DAY 8

Today we are in Akureyri, Iceland.

Every morning when I get to the workshop I check my emails and the hotel defect system. The hotel defect system is a database accessible to all departments where defects can be entered for other departments. So if a light in a passenger cabin burns out, the accommodation supervisor inputs a defect into the system for the electrical department, then the lampman replaces the bulb. Small jobs always go to the hotel defect system. Bigger jobs go to the AMOS system which deals with more important equipment like the lifts, fire detection system, engines, radar, etc.

To start there was a lift out of service this morning. It had gone up past the topmost floor and activated a safety device called the final limit switch. Luckily there was nobody in the lift when this happened or they would have been trapped for as long as it would take me to move the lift back down. It didn’t take me long though because I knew what to do and got the lift working again within about 10 minutes.

Later on one of the 2ETOs asked if I could help him out by going somewhere under one of the main engines he couldn’t fit. I didn’t have much on at the moment so I said sure. Then he proceeded to tell me I’d need to wear a disposable chemical suit over top of my overalls, plastic foot coverings, and plastic gloves. Apparently it would be quite dirty down there, and it was.

It really was a tight squeeze and I felt mildly claustrophobic as I crouched in a small niche under one of the main engines. The job was simple though. All I had to do was remove a temperature sensor from its position in a large pipe (used to carry lube oil to the engine) and pass it to the 2ETO where he waited with a thermal calibration unit. He would make sure the Engine monitoring system was working properly by heating the sensor over the normal operating range to see if the proper alarms were activated in the Engine Control Room. When that was done I just popped the sensor back in its place and squiggled out from the hole I had just spent 10 minutes in.

After that I fixed a low location lighting problem. These lights are situated practically at floor level and come on in case of poor visibility in passenger corridors so that people can crawl to the nearest exit and safe area.

A few of the senior officers went for a round of golf at supposedly the most northern 18-hole golf course in the world. It was such a nice day that many of them came back with sun burnt faces. A fishing trip was also organized and several officers went out tried their luck with the hook and line. A few managed to catch some cod up to 20 pounds heavy. They also returned a bit redder than when they had left.

The food at lunch was hit-and-miss. There was a good soup, cream of leek and stilton, and some good sandwiches. The braised beef was undercooked and the other stuff just looked weird. Dessert was a common cakey thing with custard.

After lunch the other 2ETO and I went to the forward most radar and opened it up to do a routine inspection. This is not my job but I didn’t have a lot on and it was an opportunity to learn a job that I’ll be doing when I move up a rank (hopefully soon!).

Last thing for the day was to do a random test of the fire detectors in one whole zone. The ship is divided horizontally into five zones starting with 1 in the front and ending with 5 in the back. You can think of it in the same way the ship is divided vertically into decks. So I sit in the Bridge Safety centre where the fire detection system monitoring equipment is, and someone else (usually a technician) goes around with a can of fake smoke and tests all of the detectors on a list I make.

After work I went up for dinner at the conservatory with a couple of my fellow officers. The buffet was Best of British, which sounds a bit daunting. It is actually not too bad. There was steak and kidney pie, fish and chips, welsh rarebit, but oddly enough no haggis, among other things. I didn’t feel like much and just went for the fish and chips and some salad. I have been up before and have probably tried everything at some point.

After dinner I went for a quick stroll around the open decks and then headed to bed.