The Tour of the Holy Engine Room

Today we had the engine room tour.

Background!:
We took a catamaran tour in Bermuda with the ship’s captain. This was fun because whenever we did something, we were just very conscious of what the captain thought. Like “I’m spraying myself with sunscreen. IS THE CAPTAIN LOOKING?” etc. Since I have long been obsessed with the fuel tanks and no one is willing to show them to me, I told the Captain this fact. This captain is an American, smiles a lot, laughs at jokes, and goes to crew parties. He started captaining ships in the Navy Reserve and before starting his contract here a few months ago, he was running government owned ships in the Persian Gulf. As it is with cruise ships, the cruise line called him (“it’s an emergency”) and asked if he could start work in a week. In the US. Classic. Anyway, he strives to get jokes and strives to make them. Although at even the slightest hint of a joke, we are all like “HAHAHAHAHA!” because he is the captain. I mean. He said “write a note to the chief engineer, he’d love to show you the engine room. They’re very proud of it.” So I did. And in two days, someone terrifying called the room. My roommate Carla said this, about three times “May I ask who’s calling?” When I got on the phone, a terrifying murderer said “Hi Megan, this is Chief Engineer.” He did not strive to get jokes. He said “when you want to come.” I said, “uh, hahaha, we have our show tonight so not tonight, hahaha.” Revealing I am a fruity pointless actor who consumes and produces waste. Then I said “maybe tomorrow? Hahaha? After we port? Hahaha?” and he said “No. Not tomorrow. We move we have to close fire doors. 10 am tomorrow.” I said “yes” and “thank you” a ton to not sound like a waste. Then he yelled at me about where did I want to meet and “do you know where the control room is?” and said “just go and someone will tell you.”

10 a.m. is like 4:30 a.m. to my cast. When I told them “it’s at 10 a.m.!” People’s eyes instantly wandered. Out of 6 of us, 3 went. I brought up the idea of an engine tour to the youth counselors and one dancer, they used body language to indicate how deeply boring the idea sounded. Anyway, at 10 a.m. after asking 3 people, we found our way to the bowels of the ship, where the engine control room is. We saw two guys in all white coveralls standing in front of screens. I said “I’m here to see the Chief Engineer?” and the two guys nervously pointed to a little room. I said “We’re here for the tour!” into a room where everyone goes to smoke. A gruff annoyed man said “I am chief engineer”—I was too nervous to look at his nametag, even though he looked at mine and touched me a lot. I only saw he was from Greece. He clearly smokes a great deal. The control room is low ceilinged and window-free.

The best part of the tour is that the terrifying chief engineer said “you show them this room” and the tall Greek guy in white coveralls looked nervous and sick and the short Filipino guy looked vaguely annoyed. The short guy told the tall guy to talk about things. The tall guy said “I…uh…want him to do it. He is uh…longer than me.” Which I gathered meant “he’s been here longer.”

We stood in the room with about 8 different screens that flipped between various security cameras trained on machines. The guys kinda said “well, those are screens.” Then one said, “I mean, do you want to know about this in DETAIL?” as if there is no way swe would say yes. We kinda looked at each other and said “well, I mean…yeah.” So he pointed to one screen and described the “hi fog” fire safety devices and how those worked and were monitored. I think he didn’t like the word fog and wanted to say “mist” but couldn’t think of the word. So he kept saying “they release a very high…fog, but much water, not liquid. You know…how a fog is?” Then the terrifying Chief Engineer came back and they were like “well…do you want to go downstairs?” as if they didn’t want to go downstairs. And well, whatever, I don’t care. I have been dying to see the engines since day 1. Especially the fuel, which I will only see in my dreams, that’s just how that is going to be. So I said “YES.” We went down to start the tour. Step one: Insert earplugs. Our tour guide would still explain things, and we would laugh when he did and make our eyes go huge when his did, but afterward, admitted that we couldn’t hear anything. So basically, we had a visual tour.

And a visual tour. Was. Insane. The overarching message is “everyone’s life is hanging by a thin thread.” We are propelled by 2 generators that power 4 engines. Imagine a semi-trailer truck—but just the trailer part. Now, slice off about 25% of it. The remaining 75% is the size of the engines. THE MASSIVE ENGINES. Now, last December, one of these, ahem, exploded. Apparently you could hear the blast about 6 decks up. Before this tour, people talked about Code Bravo (which means: there is a fire), and I thought “oh cute.” Because nothing feels real when you are 2 minutes from a cookie at all times. And “fire” seems like a theme idea. Well, the blast through this engine was about 2.5 feet wide and 1 foot high. The top of the piston was melted. The captain described this engine as “an incredibly expensive anchor.” To get rid of it, they are going to have to cut a huge hole in the ship. I cannot imagine the fear and dread of the engineers when that happened. Especially considering one floor below is: FUEL.

The greek gentleman explained the fuel a little bit upstairs. They were both annoyed with their lack of words to describe it and kept saying “it is very low grade!” or “you know—very low grade fuel! Thick! Low grade!” The greek gentleman finally found a way to express it: “it’s like yohgurt!” which I found culturally appropriate. They also said “and, you know, we have to process the fuel. You can’t use it when we get it—it’s low grade fuel and too thick.” So they have, on the engine floor, a thing that processes the fuel. Heats it and purifies it and separates out the parts it can use. I thought he said it is like asphalt. Maybe he meant tar. My castmate said they use asphalt to purify the fuel. You now understand how clear the tour was.

They have their own hardware store.

As for the fuel, it is apparently kept right next to the tanks with our drinking water. No one would explain this clearly and apparently my questions are terribly phrased. But we did understand that they are more likely to dump oil into our own drinking water than the sea water. So maybe this means the fuel floats on top of our drinking water? Who knows.

Also on the engine floor is: the desalination tanks. We took out our earplugs for him to stand on a stool (ship built by Germans+operated by dimunitive Filipinos=stools) (no offense Jason) and do something done in every job everywhere. That is tell us why he suffers: “10 years ago they really thought this system was top of the line” because it is a touch screen “well, now it is obsolete. They are definitely changing this in dry dock.” Although we would never ever have known the difference. Apparently they take in salt water (my question: “where does it come in?” his answer: “from the ocean” so this will remain a mystery also), heat it, collect the condensation, add a teeeeeeeeeeeeny bit of bleach, then we drink it. Heh. This is why we buy Evian in the crew bar. Apparently every morning you are supposed to run your faucet for 5 minutes before you use any water, because that gets the bleach out of the pipes. Our clothes are getting a teeny bit lighter with every washing. Oh well.

They really like cruising around in Canada because they can dump a lot of waste water. They have a sewage treatment plant on that floor also. It is so effective that the water gets “so clear. Like Evian water.” But apparently you still can’t drink it. The nice thing about Canada is that you can dump all of that in the ocean. We were looking at a butterscotch looking tank for a while at the end of the tour. Butterscotch with a nice foam layer you’d get on a latte. We were having some language problems (overarching problem) and I said “oh, is that a window?” and after about 5 minutes, when he sprayed an internal jet that cleared the window, I realized we were looking at raw sewage and the floating bits under the foam was toilet paper. I did not vomit. Unfortunately we kept standing there. But I did not gag or vomit. Thank you.

After the tour, we went up to get breakfast and saw a woman with serious plastic surgery and her prissy daughter. Her daughter got a waffle and said primly “I’d like mine extra crispy.” Oh lady, we haven’t blown up! You and your waffle! So cute. I have seen where it ends up.