One Happy Girl

I got my camera yesterday! I bought it online at B&H photo and had it shipped to the Lindblad office in Seattle. Isaac, who did my orientation, was coming down to meet the ships for a few days and offered to bring my camera along with him. I decided to upgrade from my previous Canon Rebel XT to a bigger and better model, the Canon 40d. It’s a bit heavier and has a lot more options and controls to play with. I spent my time off yesterday in Los Cabos (the one and only touristy town in Baja) trying out different settings and taking pictures of everything. It feels so good to have a camera again! I wasn’t even too disappointed to find out that my zoom lens didn’t survive the dip in the sea, but my other lens is fine. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to borrow someone else’s lens until I can get my own. Next week is the start of the photo tour, so hopefully I’ll pick up some tips and show some pictures to the National Geographic photographers that will be on board (Not Michael Melford – he’ll be on for the photo tour in Alaska).

On another photography note… Lindblad staff write up a daily expedition report and post them on the website. A few days ago I went out with my friend Jason and took some pictures with his camera. They decided to use one of my images on that days report. You can see/read the account here

Check back here for daily reports on the Sea Lion.

Swimming with sea lions

I’m back where I embarked – marking the end of my first two weeks on the ship. We got into La Paz early this morning and spent the morning serving the guests breakfast and cleaning cabins. I got off around 1:40 and I’m now sitting against a tree in a small plaza with my computer on my lap. The past few days have been awesome. Yesterday I went snorkeling with sea lions and a baby swam up so close I could touch him. He gave me a few puppy nips in return though… After snorkeling I went on a short zodiac ride along the coast of a rocky island where sea lions were basking in the sun and sliding into the ocean from the rocks. The sun was going down, so we got to see a nice sunset as well.

Life on the ship is going well. I’m still liking it a lot. Next week I’ll be the early riser steward, so I’ll have to start setting up breakfast at 5:45. But I don’t have to clean as many cabins, which is good. Tomorrow is my day off and I’m hoping to spend it all outside. I don’t know what’s on the schedule yet, but hopefully I’ll have some good stories to tell.

I apologize for the lack of pictures but 1) I don’t have my own camera (although Jason, a naturalist, let me use his a couple of times, so I do have a few and 2) the internet connection on the ship is so slow that it won’t let me upload images. Maybe I’ll find an internet café somewhere, or if not, I’ll definitely upload some in Alaska. I ordered a really good camera online and a Lindblad employee is going to bring it down with him on Monday. I can’t wait! There has been so many picture opportunities that I’ve missed. Not this week, but the week after is the photo tour, so hopefully I’ll get some good tips and take lots of photos!

If anyone wants to write a letter or send a postcard, my address is. No packages though!

1415 Western Ave.
Suite 700 Seattle WA
98101

P.S. I just got an e-mail saying that one of my articles (The perfect city) will be published in Everywhere Mag’s print magazine! $100 and a free subscription! Check it out online!

I touched a whale!

I’m only in my first week on the Sea Lion and I’ve already touched a whale! It was so amazing. We’re in Magdalena Bay on the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula and I went out in a zodiac after lunch to look for gray whales. They were everywhere, but none seemed too interested in us until we started heading back to the ship. Another boat with crew in it was right next to a baby calf and we slowly made our way up to them. We were rewarded with a great big barnacled head up beside our zodiac. We were all leaning out over the side trying to touch him and splash and coax him closer and eventually we all managed to get a hand or two on his head. It didn’t feel as rubbery as I expected it would be – it was more squishy and soft. It was incredible! I hope I have more opportunities like this!

An outline of my day as Steward 1

6:00 am – Alarm goes off and I get dressed in the dark. I then make my way upstairs, fix myself a café au lait with soymilk and head out to the bow to watch the sunrise or sit in the dining room and read a book

6:45 am – Time to start setting up for breakfast. As steward 1, I’m in charge of getting the juice bar ready (putting glasses out and making labels for juices) then I help set up the rest of the breakfast buffet (bread for toast, jams, hot cereal, pouring coffee in urns, filling milk containers, putting out cold cereals, etc…)

7:15 – I go up to the sundeck on the top floor of the ship and count the number of people doing morning stretches with our fitness and wellness expert

7:20 – Start pouring smoothies into juice glasses and take the tray up to the morning stretch class

7:30 – Doors open for guest buffet breakfast. I pour coffee, clear plates, and do whatever guests ask me to do.

8:30ish – After guest breakfast is cleared and dishes are put away, crew goes through the buffet. I usually have fresh fruit with walnuts and a smoothie.

9:00ish – Time to clean cabins. I’m in charge of the top floor (third floor). There are seven cabins and it usually takes between 10 and 15 minutes to clean each one. First I make the bed (just pull up the sheets, pull up the duvet, put one pillow in a matching sleeve and the other under the duvet and place a smaller fancy pillow on top of both). Then I wipe off the sink, fold the towels nicely (if there are any on the floor, we replace them with fresh towels) and wipe and disinfect the toilet (that is inside the shower). Fold the toilet paper end into a triangle, vacuum, and I’m done. Not bad at all. It usually takes about an hour and a half, but I’m getting faster!

11:00 – Crew lunch. We all meet in the dining room and make our plate from the huge selection of food put out by the galley. There is always a ton of veggie dishes, which are amazing. My favorites so far have been veggie sushi, a chickpea stew, and tomato quinoa.

12:00 – Set up for guest lunch. Put silverware, glasses, napkins, salt and pepper, plates (if it isn’t buffet), and soup cups (if there’s soup) on the table. Brew coffee and make lemonade or iced tea.

12:30 – Guest lunch. Pretty much the same as breakfast, but we ladle out the soup and get refills if needed. After clean up we have until dinner off to do whatever we want (which usually means a shower, and getting off the ship in one way or another. Some crew sleep, but either I haven’t been here long enough or they have no desire to touch whales, walk on a beach strewn with sand dollars, or walk across sand dunes on a deserted island).

5:00 – Crew dinner. Same as lunch. Line up at the buffet, get our food and chat with other crewmembers.

6:00 – Set up for guest dinner. Again, same as lunch, but add wineglasses and extra forks, knives and spoons. Once we’re done setting up, we begin our rounds of ‘turn down’. Go into each cabin, fold the duvet down, puff up pillows, close the shade, place a chocolate on the sheets.

7:00 (or 7:30) – Guest dinner. The first time I served guest dinner, I had no idea what was going on. It was my first day on the ship and I had been up and working for 11 hours straight, so my head wasn’t functioning so well. The second night was much easier though. We let guests come in, sit and look over the wine list and menu (although they sign up for what they want that morning so the galley knows how much to cook). Then the senior steward and the hotel manager take their wine orders. After the wine is poured, we slide in and take their dinner order and answer any questions they have. They can either order the fish, meat or vegetarian option of the night or choose the steak, Caesar salad, or chicken that are available every night as alternatives. We bring the order to the galley, bring the salad/soup of the night to the table and move on to the next guests. When the food is up, the stewards each take two plates and once we’re situated around the table at the right spot, we serve the women first (always to the left), then the men. It’s like a dance. When the ship is moving, things can get pretty interesting – trying to balances plates and glasses while trying to stay on our feet…

8:30ish – Guests usually leave the dining room and we’re left to clean up. If things go well, we get out by 9:30 and have a couple hours to get off our feet and relax.

Sleep.

In Mourning

Yesterday dinner was a beach BBQ. Everything was going great (except when I stepped on a dead puffer fish), it was a beautiful night and the sunset was amazing. On the way back to the boat, however, the push-off and on the zodiacs took a turn for the worst. I had to quickly jump in while the boat was moving out to sea and in the act my camera bag met the sea… I tried to get the camera out as soon as possible, but it still got pretty wet. The engineer on board (Pedro) was very helpful- drying it off and taking it down to the engine room to dry, but unfortuately it still won’t turn on. He doesn’t think it’s totally gone, just short-circuited, but I still feel lost without it. There’s pictures to take everywhere! I haven’t decided whether I want to try to get it fixed or if I’m going to get a new one…. Here are some pics that I got off before my camera met it’s demise.

5 days, 4 states, 2 countries, and not nearly enough sleep

Since I left Maui, I feel like I’ve been on the move non-stop. There’s so much that has happened and so many places I’ve been in such a short time that I’m just going to outline my travels day by day.

Tuesday, March 4th
Spent the morning packing, cleaning the house, and taking Rishi for his last walk into Makawao. My flight to Seattle for orientation was supposed to be at 3:50, So I had a friend pick me up around 1:30 to bring me to the airport. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed until 7:30, so I spent my last five hours on Maui in the airport. The flight was uneventful… I slept a little bit and read some magazines. We arrived in Seattle at…

Wednesday, March 5th
3 am and after picking up my luggage, I took a taxi to the hotel. For those who don’t know, Lindblad pays for all hotels and airfare and we get reimbursed for the meals we eat and taxi rides on travel days as well as regular pay. Pretty sweet. The hotel was nice, but I was exhausted, so I went right to bed. 8 am I get a phone call from Billie Jo in the Lindblad offices. She said to take a taxi to the office at 10 to go over orientation and all other necessary details. We didn’t drive through the city, so I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see Seattle, but I guess I’ll just have to go back.
I met another steward, Eric, who was starting the same day as me and Isaac, a Lindblad office employee, went over some basic info with us and outfitted us with our uniforms (3 dress shirts, 3 blue polos, 3 white polos, a zip up red fleece, several t-shirts, a belt, and a hat). Needless to say, I had to do some major repacking. After orientation, which took about 3 hours, Eric and I grabbed some lunch and strolled around town. Our flight to Portland was at 5:30, so we loaded our bags into a taxi and headed off to the airport once again.
For some reason, we were on different flights, so I asked to get on standby for Eric’s flight. As boarding time neared, Eric’s flight got cancelled, but I still managed to get on another earlier standby flight. This meant that I would arrive in Portland 2 hours before Eric, but my bags would be on Eric’s plane. So we basically had to sit in two different airports for two hours. The joy’s of travelling.
After we finally reunited with each other and our bags, we took a taxi to our second hotel in downtown Portland. Although both of us were exhausted, we couldn’t help but explore for an hour or so before bedtime.

Thursday, March 6th
The reason for flying to Portland was to do an alcohol training course so we could be certified to serve alcohol under Oregon’s state laws. The class started at 10, so Eric and I took the bus to the pizza place where it was being held. I’m very impressed with Oregon’s public transport system. Buses run every 15 minutes, they’re always on time and they can take you anywhere in the city.
The class lasted about 3 hours, but it wasn’t as painful to sit through as I feared it would be. Most of the information was interesting and our ‘teacher’ was rather humorous.
We had the whole afternoon to explore the city, so we walked around downtown and took in the sights. I really like Portland. It’s clean, there’s lots of cool stores and lots of things going on. The buses are great and I had the best vegan meal I’ve ever had – taco salad with vegan/raw crumbles (don’t ask me what there were, they were just good), avacado, cashew cream, and flax seed crackers at Blossoming Lotus restaurant. I was, however, rather disappointed with China Town -  there wasn’t really anything Chinesey about it except lampposts painted red and decorated with gold tassels.

Friday, March 7th
An early flight out of Portland. We left the hotel at 4:45 am and took the free bus to the airport. where we then flew to Los Angeles. In the terminal we met a chef who was going to work on the Sea Lion’s (my ship) sister ship, the Sea Bird. Nothing too excited happened on the way down to La Paz, Mexico.
At the La Paz airport we met up with three more Lindblad employees. Jake and Brock were joining us on the Sea Lion as engineers and Cathrine, who just started working in the office, was taking a ‘business trip’ to see what goes on aboard the ships.
After clearing customs, we grabbed a taxi and headed to our third and final hotel, Los Arcos, in La Paz. La Paz is a small, semi-touristy town near the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. We stowed our bags in our rooms and Brock, Jake, Eric and I headed out to explore the town. We ended up at a bar and while shooting some pool, Brock and Jake, who have worked on the ship before, filled us in on ship life and what to expect.

Saturday, March 8th
Vacation has officially ended. Today was my first day on the ship. After coffee and some breakfast, Jake took me to meet the ship and the dock. I knew the ship was small, but it is much smaller than I thought. Not even close to the monstrous cruise ships I saw in Hawaii. From 8 am to 10 pm was a whirl of information, chores, orientation, and everything in between. They wasted no time in throwing us into ship life. After stashing our bags in the lounge, we had a tour of a ship and were shown how to clean cabins. Saturdays are usually turnaround days, which means guests get off and the ship pretty much gets turned upside down and then put back together again. We also got two big truck deliveries, which meant a lot of lifting, walking and sweating. I can’t even remember what all we did, but when guests came on at 6 and dinner rolled around, I was so exhausted that dinner service seemed overly complicated and I felt like I would never get it down. This is a long post, so I won’t go into the details of serving meals now.
Anyway, after we were done serving and cleaning up, I headed straight to my ‘room’ (which is more like a closet shared with two other people – my favorite part is the toilet in with the shower). I set my alarm clock for 6 am and crashed, hoping that when I woke up in the morning I would remember that I only have about a foot of space above me.

Sunday, March 8th
Today was much better. I had had time to process all the information thrown at me and I knew, more or less, what I need to do. There are 6 stewards and each week we have a different position. This week I’m steward 2, which means I help set up and serve breakfast then clean my designated cabins (7 in all), which takes about an hour and a half. Then I help set up and serve lunch and then I have until dinner setup to go to the beach, take a hike with the guests, or sleep. It’s a lot of work, but I like to be kept busy. The crew is awesome and everyone seems to get along well. The chefs know I’m vegan, so they make sure I have something to eat at crew meals (the food is excellent) and the captain is all for having the crew members go out snorkeling with the guests or ride in the zodiacs on their time off.

In short, I’m having a great time, seeing some incredible things (blue whales, dive bombing pelicans and sea lions!), meeting lots of new people, and soaking up the Mexican sun!

Pictures to come!