Category Archives: High Seas

NEIGHBOURS in one of Oxford's quietest suburban streets were enraptured with tales of the high seas on Saturday afternoon.

Former ship mates of renowned sailor and author Alan Villiers gathered at his old home in Lucerne Road, Summertown, to share memories of his most famous expedition a full-scale re-enactment of the 17th century Mayflower crossing from England to America which he captained in 1957.

The occasion for the gathering was the unveiling of a blue plaque at the home where his 101-year-old widow Nancie still lives.

Left-to-right Katherine Chetwynd, Peter Villiers and Kit Villiers unveil the plaque to honour their father. Their mother Nancie is pictured below left.

Guest speaker David Thorpe, a deckhand on the '57 voyage, recounted how his gruff and stern captain spoke to him just twice during the crossing once upbraiding him for winding up a rope with 'yachtsman's coils'.

Born in Australia, Alan Villiers first went to sea in 1919 as an apprentice aboard coastal schooners that traded on the rough Tasman sea.

He then became a journalist, writing about his often dramatic adventures.

He came to England aboard a Finnish sailing ship in a harrowing expedition on which his friend and shipmate Ronald Walker died.

He recorded the experience in his book By Way of Cape Horn which became a best-seller and a film.

During the Second World War he commanded a flotilla of landing craft at Normandy Landings, before settling in Oxford in the 1950s and continuing to pursue his passion for sailing, including the Mayflower II.

Mr Thorpe recalled how he met his future captain when, as an undergraduate at Oxford University in 1955, the famous sailor and author came to give a talk at University College.

He recalled: "Honestly, only Alan could have had that beery lot hanging on to his every word on the subject of rope."

Remembering their time together on the Mayflower II he said: "Captain Villiers was a true 'master under God', as the old ship's articles use to say: he believed in God, and used to read the bible to us every Sunday."

He rounded up his speech by saying: "And behind every great man is a great woman, and I don my cap to Nancie," to a round of applause from the crowd.

Mr Villiers' son Kit, who attended the ceremony with his brother Peter and their sister Katherine, said he was surprised by the number of people who had turned up.

He added: "We are very pleased at the interest shown."

The ceremony was also attended by the director of the National Maritime Museum Dr Kevin Fewster and American historian Marietta Mullen, an expert on the Mayflower II voyage who travelled from Plymouth, Massachusetts.

She said afterwards: "It is an honour just to attend: the voyage of '57 is a phenomenal story and there were amazing people aboard that ship."

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Quiet Lucerne Road, Oxford, was enraptured with tales of the high ... - The Oxford Times

This old Doris Day song kept on bouncing back-and-forth inside my head as our mega-ship slowly drifted away from the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong. We were on our way to another voyage to the high seas.

This was actually my nth cruise, having taken several to different parts of the world, but every cruise I take always gives me that giddy feeling of a newbie. There is something about a cruise ship, especially if its a mega-ship like this one I was on, that stirs a hornets nest of excitement in me, akin to that of a little boy going to a carnival for the first time.

Genting Dream, built by Meyer Werft of Germany, is Asias first-ever luxury cruise ship, and is so new, it has been in operation for only five months. It is a 20-storey mega cruise liner with 1674 staterooms (cabins) most of which have balconies, can carry 3352 passengers, and is serviced by a staff of 2016. These numbers immediately give you an idea of the size of the ship.

It has 23 restaurants and bars, nine entertainment venues, but I have to admit that I didnt have enough time to try all of them as I found favorites among the few that I tried, and decided to spend longer hours there. Naturally, I also spent time in The Market, a commercial retail area, to buy some presents for friends, and browsed around the attractive masterpieces in the Art Gallery. I also enjoyed The Dream Boutiques where the worlds leading signature brands are sold at very reasonable prices, tempting enough for me to dish out my plastic money for some prized items.

The ship also has eight sports and recreation facilities, and seven beauty and wellness centers. On Deck 19 is where the business center and library are, and meeting rooms are found on Deck 7. I enjoyed the boardwalk, a 610-meter wraparound outdoor promenade, where I burned out unwanted calories from the lavish meals heaped on us. Of course, for those into extreme sports, the ships exciting zip line and very challenging rock climbing wall will take care of your adventurous soul.

Being a sister company of Resorts World, the ship has a casino, and it spans three decks, which made it impossible for me to ignore it, much as I wanted to, because I would pass by those sparkling, shimmering, splendid machines whichever direction I would go to inside the ship. The melodious sound emitting from the machines every time they hit a jackpot succeeded in disarming my defenses, and the next thing I knew, I was already seated in front of one. Well, lets just say, the temptation was well worth it, as it paid me back the cost of one signature branded item I bought earlier.

Real live, Las Vegas-style nightly entertainment is available at the Zodiac Theater on Deck 7. The shows make you enjoy watching sleight-of-hand tricks and the same leggy, attractive, Moulin Rouge-type girls in elaborately designed costumes, making you think to yourself, how can one enjoy so much entertainment, being in the middle of the ocean?

And, my stateroom (cabin) was the best part of the ship. The first time I entered it, I knew right away it was going to be a very relaxing voyage. The king-sized bed was very comfortable and it was right next to the balcony, so all I had to do was open the drapes and I had a panoramic, calming view of the deep blue sea. My stateroom could accommodate 4 persons comfortably and, since I was all by myself, I had so much space to move about.

Comfortable as it was, my cabin also posed a challenge to me every day---I had this mental tug-of-war, deciding whether to laze around inside it, or enjoy the fresh air at the promenade deck, or pig out in any of the restaurants where a sumptuous, abundant meal is always free-of-charge. Agonizing decisions, right?

The gala night was quite memorable for me. The instruction was for all of us passengers to wear Chinese attire, and prizes would be given to those looking their very best. I didnt have any other Chinese get-up except for the one I bought in Vietnam many decades ago, when I was still with the airline. It is a blue silk tunic similar to what Chinese emperors in those period films wear. It came with a matching hat. Well, what do you know, they liked it and I won a very expensive Bally leather briefcase for being the Best-Dressed Gentleman of the evening. I find this very significant because the ships passengers were 80-90% Chinese, yet I beat them at their own game.

Genting Dreams fine Asian and international dining, exceptional service and enthralling entertainment will certainly make anybodys dreams set sail. I never thought this cruise would be as enjoyable as the many other cruises in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean I took the past years. Now, I can proudly say that the Asia-Pacific region has leveled up, and is now at par with the other regions cruise industry.

Thank goodness for Dream Cruises, the mother company of Genting Dream, and sister company of Star Cruises, it now meets the needs of the emerging generation of confident, independently minded and affluent Asian travelers. And the best part is that Genting Dreams sister ship, the brand-new World Dream, a mirror image of the former, will be in operation starting December this year, and will homeport in Manila.

With this piece of good news, are your dreams ready to set sail?

For feedback, Im at[emailprotected]

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Dreaming On The High Seas - The Standard

LAKE WORTH, Fla.

A group of seven combat veterans spent last weekend aboard a private yacht in Cabo San Lucas, fishing poles in hand.

Some people may look at it and say its cool what youre doing. Its just a weekend of fishing, said one of those veterans, Nick Kefalides. But its so much more.

Kefalides now lives in Lake Worth.

Before that, though, he was Staff Sgt Nick Kefalides with the U.S. Marines Special Operations Command. He spent eleven years serving in the worlds most dangerous places.

He left the military in 2015 after multiple concussions, traumatic brain injury, and three surgeries on his spine.

I pretty much live in pain day to day, Kefalides said. Ive kind of found coping mechanisms and ways to minimize that.

>>Download WPBF 25 News App: Apple IOS | Android

Kefalides said he found minimizing the psychological damage to be even more difficult.

Once he left the military, he found it extremely hard to adjust to civilian life.

I just felt lost, he said. I kind of felt like I had no purpose.

Thats when a non-profit called the Freedom Alliance found Kefalides.

About once every two months, the Freedom Alliance leaves from Palm Beach County with a group of veterans from across the country. They take them to a corner of the world for a fishing trip.

For a lot of these guys, its the reset button that they need, Kefalides said.

For those two days, there are no struggles and there are no questions.

For those two days, there is just fishing and talking as a team, as a unit.

It makes them realize theyre not alone, Kefalides said. Theres other guys that are seeing similar struggles.

Kefalides took his first trip with the Freedom Alliance two years ago.

He was so low at the time he believes the trip may have saved his life.

Now, he volunteers for the Freedom Alliance, organizing these fishing trips. He then joins his brothers and watches as they realize they have a lot of life left to live.

For a long time, I felt like I had lost my sense of purpose and this literally has given me that again to where I feel like Im making a difference in peoples lives, Kefalides said.

For more information on the Freedom Alliance, you can go to freedomalliance.org.

WEBVTT GET THEIR LIVES BACK TOGETHER.ARI HAIT HAS MORE ON THE FREEDOMALLIANCE.>> SOME PEOPLE MAY LOOK AT ITAND SAY IT'S COOL WHAT YOU'REDOING.IT'S JUST A WEEKEND OF FISHING.BUT IT'S SO MUCH MOREARI: IT COULD BE A WEEKEND INCABO, OR THE BAHAMAS, OR COSTARICA.THE LOCATIONS ARE ALLSPECTACULAR, BUT WHAT'S REALLYIMPORTANT ON THESE TRIPS IS THEGUEST LIST.>> THERAPEUTIC IS PROBABLY THEBEST WAY TO PUT ITTHE WHOLE EXPERIENCE TOGETHER ISVERY THERAPEUTIC.ARI: NICK KEFALIDES NOW LIVES INLAKE WORTH.>> YEAH, BOY. ARI: HE LOVES HANGING AT HOME,PLAYING WITH HIS DOGS.BUT BEFORE THAT, HE WAS STAFFSERGEANT KEFALIDES WITH THE U.S.MARINES SPECIAL OPERATIONSCOMMAND.11 YEARS IN THE WORLD'S MOSTDANGEROUS PLACES.HE LEFT THE MILITARY IN 2015AFTER MULTIPLE CONCUSSIONS,TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY, ANDTHREE SURGERIES ON HIS SPINE.>> I PRETTY MUCH LIVE IN PAINDAY TO DAY.I'VE KIND OF FOUND COPINGMECHANISMS AND WAYS TO MINIMIZETHAT.ARI: BUT MINIMIZING THEPSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE WAS EVEMORE DIFFICULT.NICK HAD NO IDEA HOW TO SURVIVEAS A CIVILIAN.>> I JUST FELT LOST.I KIND OF FELT LIKE I HAD NOPURPOSE.ARI: AND THAT'S WHEN A GROUPCALLED THE FREEDOM ALLIANCEFOUND HIIT'S A CHARITY AND ABOUT ONCEEVERY TWO MONTHS, THEY LEAVEFROM PALM BEACH COUNTY AND TAKEA GROUP OF WOUNDED VETERANS TO ACORNER OF THE WORLD FOR AFISHING TRIP.>> FOR A LOT OF THESE GUYS, IT'STHE RESET BUTTON THAT THEY NEED.ARI: FOR TWO DAYS, THERE ARE NOSTRUGGLES.THERE ARE NO QUESTIONS.JUST FISHING AND TALKING AS ATEAM, AS A UNIT.>> IT MAKES THEM REALIZE THEY'RENOT ALONE.THERE'S OTHER GUYS THAT ARESEEING SIMILAR STRUGGLES.ARI: NICK TOOK HIS FIRST TRIPTWO YEARS AGO, HE BELIEVES ITMAY HAVE SAVED HIS LIFE.NOW HE VOLUNTEERS FOR THEFREEDOM ALLIANCE, ORGANIZINGTHESE TRIPS, THEN JOINING HISBROTHERS AND WATCHING THEMREALIZE THEY HAVE A LOT OF LIFELEFT TO LIVE>> FOR A LONG TIME, I FELT LIKEI HAD LOST MY SENSE OF PURPOSEAND THIS LITERALLY HAS GIVEN METHAT AGAIN TO WHERE I FEEL LIKEI'M MAKING A DIFFERENCE INPEOPLE'S LIVEARI: IF YOU WOULD LIKE MOREINFORMATION ABOUT THE FREEDOMALLIANCE, WE'VE PUT A LINK TO

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Wounded veterans find new life on the high seas - WPBF West Palm Beach

Late in her B.C. re-election campaign, Christy Clark is acting more like a pirate than a premier.

She stands in the bow of the coastal ship, cutlass in hand, extracting booty from any Alberta treasurethat entersthose waters.

Clarks Liberal crew stalled and squeezedthe Kinder Morgan pipeline for years. She got $1 billion out of it for B.C., along with many other concessions.

Despite that piratical precedent, nobody expected her sneak attack on thermal coal. Clark says that if Ottawa doesnt ban exports from B.C. ports, she will use provincial law to impose a $70 per tonne carbon price.

This isaimed at U.S. shipments, she says, as retaliation for new import duties on softwood lumber. If her promise wins votes from coastal climate advocates, so much the better.

But the impact on Alberta would be severe up to 2,000 jobs gone, by one estimate, and nearly $300 million a year in lost revenue, because the coal would simply be too expensive to ship to Asia.

And the pain for B.C.? Virtually zero, because that province does not produce thermal coal. Such a coincidence.

Clarks dangerous pattern is to block interprovincial trade and access to tidewater when its convenient for her.

Her latest stunt is not just unconstitutional, but a violation of the New West Partnership trade pact signed by B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The firstrule of that deal is: Each Party shall ensure that its measures do not operate to restrict or impair trade between, among or through the territory of the Parties

Clark doesnt appear to care about such little things. The lumber duties hurt Alberta workers and companies as much as B.C.s, but her response brings a further attack on Alberta.

Clark infuriates Premier Rachel Notleys New Democrats, now more than ever.

But Notley swallowed hard and ordered her staffers not to campaign for John Horgans B.C. NDP, because he opposes the pipeline. Clarks Liberals with an eye on that $1 billion at least dont stand in the way.

Notley is now forced to defend thermal coal, hardly her favourite energy product, while pointing out the essential goofiness of Clarks action.

Quite frankly, its not good for Alberta, Notley said. But I also dont know that this will get very far because Im not convinced that the ability actually exists within the provincial government.

Technically, shes right. Clark proposes to tax a product thats neither produced nor consumed in her province. By that standard, Alberta could tax B.C. wine on the way to Toronto, or natural gas crossing the province by pipeline.

The whole idea looks laughable. Clark simply doesnt have the authority.

But thats what Albertans said in 2012 when she marched into Calgary with a list of conditions, including money, for the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Shemade that work by exploiting environmental activism and federal inaction.

Now she offers the coal tax as a detailed campaign promise. If the Liberals win, she has to go through with it.

The B.C. election is complex and very close, with the Liberals and NDP nearly tied, and the Greens running a strong third.

Even Alberta PC Leader Jason Kenney has been caught up. At a dinner in B.C. recently, he urged people to support Clark.

Notley needled him for that on Wednesday when she talked about the coal tax.

People who support that idea or support people proposing that idea ought to think about where their loyalties lie because, quite frankly, its not good for Alberta, she said.

Calgary-Shaw MLA Graham Sucha added: Why is Jason Kenney campaigning in B.C., when he should be in Alberta fighting for jobs?

Kenney says he was asked to give a speech where he did endorseClarks Liberals. And hes not apologizing now.

I dont agree with a tax on an export like this coal tax at all, but theres still no question the B.C. Liberals would be far better for Albertas economy than the NDP ever would, he said.

Many politicians just want this B.C. election over with. Especially the Albertans.

Don Braids column appears regularly in the Herald

dbraid@postmedia.com

Twitter/DonBraid

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Braid: Another high-seas shakedown from B.C.'s Christy Clark - Calgary Herald

New research concludes that a total ban on the practice of transshipment on the high seas is necessary to help stop illegal fishing and reduce the human trafficking and labor rights abuses that often accompany unlawful fishing activities.

Transshipping enables fishing vessels to remain at sea for extended periods of time, Washington D.C.-based oceans conservancy NGO Oceana explains. Fishing vessels and refrigerated cargo vessels rendezvous at sea in order to transfer seafood, fuel or supplies. While this transshipping practice can be legal in many cases, it also can facilitate the laundering of illegally caught fish, especially on the high seas and in waters surrounding developing and small island nations with insufficient resources to police their waters.

As detailed in a report released last month, Oceana found that close to 40 percent of suspected instances of transshipping occur on the high seas areas outside of any national jurisdiction, which make up about two-thirds of Earths oceans. Russias Sea of Okhotsk, the high-seas regions of the Barents Sea, the national waters of Guinea-Bissau, and just outside the national waters of Argentina and Peru are reportedly the worlds chief transshipping hotspots.

Oceanas report was based on an analysis of data collected by West Virginia-based environmental monitoring NGO SkyTruth and Global Fishing Watch, a partnership between Google, Oceana, and SkyTruth, which documented more than 5,000 likely cases of illegal transshipment and over 86,000 potential cases between 2012 and 2016.

In a paper published in the journal Marine Policy last month, a team of researchers make the case that a global ban on the practice of transshipment on the high seas is necessary in order to curb illegal fishing and human rights abuses in the global fishing industry.

This practice often occurs on the high seas and beyond the reach of any nations jurisdiction, allowing ships fishing illegally to evade most monitoring and enforcement measures, offload their cargo, and resume fishing without returning to port, Jennifer Jacquet, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University (NYU) and a co-author of the paper, said in a statement.

Chris Ewell, the papers lead author, added: More significantly, transshipment at-sea can facilitate trafficking and exploitation of workers who are trapped and abused on fishing vessels because there is simply no authority present to protect those being exploited. Ewell was an undergraduate student at NYU at the time of the study.

Coastal waters are becoming increasingly overexploited, the researchers note in the paper, causing fishing vessels to travel further from shore in search of fish. Traveling to distant waters on the high seas is more expensive, of course, driving the fishing industry to seek government-sponsored subsidies, especially fuel subsidies, as well as cost-cutting measures like the use of forced labor and transshipments, which the industry defends on economic grounds, arguing that it improves efficiency by allowing a single cargo vessel to bring the catches of several fishing vessels to port and leads to better fuel efficiency.

Ewell and team looked at transshipment regulations adopted by 17 Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs), the international bodies responsible for governing fisheries on the high seas, in order to determine how strictly regulated the practice is around the globe.

They found that while the majority of RFMOs have increasingly strengthened transshipment-at-sea regulations since the late 1990s, just five had mandated even a partial ban as of 2015, the year of study. Only one RFMO, the South East Atlantic Fisheries Organization, has adopted a total ban on transshipment.

Yet, according to Ewell and co-authors, banning the practice altogether is crucial if were to rein in illegal fishing, estimated to cause somewhere between $10 billion and $23.5 billion in annual global losses, and ensure the future sustainability of fisheries.

A global ban would also help cut down on the human trafficking, forced labor, and other human rights abuses that have become unsettlingly common within the fishing industry, Ewell and co-authors write. Transshipment helps make these human rights abuses possible because it allows fishing vessels to stay out to sea and thereby avoid shore-based regulatory and law enforcement agents.

Workers are largely recruited by manning agencies in developing countries, where they are made false promises of compensation, asked to pay agency fees later used as justification for indentured servitude, robbed of their documents, and sold into conditions that constitute slavery, the researchers write. These fishermen are drastically underpaid or unpaid, and often held captive at sea for several years as fishing vessels receive supplies of food and fuel via transshipments at-sea. Transshipments at-sea have also been linked to other forms of organized crime such as drug, weapon, and other wildlife trafficking.

Ewel and his co-authors argue that A total ban on transshipment at-sea on the high seas would support the ability of oversight and enforcement agencies to detect and prevent illegal fishing and also likely reduce human trafficking and forced labor on the high seas.

CITATION

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Article published by Mike Gaworecki on 2017-05-01.

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To help stop illegal fishing, ban practice of transshipment on high ... - Mongabay.com

HE was captured by Nigerian pirates and held at gunpoint in a squalid jungle camp, told by one of his teenage captors that hed be burned alive unless a three-quarter-of-a million pounds ransom was paid.

Now Joe Westland, a 66-year-old grandfather, has revealed every detail of his traumatic ordeal in a new book to be published next month.

Westland, from Arbroath, first went to sea as a fresh-faced 15-year-old in 1965, working on fishing boats before he began a career in the merchant navy.

He knew the waters off the east coast of Africa well, having sailed a supply vessel there for just over a decade. He knew the dangers.

But in May 2013 the crane on his ship broke down and he was forced to put down anchor close to the Nigerian coast. The pirates took their chance and dramatically boarded the boat, breaking the windows on the bridge to bypass bolted steel doors.

Westland said: The only way in was through the bridge windows. They smashed every one. All the lights went out. I locked my door and hid myself in the toilet. They smashed the doors in with a sledgehammer and I was dragged out.

We were close to land to make it easier for the company to reach us while we waited for repairs to be carried out. In hindsight I shouldnt have agreed to do that. And I should have moved the vessel every couple of days. I blame myself for that.

He said: I was the only ex-pat on board so they took me. I was in a state of shock. I was lying in water at the bottom of their boat. One of the hit me with a gun. He told me not to move."

Alone and afraid for his life, Westland was taken to shore and moved to a ramshackle hut in a remote jungle clearing.

He said: I was lying on wood, there was no bedding. I was given no food. There were two guards with me at all times. I got malaria. I had bad diarrhoea. These two guys would take me into a crocodile-infested bog to do the toilet. It was terrifying. I wouldnt put my worst enemy through that.

Westlands captors took all of his possessions, including his wedding ring and mobile phones. It was then they started demanding a ransom.

He said: They asked for my wifes number but I wouldnt give it to them. The only person I wanted them to talk to was my line manager, because hed been in Nigeria longer than me. Every time they called him it was done with my phone. They actually had it hanging from a tree to get network. I was only allowed to talk when they told me to talk. I was only allowed to say what they told me to say.

They threatened to set me on fire. The boy that said it couldnt have been older than 14. I always thought being burnt alive would be the worst death ever, and to have someone tell you theyre going to do it to you was devastating.

I was going to grab a gun and turn it on myself, but I wouldnt know what to do with a gun. I was going to grab a machete Westland whispers, it was terrible. How people can do that to other human beings I just dont know.

It was in his darkest moment that Westland decided to fake a heart attack, which ultimately forced the hand of his captors and ended the horse trading with the company he worked for.

He started rolling on the ground, eyes swivelling, tongue lolling, shaking violently. Fearing they were about to lose their bargaining chip, the pirates settled for just 56,000 and handed Westland over five days after he was taken.

He said: They got a scare. I really put it on. One of the guys put his hand on my chest and said we need to get him out of here hes not going to survive.

When they did the money transfer I still thought I would be killed. They had no reason to set me free. Life means nothing to these pirates.

Westland has never returned to sea and still suffers from flashbacks. "I was seeing counsellors and they told me there was a 99 per cent chance Id have a nervous breakdown if I did [go back].

He was advised that writing a book could be cathartic and bring closure.

I think it has helped me because Im able to talk about it now but I still cant live with it. It just destroyed me.

The main reason I wrote the book was to warn others about the dangers. If it serves as a warning to others it will have done some good.

A Captains Ransom is out on May 28

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A captain's tale. Hostage on the high seas (From HeraldScotland) - Herald Scotland

Landlubbers, look away: Below Deck Mediterranean is back for some more high seas shenanigans. Premiering 9 p.m. Tuesday on Bravo, the reality show documents the action aboard the 154 foot mega yacht, Sirocco. We chatted with Fort Lauderdale resident Lauren Cohen, Third Stew. According to her bio, Cohen is an ex-NFL cheerleader with a bubbly personality tailor made for yachting. She prides herself on her enthusiasm and positive attitude, using her cheerleading skills to keep the guests and her crew always smiling.

What are some plot points in this season?

This season you can expect incredible scenery of Croatia, challenges between the guests and crew, love triangles, and the franchises first ever female captain [Sandy Yawn]. Viewers can expect an almost entirely new crew lead by returning cast members Hannah and Bobby. The element of an almost all new crew, adds new drama, new adventures, new relationships, new friendships and new situations never seen before on Below Deck.

How is this season different from others?

We still show you the dynamic between crew members working in close quarters on a mega yacht. And being in Croatia this season, gave us all a great opportunity to explore this beautiful country and all that it had to offer, which is unlike anything youve seen before on previous Caribbean seasons or in the first season of BDM.

What is a typical day like for you on board?

That will all depend on whether we have charter guests on board or not. When we do have guests on, I am up on deck at 6:30 am setting up the breakfast table, and squeezing fresh squeezed orange juice. The rest of my day primarily focuses on housekeeping duties in the guest cabins and handling the entire crew and guests laundry in a timely manner. Also, I will usually float around and assist the other stewardesses with whatever needs to be done. Sometimes that can include bartending, serving meals, tending to guest needs, setting up beach picnics or day excursions, and organizing around the vessel.

What is the shooting process like?

This was a very different and interesting experience than previous yachts Ive worked on. Working on a yacht already provides for small working spaces, so the extra people also on board with massive cameras felt a bit weird at first. After a few days the cameras just blend in and you almost forget they are there. When people are living, working, and playing in close quarters things are bound to get rocky!

What was your worst case of seasickness, if ever?

I luckily dont get very seasick. On my first yacht job we did a crossing from the Dominican Republic to the Bahamas. I was definitely out of commission for a day or two while we were under way. I would say getting seasick is the worst part about the job, but luckily Ive become accustomed to it now.

Madeleine Marr is the Miami Herald and Miami.com Celebrity/Entertainment Reporter. @madeleinemarr

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Below Deck is back for more high seas high jinks - Miami.com

As always, before we recommendand block any rooms at any hotel, we inspect all aspects of that hotel, spend 1 night at that hotel and eat a meal there. Why? Because we don't just book the cruise, we organize every aspect of our events so our passengers get only the best. Not all hotels are biker friendly...those listed below are and all of them will take care of our group as we expect. 2017 Tampa Hotel negotiations have now been completed and contracts signed. However, rooms cannot be booked until Dec. 1, 2016. HSR direct hotel online booking links and phone #'s will be added Dec. 1, 2016 Our Tampa Bay Port Hotel Area for 2017:

So convenient and so much to do:

Unlike the quiet, laid back tropical feel of Port Canaveral,Tampa Bay presents much much more to see and do before you get on the ship. All our designated hotels will all be within just a few hundred feet of each other. Very easy walking or even wheelchair distance between them. The Tampa Bay Lightning Pro hockey arena is just a couple football fields length away, Tampa Bay Bucaneers Pro Football stadium is just a couple miles away and one of these 2 Pro teams will be playing the week-end we are there. The waterfront is as close as a few feet where you can rent boats or take weater taxi's throughout Tampa bay waterfront. All day $5 Trollie to shopping areas and Ybor (there version of Burbon Street in New orleans) right outside your door. . Bars, restaurants, boardwalk, parks and civic center all right there at your hotels. 2 Harley shops less than 6 miles away.The Tampa cruise port itself is less than 1/4 mile away with the Florida state aquarium right beside the port terminal. AND believe it or not, very little car traffic in this area! It's really nice that they seperated the business side of town from the recreational/tourist side of town. So lots to do and see even before you get on the ship and since we're not sailing until Monday..why not come for the week-end and really get to know your crewmates before ya board.! As you can imagine, all these things to do made for a tough time securing these hotels at these great locations. P.S. this is a pirate town with the Bucaneer Pro football team so it fits our logo perfect. "There's a little Pirate in every Biker".

Due to all these activities surrounding these 3 hotels and their perfect location, we could only initially block about 80% of the hotels room space for a total of 653 rooms. At 2 per room thats 1306 of our 2200 passenger group. These hotels have agreed to add a few more rooms should they sell out as quickly as we expect but that still leaves us short nearly 900 people. So be ready when we e-mail you with the link and phone # to book your room. The HSR hotels normally sell out as quick as the balcony cabins on the ship.

Tampa International Airport: (TPA) Just 9 miles away. 15 minute taxi or shuttle to our hotels or port and just 1/4 mile from our hotel to our ships port terminal. Check out our "Travlin Ways" section of this website for more info on air travel recommendations.

Parking at our hotels in Tampa is like most cruise ports. They are very proud of their hotel parking and all valet park. Its a union thing. At least we did get our group discounted from $22 to $18 per night. Of course if you ride your bike, they wont be parking motorcycles. Youll park your own 2 or 3 to a spot under cover for less than half price. We are also working with the local Harley shops for bike storage during the cruise. All cars will have to park at the port parking during the cruise week.

Parking at the Port: Ship port parking is very reasonable and right at the port terminal. When I say right at the port, I mean just about 150 feet from the terminal and they shuttle you and your luggage to and pick you up from the terminal. They even offer valet parking. You unload at the terminal, they park your car. When you return, you call them, they bring your car to you. How much easier can it get?

Car Rentals: 2 of our 3 hotels listed below offer car rental and drop off right at the hotel.

For those unfamiliar with our HSR hotel announcements. If you miss the first day of hotel sales, you'll most likely miss booking a room at our HSR hotels and that means you'll also miss a whole lot of fun with our group even before the ship sails. Please let us know ASAP if you have had an e-mail change since registering for the cruise. All registered 2017 passengers were notified per e-mail newsletter on Nov. 27. Good Luck.

Embassy Suites, Tampa Downtown: "Host Hotel" for HSR Bon Voyage Party

SOLD OUT This will be all we get at our discounted price.

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* 2017 * - High Seas Rally: Hotels - High Seas Rally Biker ...

Introducing the HI-SEAS IV Crewmembers 365 Day Simulated Mars Mission

4th August 2015

Crew Commander

Hi, Im Carmel Johnston from Whitefish, MT. Ive had a passion for natural resources my whole life and am exploring new ways to use them here on SimMars. In high school, I participated in the Flathead River Educational Effort for Focused Learning in our Watershed (FREEFLOW) where we learned about water quality, stream health, and the influence of humans on water quality in the Flathead Valley.

I wanted to continue studying hydrology so I went to school at Montana State University for a BS in Soil and Water Science. I continued on for a MS in Land Resources and Environmental Sciences. This allowed me the opportunity to conduct two summers of field work in Alaska, studying carbon dynamics in permafrost soils. After completing my thesis, I traveled to New Zealand and Australia to learn about livestock management from people that are dealing with climate change right now. And lets be honest, I also did a bunch of hiking while I was there.

When I came home, I spent the summer hiking around Glacier Park and enjoying a beautiful Western Montana summer before working for the NRCS as a soil scientist. This past summer, I worked on the initial soil mapping project in Glacier which married my favorite things: science and the wilderness.

I decided to join the 4th HI-SEAS Mission so I can continue studying food production, this time within the construct of living on Mars. The research we are conducting will hopefully have implications for food production on Mars as well as Earth. How do we feed a population using the resources you have while not destroying the planet youre on? Come on world, we need to start thinking about this now!

My favorite things include being outside (yes its weird that Im spending a year in a dome), climbing mountains, skiing, fishing, running, biking, knitting, baking, and playing with my favorite human my nephew Cash.

Chief Scientific Officer & Crew Physicist

Christiane is a German physicist and engineer. She is interested in anything that moves, be it air flowing over wheat fields or glaciers sliding down mountain valleys. Most recently she has worked on sea ice, but she has also gained experience working with polar lights, metal melts, and simulations of the Earths mantle.

She has received her B.Sc. in Applied Physics from the Ilmenau University of Technology in Germany, and her M.Sc. in Geophysics from Uppsala University in Sweden. After two years abroad, she returned to Ilmenau for her PhD in Engineering during which she also learned how to play the cello.

In a hope to increase her time with snow per year, she then moved to Finland to work with the Aalto University. There, she went camping almost every week before deciding to trade the green forests and plentiful lakes for the vast landscapes of dry rocks at HI-SEAS. Her family did question her sanity, but after spending two weeks at MDRS as a finalist for the Mars Societys MA365 mission she was unchangeably intrigued by the possibility of living like a Mars explorer, and so ended up heading for a life in the dome.

During her freetime there she is planning to coax her fellow crewmembers into dancing, to learn at least one language and one instrument, and to distract from her lousy cooking skills bake a cake from time to time.

Health Science Officer and Habitat Journalist

Sheyna E. Gifford, MA, MSc, MD, started working for NASA in 1997. Her first project was a Mars Spacesuit design proposal for the Lunar and Planetary Institute. Since then, she has worked on a satellite project (HESSI), a cosmology research project (DEEP2), written for Astrobiology Magazine, and, most recently, gotten onboard the mission to simulated Mars. She hopes to use her degrees in Neuroscience, Medicine,Biotechnology and Journalism to do great space science and medicine, and communicate those discoveries to the world.

Chief Engineering Officer

Born in Banbury, England, to a military family, Andrzej Stewart earned a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005, and an SM in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 2007. As part of his life-long dream to become an astronaut, Andrzej became an ardent light aircraft pilot. Hes logged over 500 flight hours, earning his instrument and commercial pilot certificates, and he volunteers with Challenge Air and EAA Young Eagles, introducing kids to aviation. Prior to joining the HI-SEAS Mission 4 crew, Andrzej worked at Lockheed Martin as an interplanetary flight controller. Hes worked on console for the Spitzer Space Telescope, Mars Odyssey, MRO, MAVEN, Juno, and GRAIL. Recently, he served as the Flight Engineer for the sixth mission of NASAs Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA), simulating a two-week journey to asteroid 1620 Geographos. In his free time, Andrzej is a goalie in a recreational ice hockey league as well as an avid board-gamer. He hasnt played the guitar in a while, but will be brushing off his skills and (hopefully) entertaining the crew during the mission. When not exploring sMars, Andrzej lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife Christy, who also aspires to fly in space someday.Be sure to check out Andezejs blog Surfing with the Aliens

Crew Biologist

Cyprien Verseux is an astrobiologist working on the search for life beyond Earth and an expert in biological life support systems for Mars exploration. Part of his research aims at making human outposts on Mars as independent as possible of Earth, by using living organisms to process Marss resources into products needed for human consumption. In other words, he is figuring out how to live on Mars off the land using biology and what is already there. He currently is a PhD student co-directed by Daniela Billi, at the University of Rome II (Italy) and Lynn Rothschild, at NASA Ames Research Center (Moffett Field, California). Prior to focusing on astrobiology he obtained Masters degrees in Systems and Synthetic Biology from the Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology (Evry, France) and in Biotechnology Engineering from SupBiotech Paris (Villejuif, France). On Earth (or close to Earth) and outside the lab he enjoys skydiving, road trips with a tent and a few friends, swimming in lakes and seas, mountaineering, writing, reading a wide range of books and living stimulating new experiences.

Crew Architect

Tristan Bassingthwaighte is currently a doctor of architecture candidate atUHMnoa. He is completing his masters degree in architecture fromTongji University in Shanghai, where he studied abroad for a year looking at human habitation in extreme environments. His doctoral work will involve designing a next generation conceptual Mars habitat, with research focusing on social, psychological, and health impacts of long duration isolation on another world.

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HI-SEAS Introducing the HI-SEAS IV Crewmembers 365 Day ...

BOSTON Two men died following an explosion and fire aboard a 623-foot cargo ship on the Atlantic high seas Monday morning.

At approximately 7 a.m., the captain of the Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier Tamar contacted watchstanders at the Coast Guard command center reporting an explosion in the ships forward storeroom. He also reported the explosion killed one crewmember andthree suffered massive burns and are in need of immediate medical attention. The ship was located about 1,300 miles east of Cape Cod.

The Coast Guard reached out to the New York Air National Guards 106th Rescue Wing and the Canadian and Portuguese Coast Guards to coordinate the emergency response. The New York Air National Guard launched an HC-130 aircrew with six pararescuers and one combat rescue officer. On Monday, the Tamar's captain notified rescuers that a second crewmember had perished from his injuries.

The fire resulting from the explosion was quickly extinguished and the cause is unknown. The ships engineering plant was unaffected and the crew is continuing on their transit to the Azores, Portugal. Their last port of call was Baltimore.

Before dawn on Wednesday, the two surviving injured crewmembers were medevaced by a Portuguese aircrew along with three New York Air National Guards 106th Rescue Wing pararescuers, who continued medical care. The aircrew arrived in Terceira Island, Azores at about 7 a.m. A Portuguese Air Force jet is scheduled to be waiting along with a medical team to bring the injured to Lisbon, Portugal for medical treatment.

The First Coast Guard District is responsible for 1,300 miles of offshore search and rescue area. After 1,300 miles, the Portuguese Coast Guard assumes coordination authorityfor cases east of the boundary.

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Two Perish In High Seas Ship Explosion - Cape Cod Chronicle