Mark's Blog

I’m a stranger once again. I just arrived on my new ship this week and I feel completely out of place. The layout of the ship inside is exactly the same as my old ship but everyone else is different. The inside of the ship has a minimalistic design which adds a certain coldness to it. The floors in the crew area are painted a blue color reflecting very little light. The atmosphere has a darker look and feel because of it. The guests on the ship come from more of a lower middle class background and get loud and rowdy at times. I’m amazed at the certain cross-breed of people living in the United States. Living in southern California gave me a limited perspective of different kinds of Americans out there. And the amount of children on the ship is astronomical. I have never seen so many kids on a ship in my life. I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore.

I miss the familiarity and friendliness of my last ship. Even though people hung out in their own clicks over there, they had a friendlier vibe. The first day I step into the administration office the lady immediately gives me an attitude. The next day as I get my id card and ask her if I can get off at Key West, she tells me I need an I-95 (card given to all foreigners so they can get off on U.S. ports) and that I can’t leave the ship even though I’m an American citizen. Screw that, no one is stopping me from getting off in my own country. So I go to the gangway where they let people off the ship and I tell the guy I’m an American citizen and he lets me off without any hassle.

As far as my department goes, there seems to be more busy work compared to the laid back environment on my last ship. On a plus note a lot of the equipment is working and we get to see many more ports. Even though the boss on my last ship was a tough S.O.B., I have to give him credit, the way he managed things he made sure we had a very easy life as far as the workload goes. As long as we got the job done he was pretty much happy. My new boss seems to have more of a hands on role. He’s the type of boss that’s always making sure you are doing your job right. The other guys I work with are from Canada and New Zealand. Both are into film which is cool. So this past week I went to Key West, which I’ll describe in another post, seeing that I have a lot of good things to say about that place.

After seven weeks on ship, I finally had the opportunity to film my first tour. The day started off pretty slow. We arrived at Isla Roatan early in the morning. I woke up around 11am and started to get ready. I didn’t need to be outside until 1245 so I thought heck, I have a lot of time to get ready. I called down at the shore excursion desk and the guy told me meet him outside on the peer. Come 12pm I go into the locker room to prep my camera. And then that’s when I started to panic. I couldn’t find the strap that was supposed to go on the camera. I was searching all over but I couldn’t find it. Finally I called one of the AV staff and he was able to help me find it.

All I had to do now was make my way downstairs and head off the ship; easier said then down. The one problem about Isla Roatan is that the captain doesn’t allow any guest to get off the ship until 12pm. So when I get downstairs, the whole place was packed. Like a herd of sheep, there were people everywhere trying to get off the ship. I’m thinking to myself, that I’m going to miss the tour. After waiting another ten minutes I finally made it to the front of the line and like in any comedy television show the lady tells me I have to go to another line. No way, I wasn’t going to wait another 15 minutes to get off this ship, so I pleaded with her and told her my situation and luck have it, my plan worked.

One lesson I learned about life is that Murphy’s Law always has a way of throwing a wrench into the system. Once I made it outside, there were literally hundreds of people on the peer. Where the heck am I suppose to go? There was no way I’m going to find the shore excursion guy. All I knew was that I was supposed to film the same tour as last week. But one problem, I couldn’t remember the name of the tour. And the only way to find out was to go back onto the ship and call the shore excursion desk which was totally out of the question. There were about twenty people holding signs up for the different tours. Okay, so I forgot the tour name, so I’m picturing in my head the tour guide from last week’s video. I looked around and there he was holding up a sign for Jolly Roger and Gumbalina Tour. I finally made it to my destination.

To make a long story short, I had an incredible time filming my first tour. Outside the port, it is very poor. There are many small shacks along the side of the street along with many stray dogs. But the landscape was quite an experience. The majority of the place was covered in jungle.

Once we arrived to our destination we split up into two groups, the first group went snorkeling and the other group went to the animal reservation. I was with the first group so I ended up filming the whole snorkeling trip. Now seeing that this was my first time, I didn’t think to bring my swimming trunks, because once everyone went into the water I pretty much didn’t have anything to do, but luckily one of the guys working on the ship had an extra pair of shorts he lent me. I’m glad he did, because I had the most incredible time snorkeling that day. It was like swimming in a big aquarium. I was in about thirty to forty feet of water and the whole ocean floor was covered in coral and surrounded by fish of different shapes and color. It was almost sensory overload for my eyes.

After the snorkeling was finished I went to the animal reserve. I thought this was going to be just like another typical zoo. But I was wrong. Even though there were only monkeys and parrots, they were not closed off in cages. They roamed freely in their small habitat. I had the chance to get my picture taking with a parrot sitting on my head and shoulder which was cool. What really excited was the spider monkey reservation. These little guys were running around all over the jungle. They were climbing on people’s shoulders and on top of their heads. I was filming this one guy that had a monkey on his shoulder and then all of a sudden the monkey jumped off the guys shoulder and on top of my head, which surprised the crap out of me seeing that I wasn’t expecting him to do that. To make things funnier, the monkey started playing with my video camera. He had his hands all over the microphone and when we was bored with that, he decided he wanted to check what was in my pockets and even my back pack. Fortunately one of the animal handlers was able to grab him off of me before he stole anything out of my bag. Overall I had a blast that day. It really gave me the chance to come face to face with nature and our distance ancestors. We humans have come along way from these little creatures and it just amazes me how we evolved into what we are today.

Ship life has hit me once again. Whenever you get comfortable with a situation something is bound to change to spin you one hundred and eighty degrees. After working on Carnival Valor for little over a month I just found out the other day that I will be transferring to another ship, the Carnival Freedom. In just a few days I’ll be getting my Freedom from the Valor. I sort of have mixed feelings about the situation. Even though I’ve put up with lots of shit on Valor, I will still miss the people and the time I had on the ship. After seeing people I’ve become friends with leave and now that I’m leaving, I’ve learned that I have a resistance to change. I like to have some kind of routine in my life. But in a way I kind of feel like I’m in this Catch 22 situation. Whenever life becomes too routine I become irritated and wish for something different, but when something different arrives I feel this urge deep down to resist the change. There are so many conflicting feelings inside of me, that sometimes its hard to figure out what issues are truly unsettling me. I’ve heard many positive things about the new ship that I will be transferring too. I’m sure I’ll meet new people and come across new adventures, but then again, I will miss the Valor and everyone I’ve met, good or bad. But then again, I must continue to move forward in this crazy and unpredictable game they call life.

So it’s been a little over a month now since I’ve been on ship. Even though I’ve had some difficult times these past few days, I still can’t complain about the opportunity that’s been given to me. Living on ship I’ve met some great people and ran into not so great people, but the one observation that I’ve made is by the time you’ve established a relationship with someone come next week they are gone. People come and go all the time. There are always new faces on the ship every week.

As of right now, I’m sitting in a little coffee shop in Grand Cayman. I’m feeling pretty relaxed now after having a stressful past few days. It’s funny while walking to the coffee shop I noticed that people drive on the wrong side of the road and have their steering wheel on the right side. It reminds me of the times when I used to live in Japan.

Sometimes I wonder what I would be doing right now if I was in L.A. As I look back, I can certainly say I had a love hate relationship with the city. The place is such a hustle and bustle type of city. Now I’m living in an environment that’s the complete opposite and it’s quite refreshing. Even though I work everyday, I usually don’t work for more than five hours a day.

With all the free time, I’ve been working on my script “An American Journalist.” I’m pretty close to finally finishing my first draft. I hope to have a completed draft in the next few months. A crazy coincidence, just the past week a guy from Bosnia started working in our department. What’s funny is that he was a cameraman for the Bosnian War just as one of the characters in my story. I’ve been talking to him and he’s been sharing his experiences about the war and all the terrible shit he’s witnessed. As for right now I’ll see what life throws my way and continue on my adventures.

One month has finally gone by. Ship life is slowly starting to get to me. It’s funny I work about four hours a day and have everything provided for me and I’m still not satisfied. Sometimes I wonder if I miss the struggle of living in L.A., struggling to save money, stuck in traffic two hours a day, and paying damn bills. On ship I have none of that but I’m still getting mentally drained. In a way it feels like I’m in prison. There’s so much bullshit everyone has to deal with that it can get tiring at times.

I miss driving my truck and being able to go any where I want to go. I miss my family and friends. But then again I forget to remember the struggle I had back in L.A. I guess its part of human nature to remember the good things about the past and to neglect the negative things. This fourth week has been pretty tough on me. Every time we arrive in Miami I get excited to be back in the states.

I want to do good at my job, but I have no support system whatsoever. It’s hard to learn things on your own without potentially fucking everything up for people to notice. The other day I fucked up and half the stations on the television went out along with the movie that was playing outside on the big screen. I felt like shit after that whole experiance. Sometimes I get paranoid and start thinking that crew members on ship have this negative vibe against Americans. Hopefully things will be better next week. Not every week can be rays of sunshine. There will be some stormy days. I guess that’s just part of life.