14 October 2007, Bar Harbor.

I arrived two hours ahead of time in Bar Harbor as the whole ship had to go through the US Custom and Border Protection Inspection. Our official arrival time was 9 am. but I had the hook down and the door open at 07.00 awaiting the officials. They showed up shortly after and the ship was cleared just before 9 am. It is just a pity that this procedure takes so long and not all the guests understand that this is something that is completely out of the ships hands. So the only thing I can do is arrive as early as possible and hope for the best.

The day turned out to be quite nice. The rain passed by before arrival but there was a cold North westerly breeze blowing. The season is definitely ending with the dropping temperatures and more and windier days. The scenery around Bar Harbor looked spectacular. 90% of the trees had turned color now and in the evening when the sun set, shining on the hills to the east, it was one feast of gold and purple.

We had some excitement in the afternoon, when I had to ring the fire alarm. Smoke was reported coming from a bathroom ceiling in a guest cabin and nothing excites a shipboard community more than a report about smoke. Because where there is smoke, there is fire. In the end it was just an electric light fixture that burned out but on board we are always afraid, that when there is a fire, that this fire will spread. However innocent it looks in the beginning.

Shipboard firefighting routines are very different from the shore side. If ashore your house goes on fire, you call the fire brigade and watch from a distance while they, also from a distance, start tackling the blaze. On board a ship you can not fight the fire “from a distance” as there is no distance; you are always right on top of it. So on ships the emphasis lays on prevention, early detection, containment and rapid response. To deal with the latter, the company has a fire fighting doctrine that calls for raising the fire alarm, even if the situation could have been dealt with without doing so. We could have dealt with this light fixture without saying anything and only the two occupants of the cabin would have known. However there is always a small chance that it could have gone beyond just a light fixture and we do not take that chance. Thus we prefer to keep all our guests informed to the best of our capabilities. The more is known, the less rumors there are and the less panic if something more serious might ensue.

So we rang the fire alarm. The whole ship knows. I make announcements to the guests and crew (my apologies to those on board who were taking a nap) and the crew gets to their stations on the double. There are at least 80 crew involved in an evolution like this. We have four firefighting teams of six in full gear with Scuba. They are supported by about 20 people carrying extra equipment and they are directed by two On Scene Commanders (OSC), one for engine spaces and one for non engine spaces. All the sailors report for standby for lowering lifeboats, all cooks report for standby for lowering life rafts. All cabin stewards are alerted incase cabins have to be evacuated. There is a special passenger notification team in the Front office to answer questions and the bridge keeps them fully briefed. There is an evacuation squad for evacuating people from nearby area’s and crowd control. There is a wheel chair squad for moving less ambulant people. There is a team for refilling Scuba bottles. There is a Rescue squad with stretchers and nurses and there are emergency elevator operators to handle the three elevators that will run to the very last on emergency power. The bridge is manned by Captain (overall command) CO (firefighting) HM (Hotel control) Cruise director (announcements), Provision Master (administration) Radio officer (emergency communication) The engine control room is manned by the chief engineer and first engineer and all non duty officers from deck and engine are called out as well. The medical team goes on full alert and prepares an alternative hospital in case the source of the alarm is too close to the regular ships hospital.

This whole machinery gets started up, when the fire alarm sounds and it all has to do with getting there quickly, before a small thing becomes a bigger issue. Our normal response time, from the moment the alarm sounds to having all teams fully deployed (that is dressed up in full gear and in position surrounding the endangered area) is 6 minutes.(*) Before that time, there are already “first responders” rushing to the scene to take initial action and to evaluate the situation.

Some guests consider it a nuisance to be woken up by a fire drill on a sea day and think, yet again a crew drill a we want to relax. But to get down to that six minutes reaction time, takes some training. Especially as it is done by crew whose daily job it is to serve the guests and not to save the world. I was very happy with the crew’s action during this minor affair today. They managed the six minutes and the first responders had the situation under control even before that time. ………….I am not so happy with all the paper work that it generated.

(*It is an industry given that you should tackle any shipboard emergency within 10 minutes in order to prevent it from be coming a bigger issue.)