Pictures include a part of my 5' by 9' room. No mirror on the medicine cabinet. A picture of the hatch leading to the engine room. A picture of the boat.
I hope I can remember my first and last week at sea with paying customers.
I enjoyed the week and the work is much easier than the shipyard duties. Basically, I had dive deck duties each day and then had night watch 2 times and was galley assistant once. Galley assistant is not too bad with only 6 guests on board. I had plenty of time of relax and eat more food than I care to a admit. In fact, I spent much of the week eating. There is always food available and its pretty good. I must have eaten 30 or 40 large cookies during the week.
Dive deck duties included helping get the boat hooked up to a mooring sight. One person handles a huge 2" bow line that they drop into the water. Another person jumps into the water and uses a giant shackle to fasten this line to the mooring line. A "granny" line is then dropped into the water and that is fastened to the mooring line also and the diver swims the line to the back of the boat where its attached. This line serves as a safety line in case of strong current for divers.
Other duties include filling tanks, assisting divers get into and out of their gear. I helped keep the deck clear and clean. I raised and lowered the platform as necessary. I was shocked to find out that we did not accompany the divers in the water. Unless you went diving on your "off time", no diving was involved with this job. This is very strange is not the way any of the other live aboards work. I was really disappointed.
I began to learn just how complex this boat was. Most of the systems were totally manual and included no safety devices to prevent human error. Several errors were made during this first week that resulted in various problems. One engineering assistant forgot one of several switches during a routine switch of generators and caused major problems with the chiller (air conditioning) system on the boat. I couldn't see the water level in the water reservour so and there is no shut off so the water overflowed into the engine room. It wasn't serious but it did require the use of pumps to get rid of the water. A water pipe broke one night and caused flooding in the engineering area which drained into the engine room. That water was pumped back into engineering and then fell back into the engine room again. What a mess.
Several air handlers were broken when we left Fort Lauderdale. Most were fixed by the end of the cruise week but it was always guesswork that fixed them. No one really understand them. Condensation problems occured in one guest room, in the salon, and in the lower hallway during the week. S0me of the unused rooms had waste baskets on the beds collecting falling water all week. Fans ran the entire week attempting to dry out the wet carpet and some carpet was removed and taking to the sun deck for drying.
I'm not sure if the generators are too small of it the wiring is inadequate but we were constantly warned about compressor operation. There are 3 compressors on board but only one can operate at one time. Apparantly the entire system shuts down with lots of damage if two are accidently switched on at one time. Two are on one side of the boat and the other is far away on the other side. They are all in very dark area's and its difficult to see the switches.
There are small stainless tubes (1/4" inch at most) that run from the compressor to the dive deck that supply the air or Nitrox. At least on of these tubes runs across the boat about 40 feet. It was only attached in a couple of places so it dangled around. It was leaking (surprise) so one side of the boat did not have Nitrox.
I think you can tell this boat is a mess. I don't know if its really unsafe or not but its certainly not very enjoyable when something is constantly broken. I was embarrassed the entire week by the condition of the boat. Rust is everywhere. Most doors don't work properly and you have to lean into them to get the open or closed. Over spray and paint drips are everywhere. Some things are painted but have rust holes going completely through the paint and metal surface.
Nitrox scuba tanks are suppose to be marked to indicate Nitrox is being used so air and Nitrox are not mixed up. The Nekton did not mark their tanks. The "hang tank" or safety tank placed in the water before every dive had at least 2 leaks. It was empty within an hour of being placed in the water leaving no air for emergencies.
There was an emergency on another boat during the week. The Sundancer II from Peter Hughes had a diver collapse on deck. He had been complaining of severe heartburn for two days but did nothing about it. He stoped breathing and the crew could not revive him. They hailed our boat and we had a doctor on board that immediate went to help along with an AED and some oxygen. He was unable to revive the diver however and he died.
I had the opportunity to teach a Nitrox class during the week. It was fun and easy. The student studies on their own and completes a couple of knowledge reviews and quizes. I covered those with him and explained the answers for those he missed. I then gave him a final exam and explained those missed questions. He did very well and was certified on Friday. He was my first real student.
As I said earlier, I'm back at home now. I told the captain about 10 am on Friday that I was leaving. He was not happy.
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