Month One

Hullo from the National Geographic Sea Bird! On Sunday I will have been working here for one month and I keep pretty crazy busy so haven’t had much of a chance to sit down and write. Internet is limited but lucky us, the week after I came on they added a perk of giving crew internet cards once a month. Sweet!

So it’s been quite a full month. There isn’t much of a transition time here, you get on board and you start your job. I am in general a steward but what the postions change weekly and there are six of them. Basically I start the work day at about 6:30 setting up for guest breakfast, serving guest breakfast, cleaning up guest breakfast, eating my breakfast, begin cleaning anywhere from 6-13 cabins. This week it’s 13. That’s the morning. Then it’s time for crew lunch, set up guest lunch, serve guest lunch, clean guest lunch- break til 5. Crew dinner @ 5, dress for dinner service, set up dining room, turn down guest rooms, serve guest dinner, clean up guest dinner, spend some crew time catching our breath and then to bed to start it all again. It is not easy, it’s often very difficult BUT I still think I have a great job.

And my goodness, the things I have seen! In fact sometime the hardest part of my job is actually doing my job. Last week I was truly grumpy while cleaning cabins and I turned the corner just in time to see humpback whales come up bubble netting. I’ve seen orca’s, seals, sea lions, otters, eagles, glaciers, jelly fish, sea stars, puffins, bears, wolves, moose. I’ve seen glaciers calving and last night I did the polar plunge in Glacier Bay. Fabulous. Cold, salty, and fabulous. I’ve been kayaking and looked down to see jellies and remembered I wasn’t in the Shenandoah anymore. I’ve met people from National Geographic and stayed up late singing old songs with them.

I’m meeting new people, becoming part of a new community. It was really good to know someone before I came- it was hard enough that way so I don’t know how I would have done without Jordan. I’m learning to talk more about my faith, about truth, about God. It isn’t easy though and there is opposition there. It’s hard to not be part of a church community right now and getting into my own schedule and order is also difficult. God is gracious and I have found a couple of Christians on board and last week I had good conversations with some of the guests actually! We had Sister Rose Marie (rosemary) on board last week and it was a joy to meet her. She prayed for me and I was grateful. I met another lady last week too who turned out to be a sister in Christ. It was a great comfort to meet her and talk with her. We didn’t even talk much and I think we both realized we had a common faith before we really talked about it. Just knowing she was here was comforting and an answer to prayer. I haven’t begun a bible study but we did start a book discussion on Blue Like Jazz.

We are heading out of Alaska this week, into Canada and back to Seattle and Portland. After positioning we’ll begin the next cruise on the Columbia river. I hope this finds the reader well. Thanks for reading! ~Faith