Road to Recovery

Let me clear things up.  For those of you that think I simply ponce around the oceans of the world having fun – I have just experienced my most physical trip yet, and it was also one of the shortest.

The boat is 2 crew members down at the moment and the boss does not want to replace them.  Add to that the fact that we have a Captain that believes he is exempt from any form of physical work apart from flirting with the Boss’s female guests and you will begin to understand what has just happened.

Friday morning at 06:30 my alarm rang, time to wake up.  Prepare the boat to leave for Ibiza.  08:30, lines are off and we are on the way – about 6 hours or so to our destination.  First suggestion is that the boss will arrive by 20:00 so no big deal, we will be safely anchored off his new pad well before that.

Then the plans started changing.  We were in place and ready to receive by 16:00 but the plane would be later, now arriving at 22:00.  Easy, relax for a couple of hours.

The chef has the food prepared, the Stewardess has the tables made, all the beds turned down, perfect.  Then the call, it will be midnight before the plane lands.

Guest arrival at the boat is now estimated for 00:30.  The next dilemma is can the chef, Jean-Claude keep the food in a good condition, will the guests want to eat at all?  Arriving so late, they might just want to hit the sack.

Of course they want to eat – by the time they do so, retire and we get the boat settled for the evening it is now 03:00 – that’s a 20 hour day in the bag

Next day, up at 06:30 again to help the Mate get the deck ready as he has no deck hand.  Once the deck is completed, I can switch to washing, helping the stewardess as she is also short-handed.  Load the washing machine, unload the washing machine, load the dryer, unload the dryer.  Then into the Galley to help the Chef, chop chop, wash dishes, clean up.

Guests are up, and want to start filming and photographing the boat for its impending sale, so lets start doing our routine tasks over and over again so they can get good pictures and video.

Eventually, we get to evening service once more.  Another late one – 02:00 finish and I am looking forward to an extra hour in bed, a whole four and a half hours of sleep in front of me!!

It wasn’t to be my night though – ships alarm had me out of bed at 03:00.

After that – the  next 4 days seemed to blur into one another until we arrived in Palma again at 00:15 this morning, some 6 days later.  When we got in, I was so shattered, I felt like I had just crossed the Atlantic while clinging onto the boat for dear life.  I have never had such a busy trip as that.  At one point, the boat was so full of guests and film crew, we had 3 people sleeping on sofas – there are 16 beds on this boat !  Everyone had different arrival and departure times, most people kept changing their times and of course we had to go sailing too so that we could make some aerial films of the boat under sail.

We are due back in Ibiza on the 27th so that the furniture crew can stay on board while they deal with the boss’s house.  Thankfully, I have a flight booked from Ibiza to Mallorca on 31st, and then on to sunny Birmingham shortly after that.

I then have two full months of nothing – to which, I am greatly looking forward to.  I think I might turn my phone off too