This blogging game is getting fun. What does a marine engineer on leave do with all his time off, apart from fix up the house, tend to the kids, love the wife etc etc? Well today after unpacking from a couple of months on board, I decided to ceremoniously burn my old work boots which were coming on 7 years old. Set of Caterpillars which have served me well, but have become too odorous for the likes of the family and shipmates. Farewell old friends..,

While the flames licked and the souls melted, it reminded me of a place where I don't want to end up, but I went there anyway - yep, back to the shaved lesbians site at www.cruisebruise.com. Now without turning this entire blog into a cruisebruise bashing page, I feel I cannot help myself but comment on the shite that the hairless dyke is publishing. This one is great, as she has come up with the idea that people can actually suffer sea sickness on land after being on a cruise. Now I can see the bottom feeding lawyers circling below, just looking for an opportunity to sue the cruise lines because of this, but wait a minute.... these people are off the ship...! They are sick because they are reading cruisebruise and paying attention to the single figure IQ drivel that is being spewed from the gullet of the lesbo. I get seasick at sea (even after all these years), but the only time I have had it on land is when I was shit faced in a bar in Southampton (great night). Go read about it. Let me know what you think.

Back to the engineering side. So, Alaska season is starting soon with very similar numbers of ships doing the rounds up there. I have done several contracts up there, and it really is a pretty place with nice people. The one thing that is getting too much is the polices of the Alaskan governments. Cruise lines go to extraordinary lengths to be able to comply with the environmental policies and restrictions that are in place in Alaska, and to be honest it does nothing except improve the awareness of the environment. Ships now are not like they were 30, 20 or even 10 years ago. All the big heavyweights have zero discharge polices, which are policed by the Alaskan government. To give you a taste of what we have to go through, here is a brief list...

1. Smoke from stack to have less than 20% opacity at all times, except when starting or maneuvering. In some Alaskan ports (Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan) the government employs students to sit on a mountain to watch the ships visible emissions, and to log anything over 20% opacity. This is measured by the human eye and is EPA approved method of measuring. The calibrated and certified opacity meters we have in the stack are however not approved. You be the judge. Engineering loses (legally), but we know we are more accurate, so engineering wins.
2. All overboard waste water is to be 100% clear, treated and stripped of all metals. The water we discharge is treated to a higher standard, and has less metals that the water running from the Alaskan mountains into the Alaskan oceans. This means that mother natures water is not good enough to be discharged in Alaska. Engineering wins.
3. Ocean rangers to travel on board throughout the entire season. From what I understand, most of the cruise lines agree to this, as the honest ones have nothing to hide. However from my experience with these people is that they are just Alaskan people being given a job, and have zero knowledge of waste water treatment and ships in general.
4. Alaskan government have to have a vessel position every hour to track back any unsightly discharges.
5. $50 per head per cruise tax on every passenger. From what I read and understand, this goes into the pockets of the government coffers.
6. Dock taxes, compulsory tugs, compulsory pilots, stevedore costs, port services, the list is endless, and now cruise companies are starting to realize that it is not so profitable to cruise up there anymore.

I read that one of the heavyweights (Royal Caribbean) is pulling a vessel out of of Alaska in 2010, and Princess is pulling out two vessels, along with Holland America to follow.

Firstly, let me clarify that cruise lines do want to cruise up there, however Alaska is going to get a big wake up call soon if they don't start relaxing the costs. Look what happened in Hawaii. Alaska depends on tourism (go and Google the figures), and this is a classic bullet through the foot if they do not wake up and smell the tea. Cruise ships are not big polluting beasts anymore, and I know from first hand experience that they spend MILLIONS to jump through the hoops of whichever organization decided to make up new rules. Our new engines, new waste water plant, new water producing plant, new piping, new separators etc etc, are all because of new rules and regulations (not only in Alaska) but around the world.

Anyway, if my company decide to pull ships out of Alaska, I wont miss the place. 7 years of cruising up here, is nice but there is only so much snow, mountains and ice packs you can take. The good thing about being up there is that the machinery runs cooler, and that means less work as the maintenance is less. However the grey hairs are showing after continually monitoring our emissions and hence escaping certain ass-raping prison sentences because some fat assed passenger sneezed into the ocean.

The likes of www.cruisebruise.com are very uneducated (and luckily it shines through to the not so stupid people). Fuck you Janet, and the double dildo you rode in on.