Local leave in Sydney & a big decision on the next contract!

There are so many aspects of life that you take for granted working a regular 9-5 job on land, compared to a work everyday 13-14 day for 6 month contract at sea. Having a full day off seems like a gift from the gods and as goods as ship food is (on certain ships at least!) you crave any meal thats not from a buffet or worse crew mess!

The crew office onboard and head office had helped get my Aussie tourist visa which was free and could be completed online even in the old prehistoric internet days of 2009. I’d booked myself two weeks at the Vibe Hotel on Goulborn St. right in the middle of the city. You really don’t appreciate having your own space and sleeping in a proper bed that is in a room that is larger than a prison cell until you sleep in a hotel for the first time in 9 months, and of course a shower that has water pressure that you can turn around fully in and the holy grail of having a bath! A privilege reserved for very few people onboard!

I remember being astounded that they had 3 different kinds of Strongbow cider on tap most places in Sydney not different flavours like these days but different types, original, sharp and cloudy if I remember rightly?

However after 9 months of setting an alarm every morning, after a luxurious bath on my first day in Sydney I still had to set an alarm for early that evening…why you might ask? Well… so that after I slept off my last night hangover and maybe an hours sleep I didn’t want to miss making my way down to the harbour, finding a bar and sitting there with a drink in my hand watching the Star Princess sailway heading back to LA without me on it! It truly is an almost indescribable feeling in that almost every night for 9 months you had to be back onboard this ship by the all aboard time or you’d be left behind in the port and in almost every case lose your job.

Just to be sitting outside at night on land almost feels like a privilege after having to spend almost every night inside a small tube with no windows! As we come to the end of a contract we’d always joke onboard that we feel like criminals counting down their remaining days in jail before freedom and that even prisoners get a walk in the exercise yard each day & if its a busy sea day you’ll have a slim to no chance of getting a walk in the fresh sea air outside.

My time in Sydney passed in a blur of being a major tourist going to all the expected attractions, eating way too much food and drinking way too much as well. One day my friend Nicole who had previously worked as cruise (entertainment) staff on the Star and decided after the one contract it wasn’t for her came down to visit for the day. Not knowing how massive Australia is I didn’t realise that her getting the train down from Newcastle to Sydney took 2 and a half to 3 hours one way, I could drive to London and back from my home in Dover in that time.

Nicole was extremely happy to see me in part as she had left behind a bunch of belongings that she couldn’t fly home as she finished her contract in Seattle, although I think if I hadn’t been staying in Sydney her former roommate was going to drop her stuff off. We had a meal down in Darling harbour and a few drinks before she then had to get back on the train another 3 hours to get home. It was probably one of the first times that I realised how absolutely massive Australia is.

One of my favourite haunts was right near where the ship used to dock and was a restaurant called City Extra and I remember being utterly shocked at how expensive everything was, admittedly I had no idea what the exchange rate was at the time and having barely spent any money onboard for the last 9 months I was going to enjoy myself ashore and the cost of a good meal or drink be damned!

Being a life time film buff and a videographer I had desperately missed going to the cinema and made a few trips in my time there to the Event Cinema on Broad Street and what more fitting film to see in Australia than the last onscreen performance of the great Aussie actor Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliams The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus.

It was great to decompress in Sydney for a few weeks before heading home as often you simply want to sleep for a week in your own bed and just enjoy the peace and quiet before you throw yourself back into regular life. At the end of my previous two contracts when I was a junior I never made the decision on if I would return for another contract as both of those contracts had soured a little coupled with burnout. However this time leaving the Star was the first time I had left in a really positive frame of mind with the people I was working with and my potential future with the company.

This time I managed to fly home with no issues and had someone waiting at the airport in London to pick me up, so no finding out last minute that I had to get a train home like last time I left Australia for England. Some of the other senior videogs I’d been in contact with during the Star contract told me that they would email each other back and forth to find out what ships would be available when it would be time to return for another contract.

The simple reason for this was there was no point requesting a ship that someone had already been assigned to so at the end of your contract you’d send an email to head office saying could you be considered for the following ships. As I was only still an acting senior I couldn’t really ask for anything but some of the other seniors said I should as from that point on as you are basically doing video head offices job for them and they are more liable to give you a ship you want if we’d all figured out who was going where and when for them.

Previously as a junior you’d have no idea where you were going next and once you were home it would be up to your countries own manning office, so for me Southampton would get in contact with you and send on your next contract. However dealing directly with head office over my extensions meant that unofficially I could contact head office in LA about my next ship.

I think I’d been home decompressing for about a month (so 6 weeks in total, with 2 weeks in Sydney) when I got an email from fleet personnel in LA asking me if I could join the Diamond Princess next week in of all places Sydney! If I’d known and could have afforded it I could have just spent another month in Sydney!

I knew that the Diamond wasn’t one of the ships that I’d requested as there was another English senior videographer who was due to go there, after a quick email around my friends in the fleet it turned out the guy who was down for the Diamond had quit the company and they desperately needed someone there as the current junior was there by himself and dear read can you guess who the junior videographer was…?

Yep, my racist, homophobic, general arsehole of a human being junior from the Star Chad was the junior videographer on the Diamond, but when I checked the roster the photo manager was Kirsty the assistant manager from my time on the Sun who I and everyone else got on really well with and one of the assistant managers was Scott my roommate from the Sapphire. Also looking at the rest of the department there was Cat who I’d worked with on the Coral and Sam who I’d worked with on the Sun, so I’d already worked with 5 of the team and got on great with 4 of them.

Then there was the itinerary which I hadn’t actually researched because I didn’t think the ship was available, I’d be joining in Sydney and have a few Australia cruises before we repositioned through Malaysia to China, South Korea, Japan, Cambodia & Vietnam. Then after the Asia season finished it was back to Alaska for 2 months at the end of the contract which meant I couldn’t film ashore but I knew how busy Asia was so it was very tempting as 2 months off in port at the end of a contract was also a great opportunity.

Adding to the fact that I had already been to most of these ports before in Alaska on the Coral and in Asia on the Sun so I had experience on the itinerary and knew the best tours to film, except this time I would be in charge of video as a confirmed senior videographer. It was a great run of ports on a Grand class ship with a great management team and friends from previous contracts but unfortunately it would also mean working once again with Chad who although a competent videographer as a person was a complete dick. Currently if I accepted I would have to work with Chad for another 4 months again, I had quite a big decision to make!