The forest in the mist…

Amazing Alaska view…

I went all the way up the Juneau mountain with a friend to hike yesterday morning but this is the only view we got… Juneau was in a cloud!

This is the kind of amazing landscapes that justify all the hard work I have to do in order to be here! Just gazing at this for a couple of hours was the most magical thing in the world.

I finally got to go on a little outing two days ago! I went to a tour called “Misty Fjords of Alaska” where we took a small boat into the deepness of the biggest protected wild park of the united states to see amazing landscapes, waterfalls, and I got to see some otters and bald eagles on the way.

I haven’t had the time to sort everything I have but here is one where you see Ketchikan in the background

Here is the more serious fire fighting equipment…

Gas Masks

The guys getting ready to go into the serious fire…

A really serious, if controlled, fire to put out…

After putting out the fire… a very exhausted new fire fighter!

Today, I got up really early in order to go and train to be a fire fighter. This is a training session that everybody working on a ship needs to go through. This was really a fun day, where we actually had to put out several fires in various situations and using different equipement… Up you can see a picture of two of my instructors, really nice guys who train figher fighters in their free time…

Fire fighting boots…

Jennifer with light fire fighting equipment

Demonstration of how to use a simple dry powder fire hydrant.

My all-girl fire team today we were great!

A dummy to be rescued from the fire in the smoke…

It’s already been 3 weeks that I left France, and almost 3 weeks that I have been living the life of a ship photographer…

I am loving the learning experience, I am taking hundreds of pictures everyday and becoming a much, much better photographer with everyday that passes, thanks to the help I am getting from the great photo team I am lucky enough to have encountered on my ship. However, I have to say that living this life is far from being easy!

For one thing, there is no day off. I work longer hours that I have ever worked, a lot in the evenings all the way to 11 pm - 11:30 pm. We are always rushing to do one thing or the other. Everything needs to be done by us, from taking the initial photographs (on embarkation, in the restaurants, on the decks, on the gangways, on the train ride, in the studios…), correcting them, putting them up on the walls, selling them and other retail items (film, memory cards, etc. ), making frames, keychaings, photo albums opening boxes and boxes of printing paper once a week (believe me that’s really physical!) , moving piles of photographs from one place to the other in order to make space for new ones, piles of photograph from the lab on deck one mid-ship to the photogallery on deck 6 aft of the ship, and then there is setting up studios 3 times a week and loads of other details to take care of.

That’s a lot of work, a lot to learn. And then, there is the fact that lunch and dinner hours are always rushed, that ship food everyday gets very boring (what I would do to be able to cook something myself. and also for real cheeze), that we have to change hours twice a week because we are crossing a time zone, that you need to live in a tiny space with very little.

I am in Alaska and starting to be able to walk around the towns we go to, but I have not yet been able to join a tour and actually see all the sights. So when passengers look at us and think we are living the great life on the ship… what can you say? I will be lucky if I manage to do one or two tours before leaving Alaska. I hope I’ll be able to, so that I see the places at least… I so wish I could take a week and explore, but I never have more than half a day…

But half a day is looking good when I do get it. You need to pick and choose carefully what to do with your free time! For instance, today I am using my few hours of freedom to have a real meal outside the ship (I had onion soup and chocolate cake - mmm - I feel this is real food compared to what we get in the crew mess!) and write a bit… sometimes, going out and looking at the shops, bying a few things you need is all you can do. Sometimes you really need to sleep so you just don’t go out…

Yeah, it’s not “La croisiere s’amuse” like most of my friends were telling me back in France! I am almost never allowed in passenger space. I am only allowed there in uniform when I am working, or if I get a permission slip from my manager (which I have never done yet.) So in theory it is possible to go eat in the ship’s restaurants or go see one of the shows they have, but in practice you don’t ever have time. And if you do, at one point, maybe you won’t get your permission slip on time, unless you are really organized…

So, so far I am happy being here, and learning loads, that’s why I’m here… But I felt I needed to tell all the people jealous of my position… it’s not all that easy you know!!!

This is as close as the ship gets to the sawyer Glacier. It is quite impressive to be surrounded by these pieces of ice in the water…

Just in case you get home sick, you can just follow the signs to walk home…

A very nice coffee shop I stopped at this morning. It was nice to have real food here! Well at least food that’s not from the ship!

Juneau is a very small town that is only accessible from boat or air. No road connections whatsoever… In the summer of course it is full of tourists and the gift shops are full of things to buy, but I wonder what it must be like to live here through the winter!

Finally a photo of my whole ship! We are docking a bit far from Juneau city and then we are taking a bus to go into town. Far enough for me to give you a full view of my boat!

This time I was able to get out of the ship in Ketchikan! Yeepi!
Lovely view on the hills here…

Creek Street, going over a bridge where Salmon is going up stream this season…

And here goes the salmon… with a tool in the river, someone trying to fish one out!

A nice view of the salmon-filled river.

Canada is the first place I was able to go to after boarding the ship! Here is a view of the port, the morning I walked out.

The only thing I saw from Ketchikan, Alaska today was this, as seen from deck 6…

This is the one deck where the crew is always allowed outside. We can jog too!

My bed is the one on top…

The desk - shared of course, and with a TV on it…

Here is my ship, this saturday when I was about to board!