So much for the sun - we've suddenly got thick fog in the space of about 20 mins. I was alerted to this when teh watertight door that is about a foot from my cabin door closed, amid much noise! From the top deck I can't see the water, which is weird.
posted by Simon Friday, June 27, 2003
Arctic Ocean
Or is it Norwigian sea, I wonder? I loose track, adn need to look at a chart!
We actually entered the arctic circle at 0630 this morning. What more to say... it's cold and windy out ther, but not as cold as one might expect - I'm still goign for walks on deck in a t-shirt, as long as the sun is out!
posted by Simon Friday, June 27, 2003
Written offline, 26/06/2003
It looks like we won't get a satellite link for the next few days - as we go further north the satellites are closer to the horizon, so they can easily be hidden behind mountains, etc. I think last time I posted was in Bergen?
Andalsnes was nice. A pleasant small town amid amazing scenery. which was unfortnately covered in cloud. I wandered around and took too many photos. I did notice, while we were anchored out in the fjord, that the diesel fumes from our tenders tended to linger, trapped by the mountainsides. It brings home the fact that while the locals must make a lot out of tourism, we do pollute.
Which is a big concern of the people of Spitsbergen (mostly scientific staff nowdays) - we've been sent a list of Dos and Don'ts. And a rather gruesome postcard trying to make people take the polar bears seriously.
We'll be there in two days. Today was Trondheim, which was a pretty uninteresting place with some nice bits. The cathedral was beautifully lit - somebody had taken the trouble to design it. I also visited the maritime museum. The clouds had finally cleared, which makes it a shame that we've come beyond the really steep fjords. But it did mean that I was walking around a city at ~64deg North in shorts!
The time now is 2200 and the sun is still strong. It feels like it would around half an hour before sunset at home. Sunset is technically at 2337 today, btu last night it never actually got dark - the daylight outside at 0130 and the interior illumination were probably of a similar brightness. Sometime tomorrow (I think) we actually cross the Arctic circle.
posted by Simon Friday, June 27, 2003
Andalsnes
This is a little villiage at the head of a fairly short fjord. Yesterday we were in Bergen, which was a nice place. Mel and I wandered aroudn the town and then took a funicular railway up to the top of a (smallish) mountain to overlook teh town. Except that half way up everything went white, and we found were were in teh cloud! It was still fun.
I'm In-port manning this morning, so will be heading ashore by tender in about 15 mins. Simon's Summary Of Norway so far (well, teh West coast anyway): Amazing scenery, and low cloud to obscure it. We had about an hour of "wow, snow-capped mountains" after I got up and then teh cloud came down. Oh well... the weather is forecast to clear tomorrow, for Trondheim.
I had quite a bad sore throat yesterday, but not in a tonsillitus-type-way. Today is better but still there. I'm fine in teh days but get tired really fast in the evenings. But slowly improving, I think.
posted by Simon Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Southampton
OK, I'm mostly well again now. I came off the antibiotics two days ago and yesterday started to feel dodgy again... but hopefully it will pass and not relapse. I can't afford another cruise ill, stuff won't get done.
The charter we just had was boring, but restful - apart from a couple of minor shows there's very little for us to do, as they bring their own technical people.
Starting today is the cruise i've really been looking forward to, up the Norwegian coast. It will be busy too.......
News is that I've accepted a followon contract on Oceana. I shall get off Oriana on the 19th July, and join Oceana the next day on the 20th. So all the people I said I'd see after two months, I'm afraid it's more like four - I'll be back on 14th September. This does, unfortunately, mean that I won't be in Edinburgh this summer. If anybody feels like visiting me in Southampton on a turnaround day and looking round the ship, let me know a few weeks in advance and I can probably arrange something.
posted by Simon Sunday, June 22, 2003
La Rochelle
My first time here, and a rather nice place. I wandered around by the two towers, as one does, and also near the ship saw what must be WW2 U-boat pens - very large, VERY solid concrete things at the end of channels.
This morning's set build went badly. Partly because it is the most complicated one and the regular SM on here doesn't write anything down or label consistently, but mostly because I was being incredibly lethargic and slow-witted. Maybe this is the aftermarth of being ill. Maybe it's due to the antibiotics I'm still taking. But it is affecting my work, and comign after tonsillitus I simply hope glandular fever isn't involved... it's rather frustrating to go to bed early to get eight whole hours of sleep, and wake up more tired the next morning.
posted by Simon Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Lisbon
Back here again... and this time I might be able to get off the ship and be ashore here for the first time since the summer of 1998. This place is very nostalgic for me... and this dock seems very sad and empty without the bustle of the tall ships race all around it. In the end, it's just another city dock.... (of course)
I'm mostly feeling better now - not 100%, I'm still needing to sleep during the day to get thru the evening, but I'm working OK again. In order to allow myself a rest before rehearsal, I probably won't have more than a couple of hours ashore. But as it's the first time I'll have been off this cruise, it's worth it!
posted by Simon Sunday, June 15, 2003
Vigo
I've been quiet recently. This is because I have tonsillitus. Which is unpleasent. As I'm apparently not infectious, I have to carry on working... which of course probably slows my recovery. Grr.
Still, hopefulyl this might have been the reason for my tiredness.
posted by Simon Saturday, June 14, 2003
PS - I apologise here and now for the accuracy of my typnig at present. The keyboards on here are really nasty and squishy...
posted by Simon Tuesday, June 10, 2003
North Sea
On the way home now, via Amsterdam (tomorrow morning). *really* hard to get out of bed today. I had quite a lot of sleep, and yet I seem to be in a state of perpetual tiredness. Which isn't good, as it means I just come across dopey. Maybe it's dietary, maybe it's due to a noisy cabin (but that doesn't actually stop me sleeping), maybe it's medical, maybe it's random... I also have acheing fingers which I think I'll haev to have looked at in case there's a small fracture - I smashed them against some steelwork a week ago and they still hurt... Um. I'm falling to bits!
Anyway, I just found an entry I wrote offline a few days ago and forgot to post:
Stockholm
Well, I finally got ashore for a few hours, with Mel, a rather cute photographer :-)
We had lunch in a little cafe-type-thing on a canal bank, and paid around £6 each for mushroom crepes. They were very nice, but it did bring home how expensive Stockholm is!
We then wandered through the city, and found a church where all of the Swedish royal family are buried or commemorated. The thing that first attracted me to it, from a distance, was the spire. From a distance it looks like a normal gothic (well, maybe. I don't know my architectural styles too well) stone spire. When you come closer, or see it with teh sun behind, you realise that it's actually made of metal and that this shape has holes all through it - it's more of a latticework than a solid structure! Nice...
Stockholm seems a beautiful city, probably due partly to the amount of water involved, and partly to the buildings, and one I'd like to return to for a least a weekend to explore. I'll need quite a bit of spare cash to do that though...
Right, I now have to go and move a white grand piano up to the outside deck for sailaway...!
--- LATER ---
Well, we got the piano there, and the sailaway performance happened, with the minor srawback that the sailing away bit was missing - we left two hours late due to fixing an engine! When the ship eventually did leave, I was able to get quick looks outside to see the scenery, which was gorgeous.
Soemone just pointed out to me that the main town hall square Tallin is the one in which Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was filmed - i hadn't noticed it at the time, but now that they mention it...!
posted by Simon Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Copenhagen
I did eventually get into Stockholm for a few hours - it's a beautiful place, and somewhere i'd love to go back to for a weekend to explore properly. We were then an hour and a half late in sailing as one of the engines had to be fixed. AIUI we're now running on three engines, so our top speed is slightly reduced and so we arrived late in Copenhagen and are leaving an hour late to provide some compensation.
Where we're moored is about 30mins walk from the town, and is close to a large number of wind turbines, both on the shore and just off it. It seems that much of this area's power comes from wind energy, and judging by the weather today I can quite believe it!
In Copenhagen we walked in and went to Tivoli, via the Little Mermaid, simply because those are the things you're supposed to do when in Copenhagen. Had a really nice lunch within Tivoli gardens, except that it cost a fortune - a combination of an expensive place and being in an amusement park. Now back on board, Elvis rehearsed, and waiting to sail.
A day at sea tomorrow, then Amsterdam for half a day (which I doubt I'll get off for), followed by Southampton - time to buy the stuff I've discovered I need...
posted by Simon Monday, June 09, 2003
Still stockholm
And I still haven't got ashore here... I forgot to talk about Helsinki!
There didn't seem to be a great deal to see here, tourist-wise... architecturally it's a strange city - no building seems to fit with it's neighbour, and you can find any style if you look hard enough. According to my local guide, Anna, this is largely because various rulers at various times (Finnish, Swedish or Russian) decided that buildings were required and built areas in their own style.
It was good to meet Anna, who I'd never seen before. A local insight is always fascinating, besides which she seems a thoroughly nice person!
posted by Simon Saturday, June 07, 2003
Stockholm
Right, it's been a few days...
Talinn - a beautiful place, and a very dusty place. The former postly due to all the old buildings, the latter due to all the building works - I ended up wearing sunglasses because of dust rather than sun! But VERY photogenic. I took a walk along the city walls, and then climbed up to the top of the town.
St. Petesburg - Well... this is a city where every second building (at least in the centre) is one that, if placed anywhere else, would be hailed as an architectural masterpiece. I did a tour to the Catherine Palace in the nearby tonw of Pushkin, which was impressive. Also the guide along the way gave a lot of info on the seige of Leningrad, which was interesting. Then in the evening I got a cab into town with one other and looked around the winter palace square, and found the Church of Our Saviour of the Spilt Blood. Which is a very long name for a church...
On board ship... well, things are mixed. The last couple of days I've got the impression that I'm not really accepted by the rest of my department. Perhaps because I don't drink, and I don't go ashore with them but prefer to explore alone, and tend to talk to other people in the bar, in the hope that I'll meet some of teh rest of teh crew. It's a more close-knit team than on Aurora, and this means it's less tolerant of those who are a bit different in certain ways. Also, the guy I'm taking over from knows I'm off Aurora and is constantly trying to prove that Oriana is better... as if I'd ever actually said the opposite. And he WILL NOT STOP TALKING! He seems to be under teh impression that I'm barely competent and that if he doesn't tell me everything I might ever need to know for anythign that might happen in two months (at least twice), I won't be able to figure it out for myself...
I'm not sure why the production department is smaller here. It certainly means that everyone gets a lot less free time, and less time off in port.
Oh well.......
posted by Simon Saturday, June 07, 2003
Baltic Sea
Yesterday was Travemunnde. Getting off the ship was delayed somewhat due to one of the dancers hurting her back and our having to change the show, including building a different set, that morning. The place is a beach resort, and feels as such, but it's a nice one. Apart from teh really dire hot dog and chips that I had for lunch..... It was quite a cheap place too, unlike everywhere else on this cruise. I couldn't look at camera stuff due to my lack of German, but I did stock up on biscuits!
So, the ship. Oriana is, if one ignores the top three decks, superficially like Aurora. Passenger areas are roughly the same. But as soon as one goes behind a "crew only" door things are different. The theatre here is nicer. A flying system would be nice, but IMHO otherwise the backstage areas are much better laid out. The biggest difference, however, is one in attitude. Here it is run like a real theatre, and people will do their best for every show with the limited equipment. On Aurora, there is a tendancy to think that if one can't do somethign with a high-tech push of a button, one can't be bothered to do it.
posted by Simon Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Written off-line:
Baltic Sea, 01/06/2003
We just passed under the very large bridge, the name of which I can't remember, which goes across the entrance to the Baltic. It was certainly impressive, especially as we had one of the most amazing sunsets I've seen for a long time just behind it (at about 2200). One of the good things about high(ish) latitudes is that the sunset takes a long time, so one has more chance to enjoy it!
posted by Simon Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Written off-line:
Oslo, 31/05/2003
Well, here I am. The new terminal building was amusing, and annoying. I had a large trolley full of luggage, which would take me two trips to carry by hand. So I pushed the trolley through the departures lounge, to the security office, to ask for my pass. Unfortunately they didn't know anything abotu me, but on teh evidence of my joining instructions they issued me with a visitors' pass to allow me onto the ship.
I then went towards the x-ray machine, to be told that I wasn't allowed to take the trolley any further. So, I had all my stuff x-rayed, got frisked thoroughly because my steel toecaps set off the metal detector, and left half of my bags on a table while I waslked teh length of the ship to get on board with half of it. I got there, found my visitors' pass wasn't actually valid, but managed to persuade those on the gangway to let me on anyway. However they wouldn't allow me to leave my bags there. So they got left in a corridoor just out of their sight.
I went back for the second load, to be told that I couldn't go back the way I had come and would have to go right round the terminal. Five minutes later, back to the metal detector... fortuantely the bloke didn't insist on searching me again and so I was finally able to take the remiander of my stuff on board. I then went to the Crew Office to sign on.
They did know about me, but had only had a day's notice, and so had no paperwork for me, nor a signing account to pay for stuff on board. Once things were sorted there, I found a member of the production team, to discover that they had only found out I was arriving hte day before - the person I was relieving had thought he might have to stay on.
The next morning I went to the session to have my photo taken for my pass, on a snazzy digital camera. A day later when teh pass didn't turn up I was told they had accidentally deleted the photo. Fortunately they issued me a temporary visitors' pass, which was valid this time, and so I got ashore today...
Anywahy..... now that's sorted, things seem to be OK.
I didn't have much time in Oslo, but I did manage to get the ferry across the the Longship museum and also see the Kon-Tiki and Thor Whatisname's other ships in their museum. The harbour here is beautiful, with small islands, architecturally pleasent lighthouses, and small yachts everywhere.
posted by Simon Monday, June 02, 2003