They say change is as good as a rest.
I disagree.
Having acquired a new boss, black label photographer and roommate in the space of a week I have to say I’d still rather have a day off! Starting at the top, there’s my new manager Serhat (sir rat), who, immediately upon learning of my stellar performance in Miss Westerdam has called me ‘Chesty’ from the day he arrived, even going so far as to put it on our schedule everyday. (Incidentally, cheers to those of you who have offered your ten cents’ worth on why I didn’t win Miss Westerdam, the general consensus being that I should have had more flesh on show, but not having an extensive supply of women’s clothing to hand, I was obviously forced to take what I could get. Had I managed to get hold of that union jack dress to go along with my spice girls tune however, those fools wouldn’t have stood a chance…)
Anyhoo, Serhat has changed a fair few things onboard, but is a cool guy and you can’t argue with his track record – he holds Ocean Images’ record for once making $115,000 on a week long charter cruise in Alaska. Kerr – ching!
He brought with him his Black Label photographer girlfriend Holly. With an ‘H’. Forgive me for pointing out the bleedin’ obvious like that, it just never ceases to amaze me how confusing it is when someone wants my or her attention and shouts across the room, attracting both our attentions at the same time. Lackadaisical enunciation be damned! Maybe I’ll end up having to change my name to Chesty after all. Anyways, Holly has a wicked accent, is madder than a hatter when shooting in her studio and comes from the town which has the dubious honour of being voted Britain’s crappest: Hull. But don’t judge her, I mean, she is from Hull after all. Then there’s my new roommate, Alrick. Hailing from the Island of Jamaica. he has two kids, a penchant for Cologne and pricey watches and is one of life’s snorers, which has been interesting. Whilst being kept awake one night by his aural onslaughts I remembered a life lesson which came from the legend that is Sir Steve Redgrave, who, when sharing a room with a snoring teamate just clapped his hands once, which stops the madness while their brain figures out what’s going on. The tricky part is trying to fall asleep before they do.
Anyway, Alrick also seems to fit the old stereotype of having a girl in every port if the phonecalls made from above my bed most nights are anything to go by – hey, you try not listening when you can still hear the sweet nothings being uttered through your earplugs as you’re trying to catch some Z’s.
We had another charter cruise onboard a couple of weeks back, this time it was the Hay house cruise, which is a sort of spirituality and personal growth / self help book publishing company giving seminars and stuff. I’m not averse to spirituality, or personal growth (though I was bummed to learn that one of THOSE doesn’t actually count as personal growth, which I found quite ironic), I just tend to lose interest when people bang on their all powerful - yet oddly invisible - friends, as is so often the case. Actually, considering what I’d heard, I found the number of fruitloops onboard to be somewhat disappointing – these people have a habit of finding me no matter where I am in the world and they would no doubt have made for some chucklesome tales. Still, their reputation as photo lovers was somewhat justified, as they managed to quadruple our wage packets for the week, so I certainly wasn’t complaining. Come back soon, new age type dudes!
Being in the presence of all the spiritual creaminess, I also decided the week might be a good time to have a bit of a detox, so out went the booze and (most of) the caffeine, and in came copious amounts of water and ridicule from my shipmates, who refused to believe I’d make 7 whole days onboard sober. To cut a long story short, I made it through the week easily, and was even told my eyes looked brighter at the end, which was good to hear, if slightly worrying…. I’m not normally one for abstinence at the beginning of the year; it’s usually cold, miserable, and no one’s got any money after Christmas, so I figure the last thing you really need to do is to throw another shrimp on the barbeque of misery, but I’ve discovered, perhaps unsurprisingly, that it’s a hell of a lot easier when the sun is usually shining and you’re never more than 48 hours away from some time on a beach! Having visited the same 5 or 6 ports for the last 3 months or so however, it’s getting harder to find stuff to write about them, which is obviously a very first world problem, but a problem nevertheless, so I’ve decided to make more of an effort to get out of the port towns and see a bit more of the places where we’re stopping – you can’t really say you’ve seen a country if you’ve only seen one place now, can you? I mean seriously, imagine someone came to the UK and all they bothered to see of it was Swindon!
Anyways, my first move towards getting more experienced involved having a proper look around the fort at San Juan, which is pretty badass, the island itself was a bit of a rest stop for ships coming over from Europe on their way to America, so they built forts on both ends to keep ‘em out. The watchtowers (shown in the pic) are dotted all around both perimeters and something of an icon, and were manned round the clock back in the day, so it was a bit surprising to learn that the island was only attacked about 5 times in 400 years. Paranoid much?!!
I also managed to see a wee bit more of Curacao during our next stop when I went diving with Jadine and one of the ship’s navigation officers, Mike, who – proving the ‘it’s a small world’ cliché is a cliché for a reason - just happens to be from Wolverhampton, but is a nice guy regardless.
We only had time for one dive, but still saw plenty, including brain coral, some rare kind of anenomenome which I can’t spell, and a sea turtle. I’d forgotten just how cool they were, although sadly I didn’t manage to grab shell : ( While we’re on the subject, the dudes can live for 150 years random fact fans, which I guess would explain why they’re so chilled out.
As another week came and went, the changes somehow stayed constant and we got another addition to the team, Emma. As she hasn’t been onboard long I can’t give you too much info just yet, but she’s Blonde, usually cold, really into Haribo and makes for a buxom wench in a Pirate costume ; P Oh, she’s also the only other person I’ve ever met who whistles by inhaling rather than exhaling.
As we now have an extra person to lighten the load a little, apparently I’m getting a half day off in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow, which means I’ll finally get to step on U.S. soil that isn’t the embarkation terminal, in the process making it the 6th continent I’ve set foot on, whoop whoop!
I’ve also discovered that my folks and 2 grandmamas will be coming aboard, which was hugely exciting. Until me Ma told me she couldn’t fit the dog in her suitcase.
Oh well, you can’t have it all.
Thanks for reading.
