Welcome to this weeks blog! We are continuing the story of my life on an Ottoman oil ship as an English teacher. This week I experience my first abandon ship drill. If you missed the beginning, here is the first episode: Prologue.
Wht my class often felt like….
The second day with the level three students was another easy one. A single student came at seven AM and then two students came for the seven PM class. No students at ten AM and again no students at one PM.
Ok he looked a little bit friendlier than this.
Around midday a knock came at the door and a large student with glasses came in to talk to me. He looked like a guy who liked to talk, and that turned out to be true. He came in and talked to me for about fifteen minutes and then left. The day was pretty quiet after that; I started my gym workout, edited one book and did the level three class at seven. As I was putting everything away and preparing to lock the class up for the night, I remembered that there were certain emergency drills on a weekly basis. I tried to recall where I was supposed to go. There was one where I had to go to the cinema and sit on the right side, then there was another one where I had to go to the lifeboat. I had completely forgotten the deck, but I had a faint memory from my tour with Staffen, he had said that I should go to lifeboat 2.
When all the stairs and hallways look the same, how do you find anything?
As I walked up the stairs, I ran into one of my students named “Vahap”, he was a welder from my level two class. I asked him which deck it was and he told me “Deck B”. I felt a sigh of relief and continued up the stairs.
Everyone’s favorite time.
I woke up and it was Saturday, a more relaxed day with no classes. Then I remembered that I had a student named “Barak” who needed to take an exam, because he had had to leave the class early the previous night. So, I got up around eight thirty and went to the class. After giving him the exam, the day was pretty quiet. I filled out the reports and prepared the lessons for Sunday and Monday. This day I wrote one poem and edited both of my books then around seven PM the student with glasses returned.
Is this your gourmet cheese?
His name was “Serkanhan”. I had previously tried to learn Polish and the name for cheese was “Ser” and kan, was like “can” in English, so this is how I tried to remember his name: “Cheese can”. He talked to me for about fifteen minutes and then told me that there was a drill tonight and asked me if I knew where to go, I told him lifeboat two on B deck. He said “wow”, and added that most people didn’t usually know where to go.
Hello sir, what beautiful music you have. Would you mind turning it down though?
I was preparing to leave around nine o clock when the dreaded screeching noise came. It sounded like a giant alarm clock that you wanted to slap and never hear again, but this giant alarm clock never stopped beeping. I calmly followed a man into the cinema room, and we were the only ones there. Then an announcement came “This is an abandon ship drill, please go to your primary muster point”. The guy next to me jumped up and yelled “oh shit, primary muster point?”.
I often felt like I was on the Titanic.
My thoughts exactly, “Oh shit, primary muster point? B deck, right?” As I headed up to B deck, lots of people were running past me, many of them with life jackets, the further I went up the stairs, the less people I saw. It was apparent that I was going the wrong way, and I couldn’t find a door to go outside. I asked a man, who was in a hurry, “Lifeboats are on B deck right?” His answer was “No, follow me.” We clambered down the stairs and then I realized we had to go to “A deck”, not “B deck”. I also needed my life jacket, “Should I go back up two flights of stairs and get it?” I asked myself.
What an amazing device, I wonder who invented it?
Then I saw a locker filled with lifejackets, so I grabbed one. After a few moments of figuring how to put it on, I turned my card around and stood in line. We stood there for what felt like forever, and there were still people missing. They sounded the alarm again and this time it kept going for five or six minutes.
Scotland. What a beautiful country, but what the fuck are they saying?
The whole time my group was silent except for two Scottish guys, who spoke in thick dialects. “Aye did’yeh se’de farse down by de were-well-e?” “Naw’r deh stret far’lo deh begg’in.” “Seh deh Mester Flackersnap slepen on deh shep en’de Pharoh Islands?” I got “Mister Flackersnap” and “Faroe Islands” and that was all I understood. These guys continued to talk throughout the drill and finally the radioman reported that only three men were still missing. Four minutes later a dozen guys came walking out and shortly after that the drill was finally over.
Me, almost every night that I was on the ship.
Like all nights, I went back up to my cabin to go to sleep. Now I knew where to go, hopefully subsequent drills would be much easier.