The other half...

Well at the weekend I went to the Southampton Boat Show. I had a look around some of the larger yachts there including on by Sunseeker. I was shown around with a friend of mine who also works in the Merchant Navy, we were both shown around by one of their Masters. It was hard to even just get a look around this thing of beauty without a black AMEX card! However, saying that we wanted to work in the private yacht business we finally got the chance.

So this yacht is worth £11.5million and there are only 2 made per year, so you could say that they are quite exclusive. So putting on our special Sunseeker slippers we went onboard and straight away noticed that we were in a world of money. Everything was customised for the American owner who was to receive the yacht just a few weeks later. With a number of 40"+ flat screen TV's which hide away with the touch of a button, surround sound by B&O in every room and even a TV in the bathroom which is heated so that it doesn't steam up.

The navigational equipment that was on the bridge was also top quality, such that you would not see on the bridge of many of the latest cruise ships. We started to understand what the other half really do live like. However, when the Master then started to tell us what it was like to work on there... well let me just say it sounded quite good. It is a lot of hard work but it isn't unheard of to earn £1000 per week in tips alone, then on top of that you have you wage which is quite good ands if that isn't enough, it's tax free!

Well it looks to me that if you work on these yachts, you are almost apart of the other half!

Next Step...

Well I have now found out which ship I am to join and where I will be for the next 3 months. I will be flying out to Los Angeles, USA on Friday 28th September 2007. Once there I will be joining the Golden Princess and will be doing 7 day cruises down to the Mexican Riviera.

This means that I will be back for christmas which will be good. It is also a good feeling to be getting away and actually doing what I have trained for over the past 3 years! It will be my first cruise ship which means that it is going to be very different from my last company (Royal Fleet Auxiliary). I am looking forward to this as I think I am going to find it really interesting.

I will keep posting when I get the chance to.

A new start...

So the past three years of training to become a Navigation Officer in the merchant navy has come to an end. I have handed in my notice to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and have taken a job with Carnival UK, part of Carnival Group which owns most of the world's cruising industry. I will be based on one of the UK based ships (P&O Cruises, Cunard, Ocean Village, Princess Cruises and P&O Australia).

So right now I am just waiting to find out which ship I will be going on. However, this does give me the opportunity to watch the Rugby World Cup. Which I have to say has not been too good so far for England, but very good if you are natural. With Argentina beating the hosts France in the first game and then major underdogs coming close with Namibia just losing out to Ireland. It really shows how good the World Cup can be and how much determination really does play in this fantastic sport.

Well there are a lot of exciting times ahead for me in the next couple of weeks, joining my new ship and watching as much of the World Cup as I possibly can. I will keep you updated as and when I can.

Ax