“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.