Writing now in the Juneau Public Library, a few days into my vacation, I'm having to retrace the last few hectic weeks aboard the Explorer. I must write down these nuggety crouton stories before they stale. As Angie left to work on the Quest, then Shelly for her two-week vacation, my workload changed and story-time fell by the wayside.
However, I've left my notebook at the Alaskan Hotel. Memory serves?
We made an impressive go of the Galley Rave a couple weeks ago. My relief chef, Mike, had his first week with Shelly and I. He's THE guy for the job, and I'm happy that I'll be leaving the galley in good hands, both this vacation and at the end of the season when I finally come home to stay. For his first Galley Rave, I thought it was important to go all out, so while in Petersburg on Wednesday we did some extra Galley Rave shopping. We hit the pharmacy for the Dora the Explorer Accoutrement, splurging a little by buying the Dora zipper-pulls and Go Diego Go slap-on wrist bands. Next we dropped twenty-four big ones at the Salvation Army and bought a crazy/silly t-shirt for every crew member. Highlights of the purchase included: three matching tank-tops with stylized fish in bright colors on the front of each, a family network care t-shirt, a striped polyester number with big, decorative nautical patches (a lighthouse, a boat, a seascape), a Juneau "Rain-Ball" t-shirt, and a tye-dye t-shirt. For myself, I picked up a UAA Hockey t-shirt, a tight polyester collared shirt, and some plaid boxer's (I hate wearing pants to Galley Rave). Shelly made Dora gift bags that afternoon, stuffing each with a bracelet or zipper pull, a t-shirt appropriate for the crew member, and an invitation. She also took the cake in the t-shirt department, picking for herself the little pink "Have you hugged my shirt today?" number. Obviously after all this effort, we outdid ourselves in attendance. Most crew showed up with additional wigs and things, and we even went so far as to play Twister. Captain Shonda took first prize there. Aimee added some rips to her tye-dye, and she wasn't the only one showing off a bit. A smashing success!
The week saw me take a different role in the galley. Mike took the helm, and my new baker, Monica, learned quickly to adapt to a totally new cooking experience. Though we tried to tone down the language a bit, but didn't. She actually taught us a few things to our surprise. Monica has kids my and Mike's age, so despite our antics, we were endearing to her. There were some teens on board and I was jovial as we all decorated my first Glacier cake together. Since Monica was green, it fell to me to carry on the glacier cake tradition. Don't have photos yet, but hopefully soon. So in the absence of evidence, let me just say the cake turned out mind-bogglingly amazing. Real glaciers are larger, sure, but hardly more beautiful than our pile of chocolate on chocolate on chocolate. The powdered sugar snow, the Rosemary Sitka Spruce trees, the edible Chocolate Rocks, and the blue-tinted White Chocolate Glacier flow are all more exciting than the real thing, in my humble opinion.
This same week, when I was guiding (and trying not to be Mr. Short-Timer/Slacker) and helping with Mike and Monica's products, we had our most amazing adventure yet. At La Conte Glacier which spills into Tracy Arm (I think) the passengers were taking skiff rides up the arm and right up to the glacier. Towards the end of the evening, the bridge staff decided we should have a crew-only skiff ride. 'Count me in!' Little did we know...
...The great thing about a crew-only skiff ride is our freedom to be loud, zany, and uncensored. One other skiff was still in the water, not far from us, but we kept our distance (especially since our skiff had a smoking section and we were frequently yelling nonsense at the top of our lungs). It was evening, past 9:30, but still plenty of daylight and twilight to suite our purposes. After buzzing at top speed through the lightly choppy water, we came upon our first ice burg. Gabe wanted to touch it, and Beth obliged by pulling the skiff in as close as she dared. Well, we pretty much ran into it, but the skiff stayed inflated, and Gabe touched the ice burg. First mission accomplished. Shortly afterward, we tried to depart to go see La Conte Glacier. Tried, but failed, as our engine began sputtering and making a whiny beeping sound. They killed the engine to examine it more closely for problems. The problems didn't get better. Eventually, with the outboard motor casing off, and with Kevin our Assistant Engineer digging with flashlights and tools, we discovered a hose clamp in a state of kaput. Right around this time, the second skiff, with passengers (and Aimee) pulled up. They had noticed we were drifting and probably wondered why. There were jokes about being stranded and adrift, and we learned the true meaning of jealousy as we found out that the passengers had encouraged and assisted Aimee in actually LICKING AN ICE BURG! Oddly, her tongue didn't get stuck to it - guess that's just metal that does that. We tried to save face in front of the passengers, and our skiff leader, Megan, tried not to seem too pissed that she was in charge of a stranded, drifting boat with a crappy hose clamp. They left, Sean the first mate promising to return. We kept entertaining ourselves as we drifted closer to shore. Megan grabbed one of the oars and began paddling - though just for effect. We turned on the emergency strobe - usually reserved solely for Galley Raves - and hoped Sean would be able to find us easily after off-loading the guests. Meanwhile our intrepid experts - Beth, Megan, and Kevin - tried to repair the leaking gas line with a nylon lanyard from one of the VHF radios. They partially succeeded. Then we ran out of gas. Then we waited some more...
Finally, we were rescued with more gas from Sean, and proceeded to huddle for warmth on the fast and long-awaited ride home. The guests at the bar cheered our return and I headed straight for the warmth and comfort of my bunk.
At the end of that week, we had an interesting time with our weekly rendition of Table Side Bananas Foster. It was Monica's first time making Bananas Foster, and her first time cooking table side in front of people. Fortunately the Bananas Foster song I've developed over the weeks has become more and more adaptable to changing circumstances. Though I patter her on the back afterwards, Monica felt a little chagrined at dropping not one, but two pats of butter on the floor right off the bat. I incorporated these strategic changes into my song, and may have even convinced a few people that she dropped the butter intentionally and with great care. Since we'd had a busy day (indeed, a busy week!) we hadn't had much of a chance to rehearse the ignition of the alcohol, so with my musical instructions from the piano bench, and with Mike's lead on the other burner next to her, Monica got a healthy flame to ignite. Out come the Stewards with complete fire-suites, oxygen tanks, and extinguishers in hand, and 'clap' go all hands in the dining room. Another week done and main mission accomplished.
After five weeks of work, we were relieved to disembark passengers and not have new ones coming that day. Without bookings, were looking forward to spending the week at dock and re-defining 'ship-shape.' This would be a new experience for me, and a great opportunity to quit flying by the seat of our pants for a while. Our project list included: cleaning, cleaning, organizing, organizing, and shopping (for equipment). Oh, and I got to finally clean under the flat top griddle (which I shorted out of existence - but that's a whole other story) and under the stove itself (which is a whole other story I probably won't go into detail about).
Next: hurry up and wait for Monday morning when I get to pick Carey up, and hopefully not freak her out with the insanity of a boat crew with free-time. Can't wait.
