Greetings from Great Yarmouth! Day One has seen the arrival of the new voyage crew of LN 731 and a very busy start too – once they’d arrived (many courtesy of the trains complete with engineering works!) First of all Chris the Mate invited everyone to the lower mess to meet the permanent crew and volunteers namely; Clare the Captain, Jon 2nd mate, David the Bosun; Marco the chief engineer with Mr Chipp’s the 2nd engineer; Rachel the medical purser, Gerry the Cook with Derek aka ‘Dad’ as the cook’s assistant, with bosun’s mates Sarah & Craig, not forgetting our cadets, Chris, Ben and Jason! With the introductions out of the way, Captain Clare gave her plans for the coming voyage. Plan A is to head over to Scheveingen in the Hague, Holland before heading back to Southampton and the Boat Show.
Next Chris the mate led the training and briefings complete with the first evacuation drill (with Stuart & Claudy being models for the wheelchair evacuation) This is the time when our voyage crew start getting to know each other very well as all exercises involve heaving on the ropes and manually bringing the wheelchairs (with their owners!) up to the upper deck. Of course this was accomplished remarkably smoothly if you disregard the frenzy of activity somewhere in the region of the main mast as everyone sorted out their port from starboard and their fore from aft! Finally after the training was finished, a welcome dinner of roast beef was had, followed by fresh fruit salad and ice cream! Then Chris announced shore leave for everyone and some took the opportunity to go ashore to sample the delights of Norfolk whilst others settled into their cabins and enjoyed a very convivial night in the ship’s bar.
Rachel LN MP