On my first day of work one of the crew members said to me, “welcome to hell.” Another said, “welcome to Prison Andrew.” (The cruise ship I’ve been working is the Prince Andrew) Yet another told me, “If you can work on this ship you can work on any cruise ship.”
Let me take that last comment and explain it a bit more:
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Antarctic Expedition ships are smaller. We have 132 guests and around 120 crew. The ship is roughly 110m (360ft) in length. Other cruise ships range between 500-5000 guests and are more like floating cities. The upshot is that a small ship means a smaller crew, and therefore fewer crew facilities like the crew gym pictured below, which is basically a wardrobe with a bench press in it (although we may use the passenger gym after 10pm).
Then there’s the bar. In most cruise ships you will find a 24-hour bar. Our crew bar (pictured below) is open about three times per cruise, and also doubles as a storage area.
Having said that, once per cruise we have an open bar and it always gets quite lively (I’m not even going to try and explain the photo below).
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No regular port landings. In most cruise ships passengers will regularly be in ports every couple of days. However, on an Antarctic Expedition ship for the five-month Antarctic season we have the same schedule: eleven days on board the ship; one day in Port Ushuaia where we unload passengers in the morning and embark the new passengers in the afternoon; and then leave again for another eleven day cruise.
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A floating prison. Given the above conditions you could imagine that, at times, the ship really can feel like a prison… but I’m an anomaly. I’m the crew member that gets off the boat most often, and this is because I’m here primarily to experience Antarctica, whereas my colleagues are here primarily to work and earn money— although, this comes at great sacrifice, as I have to give up valuable sleeping time. Most of the dining room team would not go outside for the entire eleven days until we get back to Ushuaia. I must add here that the expedition team is very accommodating about getting crew (like me) ashore when we have Antarctic landings. If our breaks coincide with landings, we can usually set foot onto the great white Continent.
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The dangerous Drake Passage. The 800km wide passage between Cape Horn, Chile, and the Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula in latitudes where there are no significant landmasses. This means that the Antarctic circumpolar currents which carry a huge volume of water (600 times greater than what’s in the Amazon River), squeezes through the narrow passage creating turbulent currents and giving it a notorious reputation as one of the roughest seas in the world.
- Seasickness. We spend four out of our eleven days of the cruise in the Drake Passage, where swells can get as large as fifteen to twenty metres, but so far I’ve only experienced ten-metre swells. A large majority of passengers get seasick and surprisingly a lot of the crew as well. It’s a regular occurrence on the Drake Passage to see waiters go out back, throw up, clean themselves up, slap a smile back on their face and then to go back out to continue serving. Fortunately I do not suffer from sea sickness, and quite enjoy the challenge of trying to carry plates and trays in the slow, swaying rock of the ship, as it is a novelty in the otherwise tedious routine. This is not to mention that usually half the passengers are seasick so it makes things a little less busy and stressful!
Add this to the work atmosphere I’ve talked about in previous posts, and you can probably understand why backpacking in South America sounded more appealing than staying to continue working on Prison Andrew!
mandy
Jan 25, 2010 -
4 days and counting to FREEDOM! SLEEP! HEALTHY FOOD!!
Hap
Jan 26, 2010 -
and not shaving!
Sonja
Jan 26, 2010 -
Hi Hap,
I discovered your blog after reading about it on stuff late last year. It came at the right time as some motivation for me! Just wanted to say that your an inspiration for going after your dream and not giving up. Im in my last semester at Vic in Welly but Im on exchange to Victoria in Vancouver Island right now. After this I plan to do a bunch of travel of my own! Probably for the next 4 or 5 years im thinking. You’ve made me realise I can just go with it and do what I want to do..and stuff the boring corporate lawyer job I was never interested in anyway!
Hap
Jan 27, 2010 -
Awesome,
Thank you so much for the comment, its wicked to hear. I definitely believe in doing what you love and what you feel is right, lifes too short not to be happy. And when you’re happy life’s better and things for some reason seem to work out. Who knows where your travels will take you and who you will meet, and you will probably find that law degree will come in handy somewhere along the line, maybe not directly in law but indirectly. Exciting times.
Victoria, great place, and the island and another beautiful part of the world, infact it reminded me a lot of Aotearoa.
Take care, thanks for the comment, I’m excited for you!
Hap