Travel Specialist Weblog

So here I am in Washington state doing mandatory safety training in order to keep my job on board the ship.  Last week we spent in Anacortes doing safety training so we can lower and board lifeboats and rafts, right them if they are upside down in the water, doing survival training in the water and driving the rescue boats.  I can now operate the boats as well as transfer from one to another while they are moving just like James Bond.  I passed a Coast Guard test (probably just barely because a lot of the questions were never covered in the material).  I was very frustrated taking that test because it’s one thing at my age not to remember what was taught but when it was never taught it’s even tougher to remember.

This week we are in Seattle and I have the next two days to learn how to fight fires in full gear (tanks, suits, hoses etc) with real fire in a closed space.  Then we get to right an even larger raft in the water, jump into water in an immersion suit (think a red Gumby) and learn CPR.  I’m hoping that at least we learn the stuff on the test before we take it.

As a kid I wanted to be a lot of things; a skater in the Ice Capades, a vet, an oceanographer, a medical technician.  Funny, being a fireman never even occurred to me and yet here I am.  Who says life provides no adventures!