A Sporting Chance – Colombo, Sri Lanka – [03/15/2014]

One of the things that’s unique about the flagship is that the entire entertainment team somewhat does…everything…when we’re assigned IPM (normally IPM just means you stay on the ship and work your normal hours…whatever those may be…here? Not so much).

Hence why today found me out on the sports deck in the burning Sri Lankan sunshine, cheering on passengers as they attempted to land a pickle-ball into a series of hoola hoops laid out on the court (and here y’all thought my job was so glamorous!)

In all honesty, I really don’t mind running sporting activities. I only have to do it on port days and it’s a chance to get to know a group of passengers who wouldn’t otherwise cross paths with me; and they’re usually the most fun loving people on board. The nice thing is, once you’ve run the events a few times you get to know all the people who come on port days, and they get to know you, so if you’re in a situation where it’s overly hot out or when they know you don’t feel well or desperately want to get ashore for a few minutes to snag that last trinket from the souvenior shop – they’ll just give you a wink wink nudge nudge and suddenly the event will run at lightning speed…

Yeah, we have a nice group of guests on board for the most part, even if the technology gremlins drive us all crazy once in a while.

That said, the gremlins do appear for the most part to have been appeased the last few days (perhaps we should have offered them prize vouchers!) and life onboard continues to have settled down to the usual daily lull. Sherra has been and gone, leaving in her wake a librarian who is ever so slightly wrung out from fitting three years’ worth of catch up into 6 zinfandel tinted evenings (Sherra…is a bad influence, don’t let her tell you otherwise!) and we’re now well past the half-way point of the season…after all, my own contract will be winding to a close in May, and that’s really not that far off when you take a good long look at the calendar.

It feels odd to not know precisely where I’m going after this. I know my next ship true, but not necessarily the one after that, and that’s a strange feeling because for nearly four years now I’ve proceeded forward knowing precisely where my steps are going to take me. My waterlogged life has become…to use a term I detest…predictable, and all that may now be changing…and the crazy thing is? I’m coming to realize that that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

After all, there’s nothing bad about a sporting chance at the unknown…