Saturday, 17th January, Sea calm, 26 degrees

We did not wake up quite so early but had to join our Behind the Scenes tour at 8.45 so the exercising was a bit less than usual. We managed a Joe Wicks session and a 15 minute perambulation. It was then a quick breakfast and back to the room before we set off to join the 14 others on our tour.

I will relate what I remember, but as I said last night we were not allowed to take our ‘phones, could not take photographs and I did not want my notebook confiscated. So memory it is!

So it was first stop the theatre. We had been to see the show last night that had some fairly fast costume changes, so with that in mind we entered the world of those that make the magic happen on stage and to say we were impressed is yet another understatement.

First up to tell us about his job was the young chap who was responsible for directing the production we saw last night. He is also a member of the show cast. He is responsible for making the show happen, getting the dancers rehearsed and, it seemed, everything else that got the performance ready for curtain up. In addition, between performances, he runs the ballet class for guests!

We next went back stage to the make up rooms and heard that there are no dressers for the cast. This is amazing in terms of last night when all the dancers and singers had multiple, very quick costume changes. Apparently each person has their costumes arranged in a heap in the order that they need them and sometimes they have just 10 seconds to go back on stage in another outfit! On occasions this can be down to 5 seconds.,,,,

In fact everything seemed to be counted in seconds. For the stage manager it is his responsibility to manage the whole theatre to provide the best possible backdrop for the performers. Everything to blocking out the floor so that people know where to go, getting scenery in and out, the floor lifting up and down and curtains opening and closing – it must be an absolute nightmare. There are computers, headsets, buttons to press, noise to contend with, music and all to operate to ‘mini-second critical’ timing. We were blown away with the thought of it all, but the guy who did it was so matter of fact it was incredible.

We then went to the back of the auditorium to see how the sound and lighting worked. There was serious kit here and up to the minute kit at that. Sometimes the two chaps there have only five minutes with the artists to identify their requirement before they are performing on stage. Once again everything is time critical.

All of the people we spoke to had responsibility for not only the big theatre that we saw them in, but the two other theatres on the ship too!!

Our tour took us next to fo’c’sle (the forecastle). This is the Bosun’s domain where all the ropes and anchors are kept and controlled. It was interesting that they were still using ropes, multi stranded and a couple of inches thick they tie the ship up to its moorings. A little detail was that the ropes each had a cone on them to stop rats coming in to the ship from the outside. The anchor chains (there were two anchors) were enormous and apparently weigh much more than the anchors! The anchors weigh 5 tons each.

The Engine room was totally silent! No coal shovelling here!

What we saw of it was totally computer based, The ship runs on four diesel electric engines, but usually only two are used at any one time. I was amazed to learn that they can close an engine down and do repairs on board. The Aurora has two rudders, three bow and one stern thruster and two large stabilisers. Everyone has in fact commented on how stable the ship is but to be fair we have had totally beautiful weather, so the stabiliser thus far have had nothing to do!

There are three air conditioning machines running constantly – in tropical conditions like we are in 50% of the electrical load can be used by the air conditioning plant. The ship is self sufficient in fresh water production while at sea. Basically it operates a desalination plant. Consumption of water is approximately 550 tons a day.

All garbage generated on board is either incinerated or packaged for landing on shore. Volume is reduced by means of a crushing plant and balers.

I will not sully my writing with grey and dirty waste. Suffice it to say that there is a lot of it!

There are 25 engineering and electro-technical officers, 22 fitters and technicians, 5 waste disposal operators and 8 wipers (I am afraid this last number come from a hand book that I hadn’t read before our tour or I would have enquired what a ‘wiper’ does… do they do the dusting I ask myself).

Next was the fire man Pete who is the last remaining coxswain in the fleet. He was a jolly chap with a big beard and has been working on ships for many years. He had a lot of tales to tell about fires on board ships and the different substances needed to put them out. He was very reassuring on fire drills as he said they are carried out I think he said every other week. There were obviously bigger fire hazards in the days when smoking was allowed on throughout the ship.

Then it was the place that Keith had been particularly waiting for – the Kitchen or galley as it is known in these circles. And it was mightily impressive. It was spotless, with an air of calm reassurance and competence, despite the fact that it serves 10,000 meals a day, including the crew, to an incredibly high standard. We met the head chef who was Indian like many of his colleagues. He was very impressive.

Apparently the galley staff work around the clock. All the food is made on board, including the bread and patisserie. 3,000 fresh eggs are used a day. 102 chefs are on board for this voyage and on a busy day there can be 50 people working on a shift. The square footage of space devoted to the preparation and delivery of food must be vast. We passed huge refrigerators for everything needed on board, vegetables, meat, fish and dairy, we went into the cheese ‘fridge and the dry food store. Sacks and sacks of flour, salt, cereals, hundreds of boxes of biscuits. Catering on this scale is incredibly complex and the standard is so high. The logistics of it all is mind blowing. We were both in awe.

Our final stop was to visit the Bridge. We did not get to see the captain – he was not at home – but we saw the Staff Captain who I think is second in command and were shown around the equipment by one of the senior officers, who I was interested to learn had joined P and O as a cadet and worked up through the ranks. Good stuff. I have to say that the technical bit went over my head but I can report that despite being an old ship (it was build in 1999 and first sailed in the year 2000) the equipment was all very up to date and technical, but it was good to see young male and female trainees learning from the senior bridge officers.

I was so wrapped up in the excitement of the moment I nearly photo bombed another couple’s bridge photo with the senior officers. How embarrassing! Keith had to explain to me that I was not required…cringe material!

It was a really good thing to be right at the top of the ship, but I have to say there were a couple of things that concerned me. First the fact that there were a two easy chairs and a coffee table. Now come along. I really think this is not a place for lounging. I want everyone up there to be on full alert and looking where they are going…… incidentally we were told that the horizon is about 20 miles away and I was surprised we could not see land, given that I thought we were just sauntering down the Brazilian coast. We cannot even see it! (Because we were sailing 28 miles from the coast! Ed)

The second thing was that they are growing orchids up there! Once again we have no time for horticultural pursuits. Steering a ship is a serious business. I think I might put pen to paper to voice my concerns. Having said this, perhaps Darwin set up a precedent for this sort of thing when he was sailing on the Beagle and Captain Fitzroy allowed it – after all it was a similar sort of voyage.

The bridge visit concluded our tour – but the excitements were not over.

On descending to Deck 13, we were invited into the Uganda Room an offshoot from the Crows Nest and were provided with champagne and canapés, a lanyard telling the world that we have been behind the scenes and some vouchers to be used around the place.

All in all a jolly good four hours well spent.

It was a good job the morning had gone so well as by 3.00 pm it was raining. The first real rain we have had, I was caught out as I had ascended to the 12th deck for my crossword session, So I finished that in the Crows Nest, did a couple of laps of the promenade deck and joined Keith back in the cabin,

It allowed extra blogging time but ass dinner was fast approaching I really only did a little before it was time to leave the cabin for the dining room.

A great steak for dinner preceded by a Manchester scotch egg. All very yummy!

We had a bit of a treat on the way back from the dining room. We decided to walk back on the promenade deck and heard dolphins ‘tweeting’. Thanks to our ORCA man for telling us about the sounds they made! We could not see them of course because it was dark but they were definitely there. The perfect end to the day!

As there haven’t been many pictures to share today – here is one I omitted to post earlier in the week. Our certificate for crossing the equator.