30 March 2013; First Day at Sea.

The first sea day is always used to clear up the left over’s from embarkation day. The loading of provisions, stores and spare parts takes place in such a high tempo that after departure nobody really knows where the regular spare parts, what we call consumables, have ended up. Frozen goods, perishables and other food stocks go straight away into the cool rooms and freezers but other items are kept stored in the ships Marshalling area until they are sorted out. For this purpose we have various persons on board. For the Hotel side there is the Provision Master with his store keeping team who receives and issues any item needed in the Hotel operation. For the deck and engine side there are two persons who are in charge, the Special Service Engineer (SSE) and the Special Service Technician (SST). For these two guys changeover day is a real headache.

Provisions for the hotel department are normally bought on contract and are delivered on a regular cycle. What is being used is normally the same, only the quantities might differ depending on the length of the cruise. Thus the Provision Master can plan before hand where everything has to go and how to store it.

For deck and engine, the spare parts are normally for the purpose of repairing things. Thus there is no cycle, they are one- offs. Most of these parts come from far afield with the majority from Europe as the ship was built there. When the parts are bought, they are shipped by container to a receiving warehouse. The container content is emptied there and the individual pallets are labeled for the specific ship it has to go to. When the ship comes into port, the goods are then sent out to the ship.  

In general we know that the parts are on the way but we seldom know when they will come out of the ware house and to the ship. Also, as we are doing 14 day cruises East and West bound, it takes four weeks before we return to either Fort Lauderdale or San Diego. In those four weeks a lot of material can accumulate in the warehouse and hopefully everything that we were hoping for and expecting makes it there before the cut off date of being sent out. Then one has to hope that the truck driver makes it to work that day, otherwise nothing arrives.

With all those vagaries added to the equation, it is always “Christmas” to see what goodies will be delivered this time. The headache for these two guys starts the moment everything starts to arrive. Where does it all go? Before it goes into the store, it has to be checked off and inventoried. Now the guys have two challenges. One is me. I require that all the ships corridors are empty of materials before we sail. That is a legal requirement that has to do with the fact that the corridors are escape routes for the crew in an emergency. The 2^nd challenge is the crew. For them it is “Christmas” as the eagerly awaited part has finally arrived to fix their problem.

And so sailors, wipers, machinists, engineers and navigators all tend to descend on to the Marshalling area in the late afternoon to see if anything for them has arrived. And if it has arrived, it will be carted it off in triumph to their working area or personal storage locker. In between it all, the hardworking and diligent SST & SSE try to keep it all under control by waving their clipboards frantically around. In the end it all works out of course and the corridors are cleared in time and the spare parts properly logged and accounted for.  The clipboard is slowly disappearing and more and more the bar code reader is being used. That makes it go faster and with less hassle.

We had sunny but windy weather today, due to a southerly flow of northerly air about 20 miles off the shore. But as it was a following wind and it had the same velocity as our ships speed, it was wind still on decks and that made for a good start to the cruise.

Tomorrow will be our second day and around noon time we will pass Cabo San Lucas on our way to Puerto Vallarta.