….Stowaway searches, flooding & sailing to Madagascar….
Leaving East London, South Africa
So….week 3 has come and gone and goodness was it an adventure.
Week 3 started with dinner out at “Grazia” a seaside restaurant in East London, where I managed to find amazingly good oysters and a prawn curry! The crewmate sitting beside me is from the US and reminds me so much of a dear friend “Curly” who passed away last year that it sometimes takes me off guard. His sense of humour and general appearance has me thinking Curly had something to do with placing him on the ship and in my life.
Tuesday was the day of lockdown for the ship [given we are about to sail; all crew are confined to the ship, and no one is allowed to board to prevent stowaways. This occurs a few days before we leave port]. It did mean, however, that most crew “abandoned ship” for the day to run last minute errands and have dinner at a restaurant as we will be sailing for 6 days. I found myself in a shuttle with a group of “new crew” and shared some tips that I wished someone had told me in my first couple of weeks.
Wednesday was a hectic day! Last minute tasks popped up regarding finalising the securing of the hospital, and a few of us hauled oxygen bottles up 3 decks! My watch had a moment of panic as it felt the need to alert me, I was in a high stress situation and a recovery period was required. [For some reason my watch only counts the times I go upstairs…it had reached 26!]
I got the opportunity, Wednesday afternoon, to be a part of the stow away search. All crew not involved were confined to the dining room, while search teams were assigned to a different deck and proceeded to search every nook and cranny of the ship. You never realise how many places there are to hide on a ship until you have to check every single one!! We even had the help of a few dogs, who were brought onboard to help search hospital deck and deck 7 [where the lifeboats and vehicles are currently being stored]. The Chief Security Officer even made ID badges for the dogs – very cute!
Even the puppies get IDs!
That night a party was put on to welcome all crew aboard, there will be 204 of us sailing to Madagascar [Mada]. I was doing some work on my phone, while listening to music and occasionally watching the kids play games around me. A scavenger hunt started and the next thing one of my legs rose into the air and 4 kids started trying to pull of my shoe….as I was trying desperately to stay on the chair, my left leg joined my right in the air as another group of kids tried to steal the other shoe. It turns out I had the only black shoes on in the room! The adults couldn’t stop laughing and of course were not offering any help to keep me on my chair!
Thursday the gangway was dismantled, and we were finally ushered out of the port of East London with the help of some tugboats. Unfortunately for those not feeling well, the captain called an “At SEA” drill a couple hours into our sail. It was quite an experience standing on the deck, putting on our life vests, whilst it rocked side to side! [remember our ship has no stabilizers!]
After another choir rehearsal and losing a game of cards to my new boss, I started what was to be the first of many eventful “rounds”. [A few members of the hospital team were allocated a part of the hospital to check 3 times a day, during the sail, to help prevent any expensive equipment from coming lose and to find any flooding before it became an issue – we refer to these as rounds.]
If you’ve never wandered a mostly empty deck, that sits right on the waterline of a ship at 10pm at night, with emergency only lighting your path, well, you haven’t lived! My dad did ask if I heard knocking – ha! Whilst not that bad, a ship does make all sorts of noises, and so does the water! It’s extremely eerie and much louder than you’d think! Whilst not even close to being the same thing, I am glad I wasn’t on the Titan submersible, just even being this close to the hull of a ship is enough for me. With all this in mind, I’m sure you can imagine how I felt when on my first “round” of the sail I found water sloshing in the hallway, near an office at the bow of the ship!
After notifying Merryl, who informed the bridge of the leak, we were soon joined by two deck hands who located some mops and started cleaning up. Now I don’t know about you, but knowing there was a hole in the side of the ship, no matter how small, and given the amount of rocking and rolling that was occurring, AND the fact that I hadn’t been sleeping much anyway…It should be no surprise to anyone, that at 05:00 I was back down on deck 3 doing another check.
Unfortunately, there was even more water this time, which I attempted to mop up, whilst trying not to slide with the bucket back and forth across the hallway. After another call to the bridge, some more deckhands were sent to investigate. I must admit to feeling a little bit like a broken record when I had to make another call at 07:00. I have learnt [a tip for newcomers like me] that if you get the Hospital Director, who gets the Managing Director who gets the captain involved - things happen a lot quicker!!
Friday afternoon the Aussies and one Kiwi celebrated Australia Day! I was pretty proud of the spread Merryl, and I coordinated, and my bunting and decorations were a hit! Friday night included mocktails and a pirate party [which the kids loved!], we did joke that the Chief Security Officer had failed in his duty to prevent pirates from boarding our ship.
Observations from week 3:
“Load shedding” occurs in South Africa due to the energy crisis – it means that the power is turned off for hours at a time, some shops in a shopping center may have their own generator so they can keep trading.
I have walked 30km over the past 7 days! [For those of you who know me, this is quite a feat!]
Kids can be brutal when it comes to being part of a scavenger hunt.
When you are on a ship and it’s Australia Day, you become very inventive when it comes to making food “Australian”.
It can be difficult, when standing on the deck of a moving ship, to say “here” when your name is being called, by someone with a different accent who has a unique way of pronouncing your name.
Despite what I have written above, I really do love being out on the water! It does something for my soul!