The drinking will continue until the economy improves!

So according to my calendar, it’s nearly Christmas. I was pretty much unaware of this until I noticed that every time I bought a can of Coke there was a drawing on the side of jolly old St. Nick raising a bottle and giving me a cheeky wink. The smug git – everyone knows Coke tastes better in bottles than cans, but is there really any need to rub it in? I can’t say I’m really feeling festive just yet, guess it’s just slipped my mind as pretty much every day feels like summer and I’m not constantly being bombarded with adverts for crap I don’t want, which is nice.

 We hit a couple of new places since the last blog, the first of which was Grand Turk. Being only around 7 miles wide and 3 miles long, there isn’t much to tell you about it, other than the beaches are postcard perfect, there used to be a U.S. Naval base on the island and it’s hotter than Satan’s sauna. Oh, and I picked up my first bit of sunburn so far, which I think is a reasonable achievement having been in near constant sun for the last 6 weeks or so. After only a brief stop there, we sailed on to San Maarten, which technically I have visited before but missed seeing as I was busy playing with fire extinguishers and learning that I can actually sleep standing up (don’t ask). I didn’t manage to see a great deal of the island, but did happen to stumble across a cool little art gallery owned by Nick Maley, the guy who apparently had a major part in developing the character Yoda, then got bored with the film industry, sold his Ferrari and bought a yacht. I’m not a Star wars buff or anything, but having a drink with Yoda is definitely on my ‘must do before you cark it’ list (along with Kate Beckinsale, backflipping a Unicycle and solving a Rubik’s cube), so I had a chat with this guy to see what the little dude was up to these days, but he wasn’t giving anything away…

 We’re toying with the idea of renting some scooters next time we’re there so we can go see some more of the island – plus it’s been waaay too long since I had some two wheeled action so hopefully we’ll get round to it, even though they’re bound to be left hand drive. From there we went on to Aruba, where I was given the task of dressing up as the Pirate to pose for pictures with passengers getting off the ship. Kenny did a pretty sweet job when he did it last time, so I had some big shoes to fill, but bless him, he actually believed he’d make a better pirate than myself, so I decided to put him firmly in his place, starting by putting a sizeable dent in the ship’s Rum supply the night before. As daylight rolled around I rocked up to the gangway feeling a bit funky and irritable with my plastic swords in hand and it was on like Donkey Kong! Sorin my manager basically said “You’re a pirate, you can do what you want”, which was like a red rag to a bull - if something’s worth doing it’s worth overdoing, right? My technique typically involved holding my swords to a woman’s throat and saying “Oi’ve got yer wench matey, ye can have her back after ye’ve posed fer a picture” to her husband, although this occasionally backfired when they’d just walk off saying “OK, fine!”. All in all I think it’s fair to say I well and truly swashed Kenny’s buckles, although I was bitterly disappointed not to have made any kids cry and had no voice left whatsoever after the 3 hours. Yarr.

This blog’s title came from a shirt I saw a passenger wearing last week and thought would be pretty appropriate given the amount of time I’ve found myself spending at the Officer’s Bar (OB) recently. Y’see, Kirsty from the photo team (in the top pic) was supposed to be leaving us last week, so she insisted all of us join her for farewell drinks every night (she’s pretty much part of the furniture  there), which I was only too happy to do - our days are so long I often need to blow off a little steam, and seeing as my bed is within stumbling distance (and someone else is always doing the driving), it would’ve been rude not to. The problem came when - as most of you will know, there was a wee bit of snow in the UK, which meant she wouldn’t have been able to get back to her hoose, so decided to stay on for an extra week. Oh, and as cold as y’all must be feeling back in blighty right now, thank your lucky stars you don’t live on Mars random fact fans – during their winters 20% of the air freezes. Anyhoo, this, naturally, meant yet more burning the candle at both ends, but as you might expect, starting and finishing each day in the bar takes its toll over the course of a 70 hour week, so I’ve had to knock it on the head slightly this week as the fatigue is setting in and nothing was getting written! The OB is very similar to a student bar in that you know you’ll know people there and there’ll be some fun to be had, though it has the added advantages of having Rammstein on the jukebox and an hour’s extra serving time once a week when we change time zones. There’s also a Bbll above the bar which people ring to buy everyone in the place a drink, which during my first few weeks didn’t get rung once, but that all went to hell last week when two of the band members decided to have a competition to see who could ring it the most over the course of the evening. What a night that was. Or at least I think it was – cheers you pair of lunatics!

 One thing that has been making me chuckle in the last coupla weeks has been the new digital backgrounds we’re using, which we drop into pictures of people shot in front of our green screen. There are around 6 different ones, but the one which has proved most popular by far is the Titanic staircase. Yup, that’s right, the most popular background on our cruise ship is that of another cruise ship which is currently docked 2,000ft down at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean after an altercation with an iceberg. Still, they do say Americans don’t do irony….

 You may have noticed I’ve changed the font colour once again – apparently it was making some people’s eyes do funny things, so rather than risk inducing seizures and/or migraines I’ve changed the colour a little – never let it be said I’m not in touch with my public! Cheers to those of you who have put links to my nautical ramblings up by the way, I’m currently toying with the idea of getting on that twatter, so those of you who are on there feel free to hit me up with your url’s or however it works. I can promise I won’t be adding to the whole lot of nothing which so many people feel the need to share with the world, although I guess it would be the perfect platform to share the joy I feel everyday about not having to do any washing up.

Finally, it appears that my time as a single occupant in my cabin is at an end, as apparently after our next visit to San Juan, I will be acquiring a roommate – will our co-habitation be plain sailing like Bert and Ernie or more like Beavis and Butt Head? Only time will tell, so tune in next time to find out……

 Thanks for reading. 

“Oh, you’re from England? God shave the Queen!”

You’ve gotta love the randomness life throws your way. After picking up a new load of passengers from Fort Lauderdale, our next port of call was Aruba, a place I’d never even heard of until I met someone from there at a party a couple of months ago. Fast forward a few months and here I am. Well was, for a while anyway. Rather unusually, I stepped ashore needing to do some shopping, of all things. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of shopping, but needs must, and as two of the girls from the photo team needed to buy new bikinis I thought a male opinion would help balance things out nicely, so off we went. A few viewings (but no purchases) later, I remembered why I don’t tend to enjoy shopping with women and went off on a hunt for some sandals, finally managing to buy a pair. About flippin’ time too, as up until that point the only casual shoes I had were a pair of trainers so white they made me look like the frickin duke of Essex! After paying for my sandals I examined my change and discovered that Aruba has square coins. I’ve seen some pretty funky ones in my time but these take the cake fersure. Makes perfect sense to me though – why make em round when we’re forever being told it’s hip to be square? Other things worth knowing about Aruba are that it forms one of the Dutch Leeward Antilles Islands, the buses have awesome paintjobs and that it’s not too far from Venezuela. Oh, did I also mention they also have SQUARE coins? I also decided they must have more Ford Mustangs there than any other place on the planet, which folks, is your random (if unverified) fact for this blog.

 As we set sail towards Curacao there was a bit of a buzz in the air as the same night we were having what would be my first ever crew party. These are held on the bow of the ship, and usually have a theme, this particular one being white (with some kickass UV lights to make all of us look too cool for school whilst busting our moves on the deck). Fancy dress items are obviously kinda hard to come by on a ship so a little imagination was called for, and after half inching a pair of photo handling gloves from the gallery and a scarf from Kirsty from the photo team to wrap round my head (plus of course, bringing my way too white shoes out of retirement) I ended up going as a Kung Fu mime artist. Should you be wondering what the merry hell one of those looks like you’ll just have to keep wondering; I meant to take some pics myself but make no apologies for not getting round to it! Y’see, what with this being my first time and all, I didn’t know that the drinks at a crew party were, in fact, free. And we’re not talking cheap imitation shizzle here either, I mean ALL the drinks were free. So as I got my head around this and ordered my first drink, I spied 3 bottles of JD lined up on the bar and suggested to the barmaid that perhaps it would just be easier for both of us if I took them off her hands and had done with it, but sadly she thought I was joking. Needless to say, it was a bit of a biggun – I think I was probably flammable for at least a couple of days after, but being the pro I am I made my waaaaaay too early start the next day regardless, shooting enviously sober passengers who were disembarking to look around Curacao. I’m not normally one for going over the top on a school night, but when every one is a school night, what’s a guy to do, eh? ; ) Anyways, despite still feeling like I’d been hit by a train I went for a look around Curacao myself and was glad I did. It’s another Island of the Leeward Antilles and apparently they’re building a spaceport there which will offer commercial space flights starting in 2014. Beam me up Scotty…. Oh, the national Trees are called Divi Divis too. Ace. It was also where I got wet for the first time in a while and was reminded about rain. As is often the case in these parts of the world however, it passed as quickly as it came so we all just decided to move on and put it behind us. I’m no expert but they have I think mainly Dutch inspired buildings which are painted all these mad colours, as well as some formerly epic buildings in various states of repair or destruction, which have a certain charm about them. After somehow failing epically to send a few postcards, I decided to cut my losses and head back to the ship, going for an unexpected ride on the main bridge across the river, which swings out of the way to let ships past whilst people are still on it.

 I think I’ve joined the ship at a pretty good time, we’re now doing week long cruises which means people don’t have as long to get sick of us asking them for photos all the time. The average age of the passengers has also gone down, though it’s fair to say the majority still fit squarely into the coffin dodger bracket. Still, fair play to em, I certainly won’t be complaining if I’m still seeing the world in my dotage, though I’ve always thought I’ll probably take up skydiving or something if I actually make it that far without dying in a freak gardening accident or similar... Who knows?

 I received my first ever passenger comments from the last cruise, which was interesting. Surprisingly, both of them were positive, one of them even going so far as to call me ‘professional’ (I’m pretty sure that must’ve been the day I actually remembered to take my lens cap off before I started shooting and bothered to tuck my shirt in). As nice as positive comments are however, I’m not really in the business of blowing my own trumpet (stop sniggering at the back!), and you can’t please all of the people all of the time, so I’m looking forward to sharing some of the more acerbic rants directed my way as and when they happen… Although as is usually the case however, the majority of passengers seem pretty pleasant people, with a few bumblefucks thrown in for good measure, who will doubtless provide for the best stories (and no doubt comments) to boot over the next few months. I’m glad to say on this particular cruise there are also a couple of practical jokers, who decided to place a fart machine behind my studio backdrop whilst I was shooting a couple, and proceeded to watch none of us say a word whilst it sounded like Terrance & Phillip were unleashing a cacophony of flatulence right behind us. Good old British (and Japanese) reserve. It probably would’ve taken me ages to figure just what the hell was going on were it not for these two grown men giggling like schoolboys being told off in the corner afterwards. Good times! Speaking of which, we also have loads more kids onboard now too, which is interesting. I’m actually OK with kids, although I still don’t fully understand where they come from or what exactly it is they want. Given that we usually share a similar attention span however I tend to get on with most of them pretty well – I mean, who wants to stand still for a photo when that’s SO AMAZINGLY SHINY!!!!!!!!!!

 Ooh, given my fleeting attention, erm, thingy, I’m pleased to say I also just finished reading Slash’s autobiography – what a crackers fucker he is!  Definitely proof that it’s always the quiet ones you’ve gotta watch. There were plenty of amusing parts, but I think my fave has to be how he described driving his battered Honda Civic round a building site and ramping it over big piles of earth whilst completely off his trolley one night. I kinda liked the idea of him in his top hat bouncing around in there like a Churchill nodding dog, but don’t try this at home kids! Actually, I’ve been left quite intrigued about just how well a Honda Civic would actually fly, so if anyone’s got one (or a shitbox of similar description) give me a shout and we’ll get the digger out and try it at mine when I get back.

 Finally, wouldyabelieve I’ve been onboard a month already? Dunno how that happened, but what a month it’s been – not least as I FINALLY managed to get to use the hot tub on the top deck, whoop! I was asked if life has essentially become work-sleep-work-party-work sleep, etc. and that’s probably the best way to describe it (just minus a few of those ‘sleeps’). Speaking of which, the work and sleep have been taken care of for today, so if you’ll excuse me……

Thanks for reading.

“Be careful with the redheaded women my friend. Very violent… very violent sex.”

As that swashbuckling rapscallion Captain Jack Sparrow once said: “Welcome to the Caribbean, mateys”. Now I have a little more time onboard under my belt, have stopped getting lost every 5 minutes and am just about able to tell my ass from my elbow, I thought a little info about life on a cruise ship might be an idea. All 963ft of the ship basically follows the sun around the world at a maximum speed of 24 knots. Not too shabby for something that weighs 82,000 tonnes… There are around 1900 guests and 800 crew onboard – a disproportionate number of whom are lefties – whoop!

Photo wise, much of what we shoot is in studios set up around the ship as well as when people get on or off it, which I can only really compare to a mass exodus. It still feels a bit weird to be asking people if I can take their photo – usually they just do their thing and I shoot them doing it. We all work pretty long hours and don’t have days off, so the days of the week have pretty much become obsolete – I live on ship time now, baby! (Well OK, ship time and too much Coffee). At the moment I have a cabin to myself, which I’m trying to make the most of for various reasons, one being that living in a confined space with another guy isn’t my idea of a good time, another being that privacy is obviously at a bit of a premium, although there are a few little touches which made my room feel just like home straight away – such as it being completely dark and fricking freezing every morning, due to the air con being stuck on and a distinct lack of windows.

 Our 7 day crossing to Fort Lauderdale was fairly uneventful; I had my sealegs tested a couple of times on the way, but I’m pleased to report they didn’t buckle and my stomach didn’t let me down. Or up. Whatever. Once we got into port however, the emergency generator threw all its toys out of the pram and had to be replaced, which meant we had to stay an extra night while they brought in a bigass crane to lift the new one in. After 7 days at sea and having only stepped onto the embarkation terminal in Fort Lauderdale, we were all itching for a night on the tiles in Florida, but tragically weren’t allowed off the ship, which meant finding some fun elsewhere – in this case on the bow, where we mostly gazed longingly at the shore and started discussing the best ways to get onto terra firma, the most popular being to scale the mooring ropes or jump into the water. A few captain sensibles reasoned that either would result in instant dismissal, but I reckon they were just afraid of the water being cold. I know I was. Hell, if I’d wanted to freeze my ass off in the sea I coulda just stayed at home! Still, I can’t really complain, one of the girls from the cast told us she hadn’t been home for 18 months and her home was less than half an hour from where we were docked. So near yet so far I guess….

 When we finally set sail for the Caribbean the next day we were behind schedule so had to skip Grand Turk and head straight to Puerto Rico. Random fact time: Puerto Rico was the first country to ever field a female rider at the motocross des nations in 2008. And bloody quick she was too. And no, I don’t really care if you don’t care, it’s not like I enjoy having to listen to people talk bollocks about football all the time! Anyway, it’s an American territory (apparently there are more Puerto Ricans living in the U.S. than on the island itself), they have a lighthouse which was designed by Gustave Eiffel (you’ll know him for designing something else) and it’s where the Pina Colada was invented. Sticking with pioneering beverage based discoveries, it was also the first place I was ever offered free Mountain Dew refills. Niiiiiiiiice! After somehow managing to tear myself away from said promotion of the amber nectar (well OK, green), I hopped back on the ship and woke up the next day in San Maarten. Owing to some mandatory new crew training onboard I was unable to hop off and check it out, but don’t cry for me Argentina - we’ll be visiting these islands for some time to come, so I’ll get to check it out next time. Plus I got to squirt a fire extinguisher into a box during training, so it wasn’t a completely wasted stopover after all. From there we had one seaday before arriving at Half moon key, a small island which is owned by Holland America Line specifically for its guests to use, which is shown in the pics. It’s pretty much your stereotypical Bahamian (yep, it’s a real word!) island where the water is bluer than the bluest blue times infinity, the sand is stupendously white and they have a place where you can feed the local Stingray, so all things considered just another crappy day in the office! This is where everything balances out, as during the breaks between work we can hit wherever it is we’ve stopped, slay all the virgins and steal all the Rum. Well, something like that anyway, give me time…...     

Thanks for those of you who’ve been in touch or left abuse, etc. I’ve sorted it so you can just leave comments below from now on should you wish, aswell as a couple of other adjustments people have suggested. Hey, it ain’t all about me, folks, honest! Speaking of which, dashing drummer boy Dave Schlong is coming up with a list of things for me to photograph whilst I’m away, so should you wish to add something please get in touch. Finally, in case you were wondering, this post’s title came courtesy of a very friendly elderly gent I met on his last morning onboard. He came over to where I was sitting and we had a very pleasant chat about where each of us was from and previous cruises he’d been on, etc. Then, as his group was called for debarcation he put his hand on my shoulder and with a twinkle in his eye shared said pearl of wisdom, which made me laugh so hard I nearly choked on my waffles – even I’m not usually one for smut at breakfast time but I guess it’s true what they say, sometimes old guys do rule.

Thanks for reading.

"I don't remember whereabouts in your gallery our photo was. But it was quite shiny"

Welcome one and all to my shiny new blog, in which I’ll be waxing lyrical about the goings on onboard my new home, the M.S. Westerdam. Join me for weekly(ish) photos, misadventures, genius quotes and a whole load of stuff I haven’t even thought of yet. Rather unusually, I may actually have to change the habit of a lifetime and impose some self censorship, owing to the fact that anything I post on here essentially has the potential to get me fired. Oh well, here goes….  

 As is the case with many of the previous adventures in my life, this one began with a bit of a challenge. Hopping into a taxi at Lisbon airport, I handed the driver the address of what I thought was where the ship would be. Eventually we arrived outside a building which was fairly impressive but most definitely not the MS Westerdam. At this point the driver gesticulated to say “here we are”. After telling him numerous times how I was really after something that would float, and wishing I knew more Portuguese, he eventually realised I wanted to be in the port across the other side of town. Fast forward 15 minutes to our arrival at the ship, where some smooth negotiation was required on my part as I realised that owing to our earlier detour I was now slightly short of the full fare. As I counted out my last cents into the guy’s hand he realised I had literally nothing more to my name and let me off the last couple of Euros. Once again, my ingenious façade of complete disorganisation – in this case arriving in a country with a wrong address and insufficient funds for a taxi ride - appeared to have worked….

 After hopping onboard, having a bit of a safety talk and a tour of the ship, my assigned photography team buddy Kenny wasted no time to introducing me to the Officer’s bar, where I met a few of the crew, whose generosity resulted in my not buying a single drink all night. For once though, this had nothing to do with my being tighter than a Badger’s backside (even I can’t complain about $1 a beer), rather the fact that due to a glitch on the ship’s system I was registered as underage and therefore wasn’t actually allowed to buy booze. Score!

I originally thought we were heading straight to Fort Lauderdale, Miami, but soon learned that we had an extra stop in Madeira beforehand. Whether this was part of the intended route or simply to welcome me onboard I couldn’t say, but whichever it was we were off…  

My first morning was spent in the photo gallery, most likely baffling my new photo colleagues with my absence of sales prowess and complete lack of till experience to boot. Luckily they’re a helpful bunch and have been showing me the ropes – good job as we’re all on commission! There’s been a helluva lot to learn in a pretty short space of time and it’s proving quite a challenge keeping it all in my head, I think I’m due for a memory upgrade pretty soon.  

Waking up in a new country is always cool, and Madeira greeted us with some very welcome November sunshine. it’s a Portugese archipelago, only about 280 miles square, and they produce a lot of wine. (If you were hoping for more useful information from this blog I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed, but there are plenty of guidebooks out there which will doubtless prove very informative and helpful, rather than mostly irreverent). More importantly, they also have these wicker basket sledge things which two dudes in the whitest get ups you’ve ever seen push and steer down the super steep and narrow streets, broadsiding round the corners and flying over give way junctions with reckless abandon, which apparently has been a tradition for hundreds of years. Realising this could well be the closest thing I’d get to an adrenaline rush for some time, I had to have a go, so myself and new photog buddies Jadine and Kenny hopped in for the 2km ride downhill, which mainly involved being bounced around like a pea in a whistle down the streets of Funchal whilst trying to enjoy the awesome views along the way. Ace. After we roamed around some more, and I tried unsuccessfully to get a pic of the ship in port to whack up here (I’d forgotten what a bitch shooting into the sun can be with no flash) we hopped back on board to begin the 7 day crossing to Miami. I know it’s a bit dumb to have no pics of the ship up on my first blog, but it’s kinda tricky when I haven’t gotten off it in almost a week - patience people! We arrive tomorrow, and apparently the U.S. Coastguard are coming aboard for an inspection – no doubt it’ll be a laugh a minute. Lastly, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that a crisis onboard was narrowly averted today when I thought my iPod had bitten the dust. Mercifully, I managed to fix it, which is undoubtedly a very, very good thing; y’see, no one is quite sure of the effect that depriving Olee of Metal within a confined space would have, but I doubt it’d be pretty. I’ll wager that conducting a similar experiment in the next series of big brother would make for pretty satisfying viewing though….