DAY 0

I am here in Southampton, typing on my laptop, sitting at a desk in my hotel room. It is Saturday July 31st, 2010. The day’s events were as follows…


I spent the morning of my departure packing and preparing myself for the nearly 4 month contract ahead. I had lunch with my dad, which was a good chance to have a final conversation before I left since he wouldn’t be dropping me off at the airport.

I arrived at the airport with my mom at around 1900h Vancouver time. She dropped me off at the domestic departures terminal because I thought that I had a stop in Toronto. However when I went to check in my baggage, the woman looked at my flight details and told me that I had a direct flight to London, which meant I was in the wrong terminal. I needed to get to the international departures terminal quickly to check-in my bags to the plan that was scheduled to leave in less than 90 minutes…

Luckily, the international terminal is only a 5 minute walk (2 minute run!) away. Fortunately everything went smoothly checking in my bags and boarding the plane.

I was seated next to a blonde woman with a heavy Swedish accent from coquitlam who was travelling to Stockholm, Sweden to visit her family. We talked for a bit throughout the flight. She is a landed immigrant and, since she has been living in Canada for more than 3 years, thinks she would like to get her citizenship within the next year or so.

We arrived in Heathrow airport at around 1330h London time a day after I had left Vancouver. After exiting the plane I got my bags in good time, but it was for naught as I had to wait around for my driver to Southampton. When I couldn’t find the driver after 40 minutes, I went to find a taxi to take me there instead. However, when the taxi driver informed me that it would be about 220 pounds I told him I’d go take another look around for my driver. As soon as I went in, I found the man holding the sign with my name on it. He told me he was late because another person he was picking up was delayed coming in on a different flight.

The other person was a guy named Joseph “Joey” Clinton, a third deck officer. We talked for a bit on the drive from the airport to the hotel. He is due to join the Arcadia tomorrow. He is originally from Gibraltar and has only been with the company since last October. He has only sailed on the Arcadia, but after this contract he plans to be transferred to the Queen Victoria for a change of scenery.

The driver was a friendly man who said he was born in Canadian and had spent most of his youth growing up around Toronto. He has been living permanently in England since he was about 21 (he is 53 now), and it shows because he has an English accent now. He drove us the almost 2 hours to Southampton in a Mercedes; I forget the model but it was nice.

I got to the Premier Inn, signed in, collected my meal voucher (10 pounds for dinner woot!) and went up to settle into my room 428.

I went to dinner at around 1915. I called Joey before I went up but he didn’t answer his phone so I thought I would just dine alone. I had just ordered my main course when Marian - 1st Engineering Officer whom I met on my last contract on the Artemis - appeared before me and asked if he could join me. I said of course and he told me that a few other people joining the Artemis were staying at the same place. Martyn Davies, Al Baterna, Malcolm Draper, are the ones he mentioned.

After we finished dinner we spotted Al sitting at a table and had a few friendly words with him.

Marian and I went for an evening stroll down High Street and found a few pubs that looked promising. The first one we decided to go into was being used for a private party and so they wouldn’t let us in. Boo. The next one was ok and it was probably better because it was huge inside. There were people celebrating a stag and some women dressed up as nuns, which seemed to liven up the place.

I only had one Guinness and Marian a Foster’s. We talked about how we each had spent our leave. He told me he spent a week in Varna on the beach and the rest of the time in his city just chilling.

After we finished our drinks we wandered back to the hotel and decided to meet in the lobby at around 0830 to call a taxi to take us to the Artemis.