Survival Training (aka the worst day of my life) and Traditions

So I will start with yesterday's survival training. We started at 8:30 with a little more basic knowledge about what is included in the lifeboat survival kit and then had the test. You have to pass this test in order to do the afternoon wet drill (I wish I had failed). I got 100% on mine (yay!) and then we had a lunch of turkey and strawberries. There were some other things too, but they were all sort of on the same tray so I could not eat anything.

So then we were shipped off to the pool with was in Costa Mesa. Luckily it was about 20 degrees, so a lot warmer than it was suppose to be, and it didn't rain at all. The water was nice and warm but the problem was we had to stand out of the water in really strong wind for upwards of 30 minutes waiting to do the next portion of the test. It was SO cold!!!! My legs were blue due to the cold and my extreme fear of water.

I have hated water as long as I can remember. I did a tumble in the pond by my cottage when I was very small and nearly drowned, then my second cousin stood on my shoulders to keep me underwater when I was about 12. Those 2 incidents were enough to make me hate water with a burning passion.

The first part of the test was jumping into the water, treading water for a minute, then swimming to the other side of the pool. Sounds simple, no? Well, I have never in my life jumped in water. The pool with 12 feet deep and we were suppose to just jump in. I asked Captain Ron to tie the rope around my waist so he could pull me up when I drowned. He was more than happy to do that, but I still could not bring myself to jump in the water. So I asked Ron if I could try jumping in the shallow end (6 feet deep) for practice and he was more than accommodating. So I did 2 jumps in the shallow end, probably drank about 2 liters of water, and then said I was ready for the deep end. So he walked me like a dog on a leash to the deep end to jump in. It took me a few minutes to be ready, but eventually I did jump in the water. I managed to come to the surface (thank goodness!!) and treaded water for a minute and then leisurely swam to the other side of the pool.

Once I am in the water I am fine, it is getting into the water that scares the crap out of me. So once that test was finished I had to stand out in the freezing wind and wait for the next test. The next one was jumping into the water with a life jacket on and then swimming the length of the pool. I was more okay with this task and it took less convincing to get me to jump in the pool. While you did go underwater when you jumped in, you came up to the surface fairly quickly. So that test was no problem. The next thing you had to do in the life jacket was jump in from the diving board....one metre above the water... This test I was no so alright with. You went further underwater with this one, but, I was wearing a life jacket so it wasn't so bad. So that was the life jacket test, not so bad.

The next test involved donning a neoprene survival suit, that was too big everywhere EXCEPT on your head and face.

1. I am allergic to neoprene

and

2. I am severely claustrophobic.

This by far was the worst test. I got into my suit and put the flap over my mouth and almost fainted. While you could still breathe, it felt like someone was slowly smothering you. So we did all these tests in groups, and there was 4 of us in this last group. All of us were not comfortable swimming. The one tiny man was from Indonesia and it seemed like he had never been in water before. I felt very badly for him. One girl was from Poland, Monika, and while she could swim, it took her some time to jump into the water. The other girl was my roommate, Cheyenne, and she is not a strong swimmer either. All of us had ropes tied around our wastes when we did the first test. So already this group was not the best to be going together.

The brave Indonesian was the first to jump in, then Cheyenne, then Monika. Ron was trying to convince me that it would be alright, but my brain was in full panic mode between jumping into the water and having a tight suit smother me, I thought I was going to have to book my flight home to Canada. Ron looked at me and told me that when my eyes returned to a normal size I would be allowed to jump into the pool. Apparently my eyes were so wide they were almost popping out of my head. There was also a very nice lady named Debbie who was in the water the whole time and she and Ron were so supportive saying I was doing great and that I could take my time jumping in. So after what felt like ages (maybe a couple of minutes) I was finally ready to take the plunge. And actually, I "liked" jumping into the water in the suit the best. I put liked in quotations because I definitely did not like it, but out of all the options it was the best. So once you jumped into the water you were suppose to roll to your back and then try to stand up in the survival suit to get all the air out. This was easier said than done. It was very hard to stand up because there was so much air in the feet of your suit to get your feet under you, but once you did this the suit became more manageable.

So we had to swim a length of the pool in the suit, and then jump from the diving board (which I did successfully without any prompting) and then had to jump into the life raft from the diving board. This one was my favourite because it didn't involve the water under you rolled out onto your back. Then came the really physically demanding test.

The first one was everyone had to get into the life raft and then seal the canopy. So we all swam over to the raft and we pushed Cheyenne into the raft. After that I was already tired. It took a long time because the suits were too big so the crotch of the suit was down by our knees. Once you stood up in it, it became skin tight. So it was like our knees were tied together. Trying to get into the life raft was hard because you could not throw your knees over to help you get in, you had to bring your legs up together and just use upper body strength. So when Cheyenne was in and started to help pull me up. I struggled for a bit, but eventually made it in the life raft. By this point I was so physically exhausted I didn't think I could do anything else. We managed to get the other 2 in (including the 90 pound Indonesian man) and then we had to seal it. You had to tuck elastic pieces over the edge of the raft. Cheyenne had one side and the Indonesian had the other. Cheyenne got her side in fairly quickly, but the Indonesian struggled. Finally after a few minutes Monika was able to tuck it in (I was stuck in the back of the raft not able to help). Then we had to sit in this tiny raft, in our claustrophobic suits, for a few minutes and then get out. Neither Cheyenne nor the Indonesian man could get there corners up!!! I thought we were going to be living in the raft for the rest of our lives! By this point I was getting so freaked out I thought I was going to scream and rip the canopy open. Finally, I think the Indonesian got his corner and we were free!!! But not finished the test.

The final test before we were able to get out of the pool was to right the life raft after it had been flipped over. The life raft weighs about 200 or so pounds so it is very hard to flip over. It is also a rectangle and we had to flip it length wise so that made it even harder. There are handles on the bottom of the raft for this specific purpose; one on the side and one a quarter of the way up. So what you had to do (while still in the survival suit) was to somehow get your knees up on this mess of cables, hoist yourself up so both hands are on the farthest handle and then lean back so the raft falls on top of you...

I was the first in the group to go and after the whole "getting into the raft" debacle I was so tired. So I swam up to the raft and tried to get my feet up on the mess of cables and it was so difficult. I managed to get a hold of the second handle and lean back and this massively heavy raft started to fall on top of me. Ron yelled out "hand up" because we were suppose to stop the raft with our hand...yeah right. So the raft came crashing down on top of me, pushing me under water and I was panicking trying to find a way out from under this rafter, all while breathing in water because I forgot to take a breath. I drank/breathed so much water in a short period of time that Debbie looked like she was ready to haul the raft off of me. I eventually managed to find my way out from underneath it, coughing a lot, and went to the edge of the pool to get out. Rom helped me out of the pool and said he was very proud that I was able to make it through and that I had done such a great job. I was just SO happy to be alive and out of the water. So a few guys helped me out of my wet, skin tight suit (very difficult to do) and I was able to go take a hot shower and get into dry clothes!

I had never been so happy to have dry underwear on! So I made it through the wet drill, with only a few liters of water in my stomach/lungs. I am really feeling the affects of it today. I pulled a muscle in my chest and my arms and legs are killing!!

So today was a little more easy with Traditions. I have done Traditions before in Disney World and this was generally the same thing. A little more aimed at Disneyland and a little at the cruise line, but all the same principles so it was a little boring, but Lisa the Hotel Director on the Wonder was in one of the videos!!

So we got a tour of Disneyland after lunch and then came back for another hour of lecture and then we were set free. They asked if we were enjoying our free tickets to Disneyland that we gout our first day in our packets and all of us looked blankly back at him. We had no packets on the first day, there was no DCL representative, our times were all screwed up for our classes and it just seemed like nothing was organized. So after traditions we came back to the hotel and then Monika, Cheyenne and I went to Disneyland!!! We walked through California Adventure for a few minutes, but everything was under construction and there was no much to look at. So we then ventured over to Disneyland and rode the Haunted Mansion!!! I was so happy because it has the Nightmare Before Christmas decorations on, and it was SO good!! We then ate and left the park. It was crazy busy there because it is almost Christmas and a weekend so we just decided to leave. That was the only ride I really wanted to do.

So now I am blogging and really should be packing all my bags to join the ship tomorrow! We are being picked up at 7:00 to join the ship around 8:00 when it pulls into port! Tomorrow is going to be a very long day so I need to get as much sleep as possible!!

TTFN!!