1/7/09: Day 74: St. Thomas USVI

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Originally uploaded by Rance Rizzutto Photography

Hmm…I missed a few days. I can’t think off anything major that has happened off hand. Jen’s mom and step dad are on with us so we’ve crossed paths with them. Brett has been sick and it is his girlfriend’s last cruise as an employee…so we haven’t seen much of him, but we hear him coughing through the wall. And we see Mike around from time to time.

Jane L. Powell and J.J. are back on the ship. We had a nice chat with them last night that went for about 2 hours. They are great.

Now. Technically it is just after midnight on 1/08/09 as I write this. Something out of the ordinary happened…but I’m saving it for last. Just keep reading.

Today was our first non-sea day of the cruise. Jen said they were going to Magan’s Bay at 1:30. A beach here in St. Thomas. Deanna and I got on a taxi to meet them. Deanna read somewhere that it was one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world. As long as it has snorkeling or waves, I’m in…and I knew this one didn’t have snorkeling.

Our taxi pulled up and there was a long beach, full of people, with the calmest water I’ve seen in a long time. Lake Michigan has bigger waves. We got to the beach, started walking to one end to see if we saw Jen, Larrance, and company. As we turned to head the other way we got a full view of the sheer numbers and set up camp where we were. I got bored pretty quick, much to Deanna’s chagrin, but just tried to relax. Huge clouds kept randomly blocking and unblocking the sun…complete with random rain. After a couple hours we headed to a taxi and went back to the ship.

Later that night we saw Jane’s show. She was riffing and throwing in stuff she doesn’t normally say. I was glad we caught it. From there we got a little food, came back to the room to watch the rest of Bourne Supremacy on TNT and call it a night. Goodnight everyone!

…but then. I couldn’t sleep. I was playing Risk on my iTouch in the dark when I noticed the constant dull hiss of our AC went silent. A couple of seconds later Deanna said “there’s no power in our room. The alarm clock is off.” I quickly got up to get dressed. Deanna said “Why are you getting dressed?” To which I replied, “To see if the emergency lights are on in the…” BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

If you’ve been on a cruise ship you know this is a bad thing to hear. This is the “something is up and everyone on the ship should get your life vests and go to that place you gathered on day one, remember?”

We finished getting dressed and grabbed our safety cards (‘cause we’re crew). I also grabbed my wallet, iTouch, and a couple granola bars. The seven short and one long beep kept repeating. As we got out of our door Brett popped his head out and saw us with our safety cards and said something along the lines of “is this happening?” Looking down the hall it was not a calm row of passengers making there way to their safety stations with their life vests on. It was a long hall of heads popping out of doors, perplexed. I think I saw one door open with vested people on the move.

Deanna and I went down the stairs. Another group of three people making the decent…below sounded like mild/minor chaos. When we got to about deck 8 people were a little more panicky. The alarm was still sounding, but at least it wasn’t a solid tone (that means abandon ship). I think I was calm until I saw a few crew members with the look of “is this happening?” before shaking out of it and heading to their stations. On deck 7 our stairs are right by the Bliss bar…that is where the chaos sounds were coming from. Drunk people not knowing what to do. I heard some saying “we need to go back to our rooms for life jackets!” (which you’re not supposed to do if you’re not in your room).

We made it to the photo area when the captain came on. Everything was okay…okay enough to be told you don’t need to go to your station with a life jacket. We started heading back. And now, we put the pieces together.

The captain said in one announcement that something caused one of the engines to stop, thus putting the load of two engines on the one remaining engine. It couldn’t take the load so it shut off…causing the blackout. Once emergency power kicked in the alarm was automated. It will always go off when the power blacks out…even if the ship is in dry dock and in zero danger of sinking.

We get up to our room and Brett and Mike hadn’t left yet. Brett was watching the front-of-boat channel and said he saw a flash just before the power went out. Lightning. The captain confirmed it a few minutes later as he said we should go back to sleep or to whatever we were doing, or to the bar.

Mike said “thanks for checking on us.” Deanna replied, “we checked on Brett.” Brett rebutted, “you didn’t check on me, I opened my door and you said something to me.”

Deanna then said I was like Costanza trying to get out of a birthday party with an oven fire. (knocking old women and children out of my way)