DAY 1

I am typing on my laptop sitting at a desk in my cabin (1101) aboard the Artemis. It is Sunday August 1st, 2010. The day’s events are as follows…

I wake up at 0700 and turn off my alarm clock. doh. I sleep until the phone wakes me up. It is Marian and he asks me if he should call the taxi to take us to the Artemis now since it is already 0830. I say yes and that I will be right down. I could’ve had breakfast if I had gotten up when my alarm went off. Waah!

Marian, Al, and I take the taxi to the Artemis and board the ship. Everything about the ship is still clear in my mind even though I haven’t even thought about it once in my three and a half weeks away from it. I take my luggage to my cabins, and then I take my passport and declaration of health to the crew office. Chimayne is there to greet me with a smile and tell me it is good to have me back and other nice things. My face must not have reflected extreme joy since she kept asking me if I was alright to be back so soon.

I head to the Engine Control Room to say hello to the engineers on the 8-12 watch. It is Patrick and Kieran. After a quick chat with them I go to the Technical Office to greet my head of department the SETO Phil. The SETO tells me the first priority is getting lift 10 back in service since the passengers’ baggage needs to be taken up to their cabins by the stewards during embarkation.

I head down to the electrical workshop to meet anyone that happens to be down there at the moment. I meet the 2nd ETOs Steve and Robbie, both nice guys; former English, latter Scottish.

At about 1830 I get my entire head shaved by the lampman, then I go to the gym for an hour before dinner. I go up to the wardroom for dinner at 2030 because tonight is a special Pub Dinner, which is only on turnaround nights. The food is ok. I had some asian noodle dish similar to chow mein, some breaded chicken, fish sticks, jacket potatoes, and steamed broccoli. For dessert there was some blueberry cake.

It was good to see many of the people that were still here when I left less than a month ago. There are some new faces as well and they all seem like nice people so I look forward to a good contract.

After dinner I studied German for about 15 minutes before going to bed.