This week the plan was to go to Belize, Costa Maya and Roatan. Well because of a hurricane, we were forced to go to Nassau, Half Moon Cay, and Grand Turk. Oh how terrible. I’m super excited because none of those ports were on our itinerary for the entire season, so because of this hurricane we get to go to some new ports. We’ll still get to go to Belize and the others because we would regularly go there anyways. There are also rumors that the hurricane is going to prevent us from getting back to Tampa this week. I’m not sure what will happen other than maybe we’ll dock in Ft. Lauderdale or Miami instead. Who knows what will happen. I’m just ready for adventure.

I’ve uploaded some new photos, check em out.

I swam a ton yesterday. It’s been a long time since I’ve been swimming in the ocean and it gets tiring after a while! It’s so fun though, especially when the water is so clear and so beautiful and there’s fun people to go swimming with. On that note….I think I’m gonna set down this laptop and take a dive….

It’s been 7 years since I’ve been to the Cayman Islands and so it was awesome to be able to be there yesterday. I didn’t really get to see much of it because there was no time. I was supposed to shoot gangway photos from 8-10:30 but the ocean was too stormy so the passengers didn’t even start getting off the ship until 9:30 and then it was really slow because everyone had to be really careful when getting off the tenders. So I had to stay shooting gangway until noon. All aboard was 3 so I only had a few hours to run around. Next time I’ll go snorkeling and maybe even go out to String Ray City if possible. I did however get to have some chicken and beef patties!! Oh they are so good and I get to look forward to having those every two weeks when we are here.

I’m looking forward to having US ports again so I can use my phone. I’ll be in Tampa and Key West every week so I’ll have a little more connectivity to people in the States.

Last night was the crew cast show. This is a very modified version of what the cast usually does for the passengers. When I say “very modified” I mean VERY modified. It was pretty awesome actually. At one point, Paul, one of the male singers, put on a peacock dress outfit that is usually for the female dancers, and he pranced around the stage and then came into the audience. It was quite exciting. It’s sure a nice change for me to see a show that is completely staged and posed and the same. The photo gallery is right next to the show room so I get to see and hear the plays about 4 times a week. I’m sure it was also very refreshing for the cast to be able to do something fun and different.

Well I went through the Panama Canal two days ago, and I am now officially in the Caribbean! Panama Canal was quite the experience. My camera lens fogged up really badly as soon as I stepped out onto the ship deck and took a good 15 minutes to clear up. The humidity was incredible, rivaling even that of Zhanjiang. The nice thing was that it was only 77 degrees and so I only sweat 5 gallons instead of 20. Apparently on the northbound trip it was in the 90s and made life almost unbearable. It was a lot of fun for me though. They have these things called Mules which are like trains that pull the ship through the canal. They run on tracks on either side of the canal and pull and push the ship. They each cost like $2 million. It’s amazing how powerful they are and how they can pull such a huge ship through, and pretty quickly too.

I am now in Curacao, and island just north of Venezuela. It’s in the 80s or 90s here and very humid as well, but not as bad as Panama. I’m enjoying exploring and getting some great photos. I’ll be uploading more in the near future. Tomorrow will be Aruba and then two days after that Grand Cayman!! I’m super looking forward to that. Meat patties here I come!

I have started training as a printer. That means that once I learn everything about printing, I’ll be eligible to be promoted to assistant manager and be in charge of getting all the photos printed that we take. That’ll put me well on my way to being photo manager, which would obviously be nice. I plan to do at least another contract after this contract, so I decided to take advantage of my current manager because he’s really great to work with and does a great job training people. He’s leaving at the end of November so I need to do my best between now and then to learn all I can about printing. He said by the time he leaves I should be able to print an entire formal night by myself. That involves editing and printing around 1,400 photos and usually takes from 11pm to 6am. Can’t wait to start!

Alaska is officially gone. Well I suppose it’s still there…but I sure ain’t! Today I had the pleasure of having Rebecca Saxton visit me on the ship while I was docked here in San Diego. I had a great time getting to show her around the ship and catching up on the last few months. Unfortunately David couldn’t get off work, although I could see his ship from the deck of my ship.

The weather is noticeably different and it is more than welcome. I’m gonna have a bunch of really great ports over the next three weeks. We are disembarking about 500 passengers who got on the ship in Vancouver, and embarking another 500 to replace them. The next three weeks we will have the same passengers so it’s going to become really slow as far as photo sales go. It’ll be nice cuz we get to close the gallery every now and then. My itinerary is as follows:

September 24: At sea
September 25: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
September 26: At sea
September 27: Acapulco, Guerrero
September 28: At Sea
September 29: Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala
September 30: At Sea
October 1: Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica
October 2: Scenic Cruising (Golfo Dulce)
October 3: Enter Panama Canal
October 4: At Sea
October 5: Willemstad, Curacao
October 6: Oranjestad, Aruba
October 7: At Sea
October 8: Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
October 9: At Sea
October 10: Tampa Bay, Florida

Also, my new mailing address is:

ms RYNDAM – Ian Kee – Image Creator 77538
NOLA Port Agency (Tampa)
301 West Platt St.
Ste. 446
Tampa, FL 33606