Posted by Working on a cruise ship, is more than just pretty uniforms with a lot of gold stripes on your shoulders. The days can be very busy with a lot of stuff happening. And contrary to what urban myths tell you, Cruise ship offices need to take part in dozens of various job activities, which is not always that fancy.
The pictures in this little blog post is when we went to Alaska (and British Colombia) back in 2002. We first had a nice scenic sailing inn and out the fjords, and some scenic cruising along the coast. Then we entered one of the fjords with the glaciers for a nicer close up view. Ready with your cameras folks!
We also used to something extra for our passengers when we stopped in front of the Glaciers, and that was to launch one of the ship’s rescue boats to take some nice pictures of the ship and background. We would have one of the Officers driving the boat (myself in this case), and with a couple of deck hands as well as the ship’s official photographer onboard.
Then after we finished all the picture taking, we normally did one more thing, and that was to pick up a huge chunk of ice, to bring back onboard. This so the ice could be crushed in to smaller bits and used it the passengers drinks, served from the outside deck bar. A funny little thing, considering the ice in the drinks could be thousand of years old. But unfortunately the local Public Health regulations prevented us from continue this practice after a couple of years.
When the rescue boat with the crew, photographer, and the ice we picked up were safely onboard, it was time to move on to the next port or scenic day cruising. These days were fun, but very long, as most of us had to pull about 15-16 hours those days, since we normally approached very slowly early in the morning hours, and didn’t leave the area before evening again. Plus the fact we all had to get back on watch and other duties again.
So all in all, extremely busy and tiering days, but nevertheless extremely interesting, and amazing memories for rest of the life. Would never change it.
Rgds, Sailor
The Traveller. 