2 months and 17 days

Cruise 14 of 28

9:36pm local time

Heading to Mystery Island from Lifou, New Caledonia

Half way there. I’m half way through my contract. And I am tired. Pay day is my favourite day of the month and 11pm every night is the worst part of the day… When we find out our schedule for the next day. Except when we have meetings…. Those suck.

The team have found a balance, a way to work together even though everyones personalities don’t quite fit together as nicely as those on the Pearl did. I am meeting more guests that i’ve cruised with before though which is kind of cool. I would say work has become work, it has become normality. Some days I wonder how I could ever find a reason to complain about my job - take today for example, we were up early again for gangway but we spent the morning chilling in the sunshine, got a decent/okay roll count, saw a couple of HUGE sea turtles, a reef shark and spent time swimming around playing in the crystal clear blue sea…. How could there be something wrong with this job hey???… But then you look at days when you’ve been at sea/on IPM so you haven't seen sunlight for a week and your roll counts are low and your sales are low and everyones stressed and its ANOTHER formal night and you wonder why you’re here. Obviously money-wise you’re here because logistically earning £2something an hour here is a better way to save money than earning minimum wage at home (how ridiculous), but on the flip side if you’re doing a job you don’t enjoy when you’re as young as me, why stick it out? Then I remember, if I’m not here doing this, meeting awesome people and just having a few bad days here and there, what would I be doing?

At the end of the day, at least on ship I have nothing to spend my wages on if I really dont want to, meaning I can save enough to go to NZ to see Becci when I finish, and from there either fly home and figure out a few things before doing a little more travelling, waiting for James and Leonie’s baby to be born, working over summer for LEC again, and suddenly it’s already September again.

I guess my life revolves around a job that is very changeable and unreliable, which I think is a good way for me to live, or I feel like I would meticulously plan every small thing down to the T.

Either way I am on my way to saving some cash, plans to travel are being put into place and I generally feel rather neutrally about my job on a regular basis.

Something very different about being here this time is that I don’t feel homesick at all? I miss family and friends obviously but I’m not keeping up with people anywhere near as much and anything thats happening I’m excited/sad about but I don’t wish I was home for it. I am very excited for the feeling of getting on that aeroplane and knowing at the other end my parents will be waiting, that is on of the best feelings in my eyes.

Whether I’ll come back again I’m not sure, I guess every contract will be different - different management, team, ship, crew…. though the ports are likely to be similar, the sea itself is never the same so you never know what you’re in for really. I’m not sure this is a life I want to live for the foreseeable future though. Well, I know it’s not. I don’t want to be working on ship for the next 10 years and miss out on all the important events that come about in your 20’s.

Does anything important happen in your 20’s?

All I know is I’m looking for the next adventure, and I think I may have found it in the form of two of my colleagues and big plans to travel from the cape of South America to Alaska.