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The final hurdle of my cadetship was the advanced firefighting! 1 week of taking various roles such as actually fighting fires, entry control officer, planning routes and laying hoses and deciding what to fight each fire with as well as organising casualty rescue operations. The week involved fighting fires made up of cooking oils, fuel oil, dry material fires and electrical fires to test our approaches and to make as realistic as possible should the worse happen and this occurred at sea. That being said it was a very enjoyable short course and a fantastic way to sign off the cadetship and seeing all my classmates for the last time as a cadet!

29.09.2020

Judgement day is finally upon me, the day of my MCA orals examination, and I PASSED!! The relief that flooded my body when I heard the words that I had been successful over my online teams meeting was indescribable! 3 years of hard work, hours and hours of studying, parties and pubs missed, all worth it in the end! Those of you who want to know what I was asked exactly I shall hopefully (see how good my tech skills are) attach my orals report here. To anyone that is in the process of revision for orals just keep at it! I know how hard it is and how stressful it can be but just remember the rewards you will receive and find out what works for you and work with it. Don't forget how useful it can be working in groups and asking questions to each other but keep in mind that when revising amongst friends, the examiner won't be as lenient as your friends so you have to be cruel to be kind! Good luck to anyone with orals soon!

some snaps of some of the Phase 5 short course set-ups

Phase 5 (and a half)

So I finally made it back to college after all! What a whirlwind of a trip that was. So college was only open to a very restricted number of students and only the absolute necessary were allowed into the building. We had previously carried out some of the theory to our short courses over zoom in the summer but due to the nature of the exams it meant that we would physically have to be in college to carry out the simulations and demonstrate our practical knowledge of the equipment. Despite being only 6 weeks in Glasgow with the restrictions changing throughout we managed to complete our NAEST (Navigation Aids, Equipment and Simulation Training course), ECDIS (Electronic chart display information systems), GMDSS ( global maritime distress and safety systems) short courses and oral and practical examinations as well as a week in the simulators to ensure the full completion of the NAEST course and to test our practical knowledge of the ColRegs (which proved extremely useful to iron out any creases before sitting my final oral exam). So to say that I was kept occupied would be an understatement and all this alongside my own orals preparation I would be in need of a well deserved rest when all completed haha!

Phase 5?

So, now that I'm home and rested and settled into being back home again, we have now started to prepare for phase 5 for when it does reopen in college in Glasgow. So far I have completed the theory via zoom for my NAEST course and await the practical examinations in college to complete it. We are also starting our Orals preparation classes as the MCA have started to trial doing the exam over zoom or other forms to try and clear the backlog of exams that have built up over the past months. It did take some getting used to but as we all adjust to this new normal and digital way of working and studying its more important to stay as safe as we can! So as I get back to studying for the last part of the cadetship and prepare for any changes that may happen I will try my best to keep this as up to date as I can!

Home Time!!

- 20/03/2020

Now the change is just beginning

So as we are all very much aware of the Coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world and how tragic it has been and how it has put a strain on people and businesses alike. Still onboard at this point and watching the pandemic affect Italy terribly the procedures onboard start to change. Onboard we had regular temperature monitoring of all crew onboard and maintained a log to monitor if anyone had seen a temperature increase. All passengers would be checked when they embarked and refused embarkation or if they were mid through a cruise put into quarantine. We had allocated cabins made empty incase we needed to put either guests and crew alike into lockdown from the rest of the ship. Also our cruises were constantly changing as certain Caribbean islands either refused entry or had closed completely and was getting really quite serious. Almost everyday we would have entire ships crew meetings in the theatre where we would be updated on operations and gave an opportunity for crew to directly ask the captain any questions they have had during this uncertain time. Onboard Divina we had carried on cruises until a cease of operations on the 20th March 2020 where all passengers were disembarked in Miami and no one was allowed to board. Coincidentally the 20th of March was the day that I was due to disembark Divina to go home and start college for my final phase but sadly I am not returning to Scotland until this is all over. Stay safe everyone wherever you all are!

This is what I mean! Amazing experience to be sat having dinner and suddenly another cruise ships comes reversing past you! Good thing the made that footbridge swing out of the way after all!

- 02/03/2020

The magical moving bridge (Queen Emma Bridge) in Willemstad, Curacao. This footbridge moves across the channel to allow for ships to enter and leave the port and is really bumpy when you walk across it! Curacao being a dutch Caribbean island and a constituent of the Netherlands it almost feels like being back in Europe rather than the Caribbean!

Some evening celestial navigation practice taking position lines from Venus, the moon, Capella and sadly some of the lines didn't come out very well but its all good practice (that and it looks cool when you write it all out) !

MSC Divina in port of San Juan, Puerto Rico for our overnight call.

- 02/02/2020

Quite exciting and terrifying moment! An earthquake had happened on Tuesday afternoon on the 28th January just north of Jamaica and we had received the earthquake and tsunami warnings over the NAVTEX which automatically prints navigational and meteorological warnings and forecasts, as well as urgent maritime safety information to ships in an approximate 200 nautical mile range. Thankfully we were in Miami at the time and heading towards Freeport in the Bahamas so thankfully we were clear of any risks!

So? What’s been going on

So, as I had said for my time onboard Divina I was on the 12-4 watch. So my day would effectively “start” at noon time with and 11:30 wake up call. After my four hours of either port watch or if we were at sea it would be our routine navigation watch.

If in port we would monitor all activities occurring such as all the daily maintenance tasks set by the bosun, safety officer and staff captain. We would open and close all work permits as appropriate and monitor the count of passengers ashore and onboard. Most of the departures were around 18:00, so most of the pre-departure checks had to be carried out 2 hours before so it meant that it would be at the end of our watch and so to be courteous to the 4-8 watch team we would carry out the 2 hour checklist. This would consist of testing the steering from all positions on the bridge, confirming the compass headings across the bridge and from the emergency steering room down on deck 3, testing the engines from all bridge positions and confirming with the engine room that the telegraph was working correctly and then testing the emergency telegraph. We would also call the relevant pilot or port control to inform them that it was 2 hours until our departure and make sure that the correct track had been loaded on our ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display and Information System) and create the necessary risk assessments for the departure manoeuvre with checking the weather and checking our stability was in compliance and safe to company procedures.

If we were at sea however I would assist my second and third officer by carrying out various tasks and they would in turn let me make alterations of course and carrying collision avoidance actions. I would fill out the necessary parts of the bridge log book, monitor the weather and send forecasts and weather reports to NOAA (sort of US version of the Met office). We would follow the approved passage plan and follow the master and company standing orders in order to navigate the ship safely and in line with policies. lastly the most important cadet job - make coffee!!

MSC Divina arrival to Miami USA 04:15 Local Time

- 12/01/2020

So one benefit of the itinerary this time is regular visits to Ocean Cay, MSC’s private island nature reserve in the Bahamas! Myself being from and island and loving to swim for exercise this was always a real treat as no matter what I was always 15 minutes walk from a point I could swim and the ship. definitely worth waking up at 9AM after finishing at 4:30 for!

My new homeport for the next 3 months, Miami USA! The flights out here all went well from Heathrow via Paris and then a night in an amazing hotel in Miami, arguably the largest shower I had ever seen! The itinerary of Divina for the Caribbean season consisted of having 7 day and 3 day cruises all of which were based in Miami so it meant that despite how lovely Miami looked it was always a very hectic day! The day consisted of arrival at 4:30AM and being on the 12-4 watch pattern it meant that I could go to the mooring stations for arrival. At this point in my cadetship it was good for me to practice taking charge of the mooring operations and being in charge of the communications to the bridge relaying our progress and distances of buoys and other significant points through Miami channel. Once I had eventually adapted to the 28ºC weather and sun after coming from mid winter UK it was certainly very enjoyable to be in short sleeves again!

well... that escalated quickly

so my time on Divina had come to an end and I had been a bit bad on keeping this up to date for obvious reasons. So here come my updates from the last 4 months and how much it has been totally flipped upside down!

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