Onion River Exploration Project: The Ship

Poo Truck & Buses

Day 22 (8/24/2010) The workings of the Ship

I wanted to take a little time to write about the general day to day operations of the ship which I found fascinating. It had not occurred to me the magnitude of the logistics to keep a ship like this maintained. The ship itself is capable of carrying 2600 passengers and 1200 crew. Considering the fact that there is always food to be had somewhere, this calls for mass quantities of raw materials to be received and processed at each port. It also means that there are mass quantities of waste to be removed. As soon as you pull into ports there is a bustle of activity. Before docking local authorities have to board ship and complete the needed paperwork for stopping in a foreign country. While this is going on dock workers are gathering to start tying up the ship. In some ports or inclement weather tug boats are needed to help the ship dock. After everything is secured the gangplanks are lowered and people start setting up for disembarking. This is usually within five ten minutes of docking. While all of this has been going on busses and trucks have been pulling in to take excursions away and deliver goods. Lines are hooked up to remove the waste of 4000 people on board. Garbage trucks start hauling away the solid waste. This happens every time the ship docks.
Apparently, you could take tours of the galley to see the onboard kitchens, bakery and laundry but we never had the chance. Again the sheer magnitude of feeding and caring for this number of people is astonishing. The fact that they do it without being noticed is miraculous. After almost two weeks onboard I still have no clue where all this work was taking place.
I was also surprised to see that the ship is undergoing constant maintenance. I assumed that once a year the ship docked and all of the repairs where done at one time. It turns out that the ship is constantly under repair. It was not uncommon for one of the pools or hot tubs to be drained, scraped, painted and reopened. Any spot of rust was instantly coated and painted. As Eileen found out, if you are not careful and miss a sign stating “wet varnish’ you may end up with a sticky arm.

Pilot Boat

Without a doubt our favorite ship operation to watch was the transfer of the pilot. It turns out that at every port a pilot who is familiar with the local waters has to board the ship and exit the ship after we are safely out of port. In order to do this, the pilot is brought out on a small boat and while they are both still moving jumps from one boat to another. Under the best of conditions this looks quite daring, but rarely are they the best of conditions. It turned out our balcony was right above the spot where they made the transfer so it became a favorite preoccupation to watch the pilot make the jump which he did as if he were stepping off a nonmoving bus.

It goes without saying that I have only scratched the surface of what it takes to operate a ship of this size and the countless people who work behind the scenes to keep everybody comfortable. I know of several that went out of their way to make it pleasant for Eileen and me.