Grazing the day away

22 December 2007

Fort Lauderdale, FL

I didn’t finish work until about 2am last night, or more accurately, this morning, and I still managed to be upstairs for breakfast a short time ago. I am the sort of person who really only eats one major meal a day and tends to snack the rest of the time in a lazy, grazing sort of way. I don’t know if it’s healthy or not to do it that way, I grew up in a time where three square meals a day including meat and three veg at night was the way to go. I guess that all those years of doing weird and convoluted casino shifts have given my stomach the ability to adjust to strange patterns but I know that eating the poor excuse for food that was provided in the staff canteen has hardened my stomach and given me the ability to eat strange and tasty food from places definitely not recommended by the average tourist brochures.

I was also reading yesterday that 94% of travellers suffer from jetlag after crossing multiple time zones. Obviously those hellish mixed up shifts I have been working for all these years have also screwed up my body clock so badly that I no longer feel the effects of jet lag or am just living with a constant dose of it and don’t really notice the difference. Either way, here I sit, in my cabin, on a ship moored off Half Moon Cay, somewhere in the Caribbean.

Similar to Princess Cays on my last contract I don’t think I’m going to bother getting off the ship here. I’m just going to take my time with the few hours I have until starting work at 4.30pm and do a bit of writing, read some of my new magazines and graze over some of my newly purchased groceries.

Yesterday was turnaround day in Fort Lauderdale and I got off the ship to do some grocery shopping and also to get a dose of familiarity. Fort Lauderdale is the only port I’ve been to so far this time that is a repeat for me so it was actually a pleasure to catch the shuttle bus from the dock (only a dollar each way on the Filipino express) to just across the road from Publix and then to walk streets that seem almost like a second home in some ways. Publix is a big supermarket, probably the closest one to the dock and I would go there every week on the last contract to stock up on junk food for the cabin and also get the latest magazines. I went there yesterday with my pack empty and walked away almost $100 poorer but with my pack so full of stuff I could hardly lift it. But before you start to worry about my health and have visions of thousands of snickers bars tumbling from the top of my wardrobe every time I open the door, I have to point out that there was also toothpaste, deodorant, hand soap and all those sorts of necessary supplies as well. There was quite a bit of chocolate, to be completely honest, but also a number of healthy bars.

I took yesterday as my opportunity to stock up on some of the personal necessities, not knowing if I will be allowed off the ship next Fort Lauderdale and knowing that next time will the last time we are there for almost 4 months while we traipse around the world. I’m the type of person who likes to have redundancies in place for some of the basics of life and a spare tube of toothpaste and bottle of shampoo, just in case, isn’t too obsessive. I also like to suck down a handful of jellybeans before I head off to work, just to give me the energy to get up the stairs, so a bag of them in the drawer under my bunk is also a necessity.

The other thing I had an opportunity to do yesterday was visit my favourite little diner. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before but this is a place tucked away in the corner of a little shopping centre down the road from Publix and it has, for me anyway, a real feel of an American diner about it. There is a counter with little round red stools and a collection of tables in the middle and booths against the wall. The waitresses are all a little older and, for want of a better expression, more experienced than you might find in the average fast food place and I can get a good, hearty meal and a bottomless cup of coffee for between $10 and $15. The atmosphere is priceless and I used to really enjoy the Sunday turnaround days on the last contract when I could grab a seat at the counter, have a good breakfast and then linger over a number of cups of coffee with a magazine newly purchased and plucked from one of the plastic bags of groceries at my feet. It was sitting in this diner when I first envisioned driving across the USA, the back roads ways, and writing a book about all the little diners and eateries I would encounter along the way. Kind of a foreigners eye view on a piece of typical Americana.

Yesterday I got back to the ship and lay down for a short nap before starting work, the drawer under my bunk nicely bulging with snacks and myself replete with roast beef, blueberry pancakes and at least half a dozen cups of coffee. All in all not a bad way to spend a day.