rooms flooded, lights and sound didn’t work, and who was left to clean up? That’s right your faithful crew who also had to prepare to take on an overbooked ship of passengers on their Christmas cruise in a matter of hours. Needless to say, the ship wasn’t ready. We had a really rough start to this cruise, and now almost two weeks later, when the cruise is nearly finished, we are finally starting to get everything back to the way it should have been from the beginning.

After doing five days of work alone, my assistant arrived. He’s Filipino and his name is Edmark. I’m told that traditionally in the Philippines parents will give their children a mix of their two names, like Edna and Marcus make up Edmark. He’s proved to be a great assistant. He had to jump right in and start work having come from a short vacation and from a completely different department, he was food and beverage before, luckily he was equal to the task. He’s nice and sweet, a little shy, and I think I’ve finally convinced him to stop calling me Ma’am. Made me feel like a school teacher.

Here are shots from the last day of dry dock when they put the propellers on our ship again. They are massive and so cool looking. They are the only part of the outside of the ship that isn’t painted over. They had one wrapped in plastic because they were painting the hull of the ship. I took another picture of the front of the ship because there happened to be two dock workers having a cigarette break below. I did a really long exposure so they are kinda blurred, but that little white blob on the ground next to the ship is two people.

Katie

Dry Dock

Uncle Todd requested photos of the dry dock, and I’m not one to disappoint. Not that I’m that great of a thing photographer, but a big old ship out of water is a cool looking thing. They were working on the props when I took these so that’s why you can’t see any propellers in the back. If I get the chance, I’m going to go out again and shoot the back end with the propellers on.

Only a few days to go and we’ll be out to sea again. I’ve been working like crazy trying to get everything ready, I have no assistant at the moment and I just found out he won’t be joining until five days into the Christmas Cruise. It’s terrible to have to work alone on a ship at all, let alone over a Christmas cruise (they’re the worst.) You have a ship full of people who want the perfect family holiday served to them on a platter, and I don’t care how shiny the silver platter is, nothing is perfect.

Luckily I can stay out of the lime light for the most part. I’ll be busy, but I’m still going to make time to do the international choir, and I’m sure there will be a great dinner Christmas night. I’m going to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Years now because I probably won’t be able to in the middle of the holidays. Have a good time, eat, drink and be merry and I’ll talk to you again in the new year.

Katie