Don't Rock The Boat

17 Jan 08


En Route to Buenos Aires
1900 hours


Well in just over 36 hours I will be on my own; the current manager is disembarking in Buenos Aires. I feel pretty good about this job. I am pretty confident and I have gotten many compliments from the officers about how the pax like me. The people are just lovely, so sweet and nice. I have one or two complainers, but in the scheme of things (the fact that we have roughly 1000 pax) that isnt bad at all!

Today we are having a “lumpy” sea day (as Captain calls it) We had gone through some sort of storm before lunch and the seas are a bit angry. So we are up .. then we are down .. its funny to walk in the crew hallways; feels like you are walking uphill, then downhill. Not to mention if you are in the hull, it sounds awful in there! Like the ship might break apart, and this isnt even rough, eeek! It is supposed to be worse in the Faulkland Islands and going around Cape Horn. Our poor old ship is working hard today :(

My sunburn is getting better. Still a little tender, but not at all as hot as it was. And the pain has gone down a lot too. However, as I've said before .. EDFS! So now that the sunburn problem has become minute, my ankles decided to swell. They are gross too .. I basically have legs the have little toes on the ends .. ewww! Last night I didn’t go out and instead just put my feet up; this morning the swelling had gone down somewhat, but it has come back up obviously because I can’t sit on my can all day with my feet raised. I am not sure if it is from the sunburn, something I ate, being on my feet more than usual (though my feet don’t hurt) being on the ship (sometimes too much iron in the area causes it with crew) or if it is possibly the BP meds. Judy (my godmother) said it used to make her ankles swell too so she couldn’t take it. I am not going to take it anymore and just monitor my BP with the machine I have and see what happens. I can always go to the Doc on board if need be and get something else if my BP goes back up.

I got some interesting piece of history on my old ship here. She is now called the Artemis; but she used to be called the Royal Princess. All of the ships in the P&O fleet have their names end in an ‘A’ IE: Aurora, Oriana, Arcadia, etc. Except this lovely lady. I had wondered why, but didn’t bother to ask ( I ask enough stupid questions in one day LOL ) However, my PSM Liz, my boss for right now, told me about it anyway when we were at lunch yesterday. She was named the Royal Princess after Princess Diana and sailed with Princess Cruises. (which I didn’t know) When the fleet began to grow, they re-named her (Artemis is the first of the fleet) and sent her over to P&O instead. Well the name Artemis means hunter in greek mythology; the name Diana is the name of an Italian Godess who was the godess of hunting; so that was how they were able to re-name her and still keep the link to Princess Diana. Now, how awesome is that?? Considering how much I loved Princess Diana, mourned her (and still do today) I think it was quite fitting that my first ship be named for her and that I get to be a part of her.