As is often the case, that which you don’t want to happen, does. We have many drills on the ship. They do a fire drill every week and then the ubiquitous raft and boat drills. When the crew has a drill, there is never an announcement. You are simply told the time for all drills when you board the ship the first time and are expected to be there. I’m not sure what happens if you don’t arrive at your post, but no one wants that to happen, so they are always on time.
Today is it listed on our schedule: “General Drill 9:30am. No shore leave until done. 11:00am man overboard drill.” So at 9:25 am I donned my life jacket, which is huge and bright orange, and went to my life raft station. When I got there, I was alone. No other crew were around, although I had seen several people getting their life jackets out while they were in the crew quarters. I did, however, see many passengers who all asked me what I was doing. About 9:35 another woman arrived in her life jacket and she looked very confused. She said she had been up all night at a crew party, was hung over and not thinking straight. We looked for others, finally finding one other woman. It is embarrassing to be wearing this big bulky life vest and have everyone staring at you. Finally, we found the guy who is in charge of the life rafts and he asked us what we were doing. We asked HIM where everyone else was. He told us to go back to our cabins and wait for the alarm…..So that is where I am right now.
As I was coming to my cabin, I practically stepped on the fire brigade as they were sitting the hallway outside my room, waiting for the announcement of the fake fire. I guess the whole drill starts out with a fake fire and then we are told to abandon ship. This all happened about an hour ago. I just checked and the fire brigade is gone. So maybe the drill is going on right now and I didn’t hear anything, or maybe they decided to delay the whole thing, just to catch us unaware. ---- They just made an announcement to say there was going to be a drill.
Well, I’m back and there was no fake fire and the man overboard drill got canceled. I spoke with the other doctors and nurses and they said they didn’t understand the changes either……Now all the electricity on the ship went out. What is going on? This is the second time the electricity has gone out today. We have a digital clock in the room that is massive – even I can see it without my glasses – so now I need to reset it again. This clock boggles my mind because it seems to lose time. I thought I figured out it was about ten minutes off each day, so I thought I would outsmart it and set it 10 minutes ahead in the morning and then it would be just about right by the next morning. Wouldn’t you know, suddenly it became very accurate, so it was always 10 minutes off. Well, we start all over again today. How can an electric clock be so unreliable?
We have a Scottish entertainer named Stuart Gillies. I could listen to his accent all day. He is practicing in the auditorium right now, so I get to hear his show several times through my floor. He was requested to perform all Scottish songs for tonight. It is fun to listen to.
It is pouring in Samoa today. We will wait a little longer to get off.
Labels: Travel information
posted by Hills @ 12:34 PM
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