Transhipping Take 1. & A trip to Stone Island

I'd really enjoyed my time so far on the Sapphire but from day 1 onboard I knew I'd be transhipping when the ship repositioned to Alaska due to their new state law concerning non-US citizens working ashore. Rich had left & with Jason the new senior onboard I'd be departing within the next two weeks but as usual we had heard nothing from head office on where I was going next and as I'd been working stupid hours I was encouraged to have a day of in port.

We were in Mazatlan and like most of the best unplanned adventures from ship days I bumped into some other crew and we decided to take a boat over to a place called Stone Island.

The beach seemed to go as far as the eye could see and it was just nice to grab a few cold Pacifico's and relax on the beach until it was time for us to ride a banana boat dragged by a speedboat!

If we'd had the time (and money) we could have also rented beach buggys although I think the amount of alcohol we'd already drunk would have given us issues too!

It was one of those great unplanned days where its a wednesday morning and back home your friends are at work, looking after their kids, doing the housework and shopping for food while I was drinking beer on the beach in Mexico, swimming in the crystal clear waters and marauding around drunkenly on a banana boat, as a typical wednesday it was pretty perfect.

After I'd go back to the ship and slept for a quick hour power nap, Jason paged me down to the video room and told me my tranship information had come in, as I knew I wouldn't be going to Alaska because that would be insance right? Could I be off to Europe. Australia or Asia? 'We'll you off to the Golden Princess' Jason told me, 'But wait isn't that doing Alaska too?' A quick check of the head office shipping schedule showed that indeed the Golden would be doing a 7 day Alaska cruise exactly the same as the Sapphire as the ship I was already on!

To say I was gutted was an understatement and this was a valuable lesson in which I learned head office would say anything to get you on a ship when they are short a videographer, but also it made no sense I was already on a ship that was going to Alaska so why would they still move me? Although Jason was Canadian he was married to an American and he could work in the States, perhaps head office had simply forgotten that fact, also Jason was one of the most experienced seniors in the company at the time and he had a direct link to video head office which was a valuable connection for me still stuck as a junior level 2 on my 3rd contract. Despite a heavy workload, it had been a great contract with no mangement or senior issues and I had gotten on well with all my department and others onboard and if I was going to be stuck in Alaska i'd have rather stayed on the ship I was comfortable on (and with essentially my own cabin!)

The great news continued to trickle down when I found out my senior on the Golden was going to be some crazy girl from New Zealand who would only be on her second contract while I was on my 3rd, coming off the back of the world cruise success I was still pissed off that I hadn't got a promotion and now I was going to be a junior to someone with one less contract than me. I asked around the team to see if anyone had worked with her and when I found someone who had their reaction was 'We'll shes really nice but they made her senior?' So utter disbelief from someone who had worked with her and liked her.

Jason was honest enough to say he wanted an American junior onboard because as he could film as well, that would mean they could double tour and take turns filming ashore when needed to stop each other getting burnt out filming every single port day, this he hoped would give them a sales advantage over the other ships in Alaska who many would only have one American videog.

It's that strange thing where as a videog you really are supposed to be out filming ashore in port everyday as that is your main job and you do see more of the ports than many other crew members but once in a while you just needed a day off without a camera in your hand and answering relentless questions from PAX. Still I about to head to Alaska for the 3rd time and for four months this time, yet I would be unable to go ashore and film anything and have a senior with less ship experience than me. The worst thing was having to leave a great ship with a good team that I fully got on well with and had worked with two great experienced senior videogs and start from scratch once again a few months into the contract.

On the next cruise diaries - A tranship twist and my last days on the Sapphire.