Auckland

Auckland was another early start and was set to be a testing day for the ship's company.

Arrival was early, into a container port where guests would debark into buses for the relatively short drive into the city. For the ships company however, we had an inspection from New Zealands Port State Control. This inspection is to measure our compliance against the standard's set my maritime law and associated conventions. Foreign flagged ships are subject to a detailed and lengthy inspection which is designed to ensure that all vessels are operating to a high standard of safety, security and environmental measures. We already operate to a level at least in line with those standards if not above, however for obvious reasons we have to demonstrate it. So after our arrival, we welcomed the inspectors on board and then moved into a full crew drill which would include lowering lifeboats into the water. The drill simulated a galley fire out on our open deck 12 and tested our emergency response. My role is to ensure that we seal off the immediate area to avoid any guest or crew wandering into the danger area, once my team are in place, I then head off to identify hot spots around the area of the fire and establish boundary cooling at those areas. The theory being that if you cool the bulkheads whilst fighting the interior fire, suppression is made considerably easier as you starve the fire of it's much needed ingredients of fuel, heat and oxygen.

The drill pushed on, the fire extinguished, casualty extracted and stretchered down to the medical centre before the inspectors paused the exercise to go and speak to our various muster personnel around the ship to check their knowledge. On resuming, all crew were moved to their survival crafts before eventually being stood down around midday, at which point the inspection continued but crew shore leave, much to everyone's delight was granted.

Meanwhile, over the last 36 hours or so, Em has been on a plane, slowly making her own way down through Dubai and onto Auckland. She boarded the ship just before the drill began and went through all of her onboarding admin.

I eventually got free just after midday where we met, jumped onto a bus and headed into the city for a couple of hours to get some lunch and grab supplies. It's been a while since I've seen a decent supermarket to grab essentials. I do however, have an Amazon delivery coming, no idea what's in it as I ordered everything about a month ago, sent it to Southampton and the company has hopefully airfreighted everything over to Auckland.

It was a very quick burger and a beer ashore before time ran out and back to the ship beckoned. So via the Four Square supermarket we picked up some bits and headed back on board!

When I last came to New Zealand I went to numerous breweries, one of which was Panhead, so I was chuffed to see it on sale in Four Square, a size pack was grabbed and we were off!!!