It was Captain Johnny's birthday today, which makes him a Saggittarius, like me. At the end of our weekly boat drill we were all directed out to the heliport deck to sing Happy Birthday to him. The heliport lies on the bow about 5 decks down from the bridge where the Captain is in command during a drill.

There were a lot of us out there – I don't know how many - but I felt our performance as a whole fell somewhat short of the joyous celebration it could have been. No matter. The Captain came out to hear us, and when we finished he waved and shouted 'I love you all!' down to us. He was smiling and seemed genuinely pleased.

The Captain on any ship is a dictator, and because he is such a powerful authority on the ship I think a lot of crew (especially crew from countries with despotic rulers) have an automatic distrust of him. That's probably why we didn't have more voices joining in the Happy Birthday chorus.

It didn't help that his position out on a parapet outside the bridge five decks above us made him appear somewhat Pope-like, or perhaps Peronesque.

In our case I'd say we're lucky that Captain Johnny is a benevolent dictator. Not that he isn't tough. Remember, he dismissed our guitar player. He's tough, yes, but also fair. We all knew he had no choice but to dismiss our guitarist and nobody holds it against him. To do otherwise would not have been fair to others who had been dismissed for similar offenses.

It's also good to know that the Captain doesn't fool around, and he doesn't play favourites. You know what you're in for if you get caught, no matter who you are – unlike the regular justice system.

I think the Captain meant it when he yelled 'I love you all' to the crew on the heliport. He visited the the staff dining room yesterday to check up on the installation of the Christmas tree, for example. And he always greets you with a smile – unless, of course, you're standing before him because you got caught in a compromising position with a guest in a crew-only area while being extremely drunk, or something.

***

Another thing happened during the drill that was unusual. Well into the drill, after being called to our muster stations by the 7 short and 1 long signal, a second 'bravo, bravo, bravo' was called through the public address system. This is the alert indicating a fire on the ship. But it was a bravo call that initiated the whole drill. That comes before the horn is sounded, not after. Was somebody confused?

It was repeated. 'Bravo, bravo, bravo! Deck eight, midship. This is not a drill!'

Not a drill? Of course it was a drill! Oh, I get it. They're trying to trick us up. They do things like this from time to time to see how we respond.

But then the announcements became more specific, detailing the exact location and the type of fire – electrical. It was a real emergency. I had never thought about what might happen if a real emergency occurred during an emergency drill. Now I know. Confusion.

I've noticed this about false alarms, too. On a couple of occasions the emergency signal has sounded by accident. Theoretically this means proceed immediately to your emergency station. But nobody does. Instead we all wait for the followup announcement informing us that it was a false alarm.

This is actually sensible behaviour, I think. In theory the emergency signals should have been preceded by one of the action alerts, usually 'bravo, bravo, bravo'. When you hear that you prepare for an upcoming emergency signal. A signal out of the blue, like the false alarms are, would be highly unusual. However, the order is to proceed to your emergency station when you hear that signal, false alarm or not...

Fortunately these false alarms (and there have only been a couple of them) have sounded while we've been in port. An alarm at sea would be treated quite differently. I think.