I’m back in the US for the first time since February 5th. Technically I’ve been back since then, but I haven’t left the port. I am already finding it hard to go back and forth between ship and island life and the reality of the modern American life. It’s only been 5 months, but it feels foreign to me to walk through a grocery store or pay bills. At the same time, it looks really nice and makes me wonder what I’m missing. I miss driving my car, but I don’t miss buying gas or paying speeding tickets. I miss home cooked meals, but I’m glad I don’t have to cook or do the dishes. I miss my family and friends, but can’t picture my life without the people I’ve met over the past 5 months. Now I just wait and pray and see where I am in 2 months.
This past cruise featured a trip to Labadee. We delivered 29,000 servings of food and the only oxygen generator for use in surgery on the whole island! As it was explained to me, an oxygen generator is what provides oxygen to patients throughout the duration of their procedure. Previously, patients were “bagged” the entire time and this often led to complications not to mention using valuable time of another medical professional. We also offloaded several mattresses and the crew held an additional food and clothing drive. I would love to be more involved in the efforts, but I think I only have one more trip there. Regardless, I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve been blessed with to bless others.
We had an interesting incident last cruise. We were sailing along at 4 in the morning about 12 hours outside of San Juan. Seas were fairly calm with winds out of the south (I think) at about 45 mph. Suddenly, the winds shifted and came from the northwest at 100 miles per hour. The sudden change in conditions knocked our autopilot offline and before we were steadied by manual steering, our ship listed 12 degrees. 3 degrees is uncomfortable, so you can imagine what 12 is like. I had been asleep for about an hour by the time this happened. I didn’t fall out of bed as some people did, but I could tell something wasn’t right. It’s normal to feel the ship lean to one side. But it’s also normal to feel it right itself and it wasn’t doing that. I didn’t feel scared, but I felt my heart was racing, so apparently I was. I didn’t get up and put my lifejacket on (some did), but I thought about where my warm clothes and shoes were so I could get out in a hurry. I silently prayed “even the wind and the waves obey You.” I rolled over on my back and felt the ship come back up. The power of prayer, eh? Then the Captain came on the loud speaker. When I heard the Captain’s voice I assumed there was no emergency or they would have sounded the emergency alarm. However I also knew that it wasn’t good news….the Captain is not going to get on the PA and let us all know that there is free ice cream on deck 6. He just explained to us what had happened and told us that everything was fine now. From what I hear the crew was more shook up then the guests- people had their lifejackets on some were too worked up to sleep so they just started drinking. I hope we have much smoother sailing this cruise and even smoother when my parents are here… IN 12 DAYS!!!!!!! I’m excited!
Today was my second 90 day full crew immigration. Basically everyone presents their passport to US Immigration officials and they make sure that everyone is there legally. My boss has told me before that they typically ask easy American history questions to make sure that you’re legit. My guy looked at my passport, looked at me, and said “You’ve lost weight.” I agreed and was on my way. Good day.
Thanks for reading. I may post again in St Maarten. Stay tuned.
