May 19, 2007: amanaP :lanac a
,nalp a ,nam A
Buenas dias de Panama, the palindrome nation. Arrived last week to begin our our new itinerary in the San Blas Islands (southern Caribbean coast of Panama). Windjammer has exclusive rights to dive here - first time any operator runs any dives down here (legally, anyway), so lots of exploration coming up. The diving hasn't been that impressive yet but our first cruise in the islands was cut short so hopefully next week I'll find some cool spots at some of the islands we haven't visited yet, which are further offshore (the dives I did this week were surprisingly murky, and not a whole lot of fish, though the corals were in pretty good shape).
The islands themselves are pretty quiet. A lot are inhabited but the lifestyle is pretty simple: we're talking thatch-roof cane huts, and hammocks, with the economy based on coconut trade and skin diving for lobsters. Life's rough.
I'll be spending at least every second weekend in a hotel in Panama City, since we (either me or the purser) have to check our passengers in here Saturday nights, send them off on canal tours on Sunday, then accompany them back to the ship in Colon. Not really a weekend off but at least I get a hot shower (or even, gasp, a bath!) and a night in a bed that doesn't rock. And free internet, so I should be able to update my blog a little more often.
[Don't get too jealous, this lifestyle's not as great as it sounds to pretty much everyone else. Despite all the passengers telling me that I don't actually work, that I have a dream job, that I don't need a holiday cause I'm living in one, the reality is, my living space consists of a cabin the size of a standard office cubicle, which I share with another woman; we only occasionally have water in the bathroom that passes for tepid; I work from 7:30 till whenever I go to bed at night, which is rarely as early as I'd like (there's trivia night to host and appearances to put in at the costume party and karaoke night...); all day long I field all manner of stupid questions from passengers about where to sign up for things, how to cancel sign-ups, how to charge tips to their accounts after account closing time, when the dive that was cancelled cause no one signed up is leaving, where can they get fresh towels, etc. (and in almost every single case the answers were explained in detail at the daily passenger meeting they've just attended); I have to smile and be courteous to busy-bodies who think they know more about how the ship is run than I do because, after all, I've only been here a few months and they've already done 5/12/18/37/pick-a-number cruises; I have to deal with a head office who never sends us what we need when we need it (the most recent blunder made the ship start our repositioning cruise two days late, so we had to organize flight changes for all our passengers, keep the ones we had happy, arrange for those who wanted to abort the cruise altogether to go home, and then once we finally arrived we had to deal with another lot of unhappy passengers who'd been waiting two days for their ship to arrive); I get virutally no time off; there's no place on a ship to get any exercise; I eat the same food week-in, week-out; have to be discreet about my relationship with my boyfriend; and since both of us share cabins with other crew... well, you get the idea. It's a hell of a lot to give up for the sake of a little cash.]
Anyway, at least I'm getting to work on my Spanish...
The islands themselves are pretty quiet. A lot are inhabited but the lifestyle is pretty simple: we're talking thatch-roof cane huts, and hammocks, with the economy based on coconut trade and skin diving for lobsters. Life's rough.
I'll be spending at least every second weekend in a hotel in Panama City, since we (either me or the purser) have to check our passengers in here Saturday nights, send them off on canal tours on Sunday, then accompany them back to the ship in Colon. Not really a weekend off but at least I get a hot shower (or even, gasp, a bath!) and a night in a bed that doesn't rock. And free internet, so I should be able to update my blog a little more often.
[Don't get too jealous, this lifestyle's not as great as it sounds to pretty much everyone else. Despite all the passengers telling me that I don't actually work, that I have a dream job, that I don't need a holiday cause I'm living in one, the reality is, my living space consists of a cabin the size of a standard office cubicle, which I share with another woman; we only occasionally have water in the bathroom that passes for tepid; I work from 7:30 till whenever I go to bed at night, which is rarely as early as I'd like (there's trivia night to host and appearances to put in at the costume party and karaoke night...); all day long I field all manner of stupid questions from passengers about where to sign up for things, how to cancel sign-ups, how to charge tips to their accounts after account closing time, when the dive that was cancelled cause no one signed up is leaving, where can they get fresh towels, etc. (and in almost every single case the answers were explained in detail at the daily passenger meeting they've just attended); I have to smile and be courteous to busy-bodies who think they know more about how the ship is run than I do because, after all, I've only been here a few months and they've already done 5/12/18/37/pick-a-number cruises; I have to deal with a head office who never sends us what we need when we need it (the most recent blunder made the ship start our repositioning cruise two days late, so we had to organize flight changes for all our passengers, keep the ones we had happy, arrange for those who wanted to abort the cruise altogether to go home, and then once we finally arrived we had to deal with another lot of unhappy passengers who'd been waiting two days for their ship to arrive); I get virutally no time off; there's no place on a ship to get any exercise; I eat the same food week-in, week-out; have to be discreet about my relationship with my boyfriend; and since both of us share cabins with other crew... well, you get the idea. It's a hell of a lot to give up for the sake of a little cash.]
Anyway, at least I'm getting to work on my Spanish...
posted by Unknown at
11:03 a.m.
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