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| Our sweet hair nets |
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| Rope swing |
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| Me looking stylish |
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| The bottom of the drop of death |
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| One of the tree platforms |
Yesterday we had a Charlie drill. This is a drill to practice for a security threat to the ship. In this drill we were searching for a bomb that was placed somewhere in the ship. My area to search is the theatre, but I first have to search the Broadcast room. So I searched the Broadcast room and then returned to the theatre where the other assigned crew members had apparently finished searching. Just as I arrived the Staff Captain and a few other officers walked into the theatre and as soon as I saw them I knew the search missed something.
Well the Staff Captain opened up a locker near the entrance to the theatre and hidden way in the back was a pipe bomb. We were all dead. Or mostly dead. They passed out pieces of paper that either said "dead" or had some sort of injury written on it. We were instructed to spread out in the theatre and assume our dead or injured state. Minutes later the medics and stretcher teams arrived and began to "treat" the victims and move them to a safer location. They were also simulating a helicopter medivac so many of the victims were carried on stretchers to the helipad. It was a very realistic drill and a reminder that something like this could actually happen on the ship or anywhere for that matter.
After I miraculously recovered from my abdominal bleeding and shrapnel wounds, I felt well enough to go zip lining in St. Lucia. 26 crew members, mostly Cruise Division and some Casino, had signed up for this trip so we all boarded a rickety bus around noon and headed into the rain forest. As is the case with any trip in a taxi on the islands, the ride was almost as exciting as the excision itself.
After a few near misses we finally arrived at our destination in one piece. We were instructed to rid ourselves of anything that could fall or get caught in the pulleys (sunglasses, lose clothes, etc) and then began to suit up in the harnesses. We also had to wear some stylish hairnets under our helmets to make sure no hair was caught in the pulleys. With the hairnets, helmets and harnesses we looked like we were ready to serve lunch to an angry mob of hungry teenagers.
After a quick lesson and practice run on a short, slow zip line we hiked deeper into the rainforest and climbed up a super sketchy set of stairs to a platform in the trees. From here we began to zip from one tree to another. Occasionally we would hike to another area and then zip from tree to tree to tree. We also encountered the occasional rope swing to take us over gaps in the terrain. At one point we did a really long zip line to a little platform about 80 feet up a skinny tree. And when I say skinny tree I mean the tree literally moved back and forth about 2 feet whenever someone would zip over to it. If you didn't hold onto the tree you were mostly likely going to lose your balance and well, that wouldn't end well. There were 7 of us in our group with two guides. One guide would zip to the other end first and be there to make sure you stopped and didn't slam into the tree and the other would help you attach to the zip line on the starting tree.
So picture nine of us all crowed on this tiny platform 80 feet up in a tree that had the rigidity of a piece of licorice. It was pretty crazy. Well we suddenly noticed that there was not another zip line attached to the tree. How were we to get out of the tree you ask? Well we asked the same question and our eyes were directed to a small hole cut out in the platform. It became apparent that we were going to literally drop out of the tree. One at a time we hooked a rope up to our harnesses that ran through a loop a few times and then back down to the ground where someone (hopefully trustworthy) held the other end. We slowly suspended ourselves over the hole and the guide made sure were were centered so when we dropped we didn't whack ourselves on the platform. Then FOOOM! It was a 70 feet free fall out of the tree and then a sudden deceleration at the end as the person holding the opposite end of the rope applied pressure. It was absolutely insane and I loved it. I think everyone, myself included, screamed or yelled on the way down. It was a really cool excision and we were all pretty whipped when we returned to the ship later that afternoon. I have about 30,000 pictures and video of the entire thing but of course the internet is too slow to upload any video so you'll just have to take my word for it: It was awesome.
A not so exciting thing that happened yesterday was that the Serenade went to OPP Level 2. OPP is Outbreak Prevention Plan and it is implemented to prevent the spread of GI cases or Noroviruses which are a big threat to a ship environment as they spread very easily. We go into Level 2 when G.I. cases exceed .5% of guests or 1% of crew. Apparently a guest must have caught the virus in San Jaun and then the symptoms developed after we set sail. Level 2 means the entire ship in constantly being cleaned (high traffic areas every 30 minutes!) with something called Oxivir Five 16 and in some places a chlorine solution. It's a pain because crew members like me (although I'm lucky and haven't been put into labor yet) have to clean places like the theatre and handrails on top of their normal duties. If the number of cases continues to rise, the Level is escalated and all self-service food stops and we the crew have to serve the guests. There is also no shore leave. Let's hope this doesn't happen!
