{"id":3891,"date":"2015-08-21T14:45:34","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T21:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3891"},"modified":"2015-08-21T14:47:32","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T21:47:32","slug":"3891","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3891","title":{"rendered":"Heave! \u2013 Haines, Alaska \u2013 [08\/19\/2015]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tug_o_war___colored__by_taen\"<\/a>It is a rather well known stereotype that entertainment department members are well\u2026entertainers. So for the most part we\u2019re more\u2026watchers when it comes to sporting events. We don\u2019t really play, and if we do \u2013 we don\u2019t even come close to winning. Usually we get thrown into team events as a lark, and everyone kind of well\u2026knows that.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love my department! But we\u2019re just not\u2026we\u2019re artists, not athletes!<\/p>\n

But today was the Indonesia Independence Day celebrations, which is a really big deal on board because so many of the crew members are<\/em> Indonesian. There\u2019s a formal flag-raising ceremony and several speeches, and then there\u2019s a bunch of games and competitions and such. At the last departmental meeting our supverisor stood at the front of the room and said<\/p>\n

Okay guys, I need a team of 6 for the Tug o\u2019war, don\u2019t let me down guys! Be in it to win it.<\/em><\/p>\n

And a few scattered hands went up, including one dancer, whom no one took seriously because she was a girl (more on that later). The rest of the team was made up of stage crew and musos\u2026including Amras, who even now I\u2019m not sure volunteered or was<\/em> volunteered (I didn\u2019t volunteer him I swear!). The thing is, our department is small, not weak necessarily but small, that doesn\u2019t necessarily bode well when you\u2019re in a competition that is mostly about brute strength.<\/p>\n

Never-the-less we all crowded onto the pier to either compete or cheer (I was cheering, I am of no use whatsoever on a tug-o-war line). The first department we were up against \u2026we won. Even the one dancer who participated shocked all the nay-sayers (but not her fellow dancers, because we know better), but bracing her feet and throwing herself against the line, people forget that dancers are small \u2013 and if you go against us in an upper-body strength competition we\u2019ll probably lose \u2013 but anything that involves using the muscles in our legs? You\u2019re going down<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And we kept<\/em> winning.<\/p>\n

What the?<\/p>\n

Entertainment won? Entertainment never wins! How did we win?!<\/em><\/p>\n

THOSE ARE MY BOYS! <\/em><\/p>\n

HA take that!<\/em><\/p>\n

GLOVES ARE FOR WHIMPS WE DON\u2019T NEED NO STINKIN\u2019 GLOVES!<\/em><\/p>\n

Somehow, we ended up in the final heat. Now, this meant we were up against one of two departments: the last cut before the finals was between deck and engine. Talk about arch rivals, I have never seen 12 people throw themselves against a rope so hard \u2013 at one point the \u201canchor\u201d of the deck department was literally crawling in the opposite direction with the rope tied around his waist in an attempt to get his team to hold their own! Knowing that we were up against whoever won, we were rooting hard<\/em> for the deck department, simply because they were a little bit less intimidating.<\/p>\n

Engine\u2026Engine is intimidating, I don\u2019t\u2019 think there was a guy on that team under 6 feet or 200lbs.<\/p>\n

And naturally we were up against them.<\/p>\n

How we made it to the final heat I have no idea, but we lasted all of 5 seconds\u2026perhaps 10. Which was all our Cruise Director asked us for.<\/p>\n

Just give me 5 seconds guys, 5 seconds so I can get the pictures!<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, all of this took place pier-side, so the passengers were all walking past us to enjoy their day in Haines. This is perhaps the one time that we felt no real guilt at not really acknowledging them directly \u2013 which is a good thing, because I\u2019m pretty<\/em> sure they all thought we were crazy\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a rather well known stereotype that entertainment department members are well\u2026entertainers. So for the most part we\u2019re more\u2026watchers when it comes to sporting events. We don\u2019t really play, and if we do \u2013 we don\u2019t even come close … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska","category-below-the-waterline","category-northern-exposure-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3GtNE-3891","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3891"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3894,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891\/revisions\/3894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}