the blog

Captain, my Captain

The adventures of Carol Brown, representing Norwegian Cruise Line on a 6-month mission on the open sea to train the crew, explore new ports, seek new friends and experiences, and to boldly go where she has not gone before.

Carol’s log: Cruise Date: May 22, 2011 (At sea)

Our captain is really cool. He’s Greek and very down-to-earth. So much so in fact, that I saw him today in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I was meeting with the Staff Captain and he stopped by to say hello. He looked like a school boy with his hair all disheveled. He plopped into the chair beside me and very casually asked me how things are going. It was as if I were speaking to just a regular Joe rather than the Captain. I think this time it was good that I didn’t have my camera with me. What happens on the Bridge, stays on the Bridge.

The Basic Safety course today saw me climbing up and down one of those vertical ladders to the deck where the life boats are housed. I kept saying how proud my children would have been to see me perform this feat. I should have taken a picture but as usual my camera was elsewhere. The life boat is cool. It seats 101 persons and has all the supplies necessary for survival at sea in an emergency. We are taught the uses of everything. These, however, are for the passengers. The crew get life rafts which are not quite as comfortable.

I missed breakfast today because I stayed in bed a bit too long. I made it for it though by eating a lot for dinner. I had hot and sour crab soup with tofu, bamboo shoots and straw mushrooms, seafood hot-pot with jasmine rice, lemongrass and coconut broth, a baby shrimp cocktail and a vanilla cream puff with raspberry sauce. Noticed there were some veggies sprinkled throughout though none too green.

Laarni and I spent most of the day in the office preparing to roll out our newest training program. It is top-secret though so I can’t divulge too much except to say that it is a whole lot of fun. All crew will go through this training in a very short timeframe so the pressure is on to do this quickly but well. We will have a great time delivering this and I’m hoping the participant have a great time too.

The voyage continues…