09 January 2010; Dry – dock, Freeport Bahamas.

Today was not a good day; at least not for me. Somebody from the dry – dock had decided in his infinite wisdom that the aft navigation light pole (that carries the stern lights, anchor light and Suez light) was in the way and thus had cut the whole thing down and then threw it away into the garbage skip. Without navigation lights you are not allowed to sail, so that pole is a vital piece of equipment for me. With the assistant bo’sun I managed to get the remains out, with the idea to have it repaired. As it did not look that good anymore, I spent the morning designing a new pole for the lights. At the same time I will have new light fixtures put on, so we will be ok again for the next 20 years. These sort of things happen but they make the dry – dock organization very unhappy as it means extra work for them. (……and they have to pay for it as well……)

That brings me to the next item, what does a captain do in dry – dock. Well that is not so easy to answer as a captain does not have a specific job during the dry dock. The Director Technical Operations leads the drydock and controls the purse strings. He has two super intendants to overlook specific area’s. We also have a retired Hal technical director with us who supervises the newbuilding part. Then there is various other support staff from the office for administration, carpet work, containers and supplies etc etc. The captain does control the whole shipboard organization but as he does not have his own department he has no direct operational responsibilities while a dry -dock is in progress. Basically it depends on what you want to do and make of it yourself. Some captains spend their time in isolated splendor in their quarters until it is all over and some captains run around in a boiler suit and turn into a dry dock worker themselves. I hover somewhere in between and try to do what a captain does best and that is coordination.

The day starts at 6 am. when it is still quiet in the ship. Most sub contractors are not working yet and the dry – dock workers are going on shift change. I can now do an un-disturbed walk around to see what was accomplished during the previous night. Then there is the deck department meeting, the two dry – dock (new ship part and rest of ship) meetings followed by the Hotel staff meeting. As everybody tends to be fully absorbed in his/her own work, I can be useful to point out the larger picture, connect people or prevent people from getting into each others way. (The latter tends to happen a lot with 400 workmen and 300 plus crew milling around at the same time)

Early afternoon is filled with paper work for the coming cruise. (You would not believe it when you look around here but we still are supposed to sail as a cruise ship on the 13th………) Plus it gives me time to write my daily blog. I have found out in the last two days that the cranes block our satellite reception when they are loading containers in the Lido section of the ship. So I have to upload during a time when they are doing something else. By 4 pm. It is time for my second round to stay up to date with the activities during the day. For the rest I provide the weather forecast, make announcements and deal with regulatory issues. The day normally ends by 9 pm. and then I am really ready to crash.

Another group of coordinators. Left 2/O Jeoren de Winter who is the Ceiling Panel Controller, then 3/0 Niels Kalkman who assists as directed and to the right First Officer Paul Kroonenburg in charge of fireguards and fire permits. The latter means that no hotwork (welding, grinding or burning) can be done without him approving it first and handing out a Hot-work permit. He also dispatches a fireguard (trained crew member) to stand fire watch to any place were hot work is carried out. As this happens in many places at the same time, Paul has about 20 fireguards on standby for each request coming in.

The weather is not good today. It started raining during the night and that affected the teak deck work. The teak-deckers already had issues with the humidity; the more moisture there is in the air the longer it takes for the deck coating under the teak deck to dry. Now the rain really caused problems. We are expecting colder weather (less then 40F) tomorrow and that will help again with the quicker drying as it reduces the humidity. Which means that they should be able to stay on schedule.

With the rain starting little tents appeared everywhere over the ship, trying to keep as much water out as possible. However it is never perfect.

The only ones who are really un-affected by the weather are the upholsterers. We are doing a lot of carpet work in the public rooms and also numerous chairs and couches are being redone.

Re- carpeting the forward dining room. The underlay has been laid and the carpet is being brought in.

When the carpet is in, the ships upholsterers re-install the tables and partitions.

The whole cinema has been taken apart to renew the carpet and the area has been transformed into a large upholstery workshop to refurbish all the cinema chairs but also chairs and couches from other parts of the ship. They are also sprucing up all the leather chairs and sofa’s onboard. I never knew that there were chemicals available that basically can bring a leather chair back to new but that is what is happening here. As long the leather is not ripped or cut, these people can bring a chair back to factory new quality. It is really amazing to see.

The Wajang Theatre as Upholstery Store. The new carpet has been laid and covered over with plastic for protection and now a group of contracted upholsterers are re- covering the cinema chairs.

During dry dock all the carpet onboard is covered with plastic for protection. On a regular basis this protection has to be renewed as there is a lot of traffic in the ship. Also when carpet has been renewed, new plastic has to be laid to keep the carpet clean until we are back to regular operations.

The boys from the Housekeeping department laying and relaying mile after mile of protective plastic. Here they are covering the newly laid carpet in the atrium near the Front Office.