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.
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