It's blues. In the key of sea...

Cast your mind way back, dear reader, to a time even before the last blog, where we finally got round to renting two dune buggies for a blat around San Maarten just before Kirsty (remember her?) left us. Although each had the steering wheel on the wrong side and both the engines combined would barely have pulled the skin off a rice pudding, they did make an awesome noise when you buried the loud pedal and ventilation was excellent, so it didn’t take long for the good times to roll. Anyhoo, not long after hitting the streets of San Maarten, we had a somewhat brutal introduction to their road etiquette when after coming to a perfectly controlled stop in a traffic jam we got an unexpected chiropractic adjustment from the bumblefuck behind us who evidently never learnt the 2 second rule and gave us a love tap up the ass. Had we gone for the scooters as originally planned there’s every chance this ‘ere blog could have been winging it’s way to you from San Maarten’s Hospital with me still having minibus bumper pulled out of my butt...

 Luckily, further drama left us alone and we made it to Maho beach on the other side of the island, which was where the main pic from the blog before last was taken where planes entering the island land right over your head in a Wayne’s world stylee, which is a pretty epic experience. 

 We had our Christmas meal a couple of days late in San Juan, where we also exchanged secret santa gifts. My new roomie Chris turned out to be mine, which I already knew because he told me, which actually kinda pissed me off – I mean seriously, can no one keep a secret these days? He did however redeem himself pretty quickly and earned himself a place in my heart by getting me some good old English TEA!

 Simple pleasures people, simple pleasures.

He’d also obviously been paying attention when I mentioned not having a laundry basket, as he got me one of those too. Despite a number of futile attempts to get it back into its bag however, it resisted better than one of those infuriating tents from Millets, which left me little choice other than to carry it back to the ship, though using my head to do so was perhaps a little OTT.

 Having a roommate has involved some adjustment – no longer can I shower with the bathroom door open and I’ve had to give up my walk in wardrobe (or to give it it’s more common name, the floor) in the interests of habitational harmony, but having to sort these kinds of things out never does you any harm. Chris is pretty cool, he’s here for a month to see out his contract from another Holland America ship, the Rhinedam, before heading back to Blighty, and already his time is nearly up. They had an interesting night a couple of weeks back when a passenger decided to drop the rear anchor whilst the ship was sailing, then decided to throw a life buoy into the sea, which obviously attracted further attention and caused the captain to muster (i.e; call EVERYONE onboard to their lifeboat station) to ensure no one was missing at around 5am in the morning. Fun times! He thought he’d gotten away with it too, until the ship arrived in Fort Lauderdale and the FBI arrived for a quiet word. Apparently he’s now looking at time for endangering public safety, so guess I won’t be finding out how well the Westerdam does hand brake turns anytime soon….

 Anyhoo, without further ado, here’s the part I know y’all have been waiting for - ‘Miss Westerdam 2011’, a contest to find the prettiest ladyboy type in the crew, which was held in the ship’s Theatre in front of most of the 800 crew onboard, many of whom, it should not go unmentioned, I have to see everyday….

 Talk about being thrown to the Lions.

 I resisted signing up, until Randall, our gay Texan piano player managed to twist my arm at the very last minute (which is never a mean feat) but this, folks, is a man so hilariously over the top he almost makes myself look reserved in comparison. So, the night before was spent racking my brains as to what the hell I could wear and what exactly my particular ‘talent’ would be, as Miss Chesty LaRoux…..

 A quick inquiry confirmed that there were no dirtbikes or unicycles onboard which could be ruined onstage for comedic effect, and given that the contest was being judged by the Captain, amongst other VIP’s I didn’t think my only other talent of pissing people off by being overly loud and obnoxious would be the best idea, so another way had to be found. Given that I was up against dancers from the cast and also the only person in the contest who doesn’t sing for the other choir I figured it was pretty pointless to take it seriously (especially with a face like mine) and just decided to go rock out with my cock out. So after shaking my hips like a Polaroid picture to a spice girls song for what was quite possibly the longest 3 and a bit minutes of my life and answering a few risqué questions about strapping young lads, (or was it lads with strap ons? I think the shame has corroded my memory somewhat), the judges eventually gave me an award in the brand new category of ‘scariest act’ in the contest! Given that it was basically 7 blokes dressing up pretending to be girls, I took the fact that I looked the least like a chick out of all of them as a win - go me! I also believed I should have got some kind of recognition for being the only idiot to actually go onstage sober, but quickly realised a slap would probably have been more well deserved. There is video evidence of her performance floating round the ship, and given that Miss Chesty is very much in touch with her public, she may even be found on that Facefook at some point in the not too distant future, so should her pics have you all a – flutter, watch this space.

This last week has been quite different as we’ve had the annual “Delbert’s Blues Cruise” take over the ship, which is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin - a week of some pretty badass blues music held all around the ship. From the start, we were left in no doubt that these were not our usual type of passengers when our manager Sorin told us “the only things you need to bear in mind are not to smoke weed and that the passenger area curfew (i.e; for crew) has been extended to 2am”. Game, and indeed, on! We also stopped off at a new destination on the way too; Bonaire, another island of the Leeward Antilles which is world renowned for its diving. And, er, pretty much sod all else. Oh, wait, their airport is called Flamingo airport. Cool, huh? So anyway, off Jadine and I went for a dive, which was sweet, it’s been way too long since I went diving, though unlike the last time I did this time I managed not to bleed green blood after cutting myself on a piece of sunken ship. Unfortunately, Jadine didn’t bring her underwater camera along (you’d be amazed how often we all manage to do that), so I can’t share any pics of our underwater friends, though it is perhaps a good thing she didn’t, otherwise I’d almost certainly have felt compelled to disregard the dive shop’s rule that we weren’t allowed to swim underneath our own ship. A picture of the belly of the beast would’ve been pretty badass methinks.

  I managed to catch quite a few bands throughout the week, some of which can be seen in the pics. They all knew how to have a sweet time fersure and we’re all going to be a bit bummed to return to the usual melancholy of the blue rinse brigade. Speaking of being bummed (no no, not like THAT, I’ve no desire to take the being a woman thing quite that far), Sorin and Claudia, our Manager and assistant manager are jumping ship and leaving us, which kinda sucks as it’s been sweet working with them. In typical ship fashion they only found out like 2 days before, which is pretty crazy, but hey, ship happens.

Thanks for reading.