of light and no light

Oh shipyard. How you are an adventure. It seems that power may come and go regularly, along with hot water and air con (as my friend Penelope calls it ).

This is day three for days off for me, a long ‘weekend’ if you will. I made rounds with Penelope to put up the new muster lists around the ship.

What are muster lists Michelle?

They are the lists of all the emergency teams, like fire teams, life boat teams, emergency medical teams, etc.

I had a great time traveling around the ship. I got to see places I haven’t seen before. I saw the emergency generator room, which btw worked great for the last 3 power failures. I also got to see the giant freezers on deck 2, affectionately called stores.

After dinner, I hitched a ride to Decathalon, the largest sporting good store ever. They had stuff I’ve never seen before in a sporting good store, like saddles and bridles, and ballet gear?! Weird.

Almost immediately upon our return, the power went off. Then it came back on. Then it went off again. Now it’s on. Hopefully it will stay on so I can watch a movie. We shall see.

So how was your day?

Love… Michelle
Philippians 1:20

This generator is our friend. We should probably name him.

One of 4! walk in freezers

This is what my room looks like when the power goes off!

proof of shipyard

The ship is noisy. Really noisy. We’re in “shipyard” mode.

What does that mean Michelle?

It means I get to awaken to the sound of birds chirping jackhammers jackhammering. You see, the hospital deck is getting an extreme makeover ‘ship edition.’

Once upon a time, the Africa Mercy was the Dronning Ingrid, train ferry. When they converted to hospital ship, they covered over the train tracks with concrete and placed a floor on top of that. Now, after 7 years of use, the tracks are starting to come up through the floor. Cumbersome. The jackhammers are to tear up the floor to repair the floor.

They’re also turning OR 1 into the PACU and PACU into a new ward. So the ship is very noisy all day long. Ooh! We’re also having a planned power outage on Saturday. Not really sure what they hope to accomplish in the dark? Stay tuned!

Love… Michelle
Philippians 1:20

the night the lights went out

Last night I was sleeping, minding my own business when suddenly the noise stopped. Then the alarms rang to signal the fire doors were closing. You never really comprehend how noisy the Africa Mercy is until the power fails. Deafening silence.

I jumped out of bed. I made my way to the cabin door. I threw open the door. The hallway was lit by the emergency lights. It was actually brighter than I thought it would be. I looked at my watch. It was 2:30am.

I went back inside my cabin. I phoned reception. Nobody knew why the power failed. I tried to go back to sleep, but I was too excited to find out the scoop. I made my way up to reception I offered the night receptionist a bathroom break. The lights came back on.

As the ship powered back up, she made all kinds of weird and creepy noises. Crisis averted, I made my way back to my cabin. I made a note on Facebook, crawled back in bed, turned the lights out, and went back to sleep. Estimated time of power failure = 1 hour.

Love… Michelle
Philippians 1:20

Panorama of the beach today