There were about twenty of us assembled at the end of the pier for transportation to the medical clinic this morning (Saturday). I wasn't the only one who had been called to report for re-examination. Passenger vans waited to take us to the clinic. The morning was hot and muggy, and the sky overcast.

When we arrived at the clinic the waiting room was filled to capacity – about 60 crew from other ships in port, including Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas and Carnival's Conquest. It looked like it was going to be a long morning after all.

We all checked in, and I saw a few people I knew there. One was a fellow emergency team member, David, from Leeds, England. (England seems to produce a lot of Davids.) David was sent to the clinic to have the doctors try to get to the bottom of a mysterious problem he was having with his feet, and now ankles, he says. It's mysterious because there are absolutely no visible signs of distress whatsoever. No swelling. Not even any redness. Nonetheless, he has been given anti-inflammatories to see if they help, which they don't. Poor David has had to spend the last three days watching videos in his cabin, the doctor having told him to stay off his feet for a few days to see if it helps.

Now, I'm not suggesting that David's claims are false, exactly. But it occurs to me that anyone could make a claim like this and get some time off. It's just a question of being consistent, and not doing anything to try to create the visual appearance of distress. It's possible, after all, that something you do to mimic symptoms could be detected. So just don't do anything except complain of severe pain. Chances are that even if it were real, the doctors wouldn't find anything anyway.

David left the clinic with a new box of anti-inflammatories. Different ones, this time. And orders to stay off his feet for another few days.

I spent the morning in the clinic, and by noon I was all done. It wasn't so bad. There was still plenty of time to have lunch and spend some time in town.

I left the clinic with Heitor, from Peru. He too, being over 40, was required to have an EKG, so we were two of the last to leave. We chose to walk back to town, rather than take a cab. This gave me a chance to talk to Heitor, one of the cleaners I have always found to be particularly cheerful and friendly.

Heitor works 8 months, and then he's off for 2 months. For the last 14 years he has supported his family, a wife and four children, by working the ships. He says the two months he spends at home are always wonderful. A time of reuniting, seeing old friends, spending time with his family. His wife doesn't work, so the two months he gets to spend at home with her is real quality time. Meanwhile, he's been able to see much of the world, having worked on ships in Europe, the Caribbean, the far east, and the west coast of North America up to Alaska.

Heitor says that, even though he calls home every week, and hears his children's voices, he's surprised at how much they can change in eight months. I can see that, especially with younger kids. Heitor's are 5, 8, 11 and 17 years old. It occurs to me that he's watching his kids grow up in stop-motion.

News Flash: A medical emergency has just now been announced over the P.A. "Alpha alpha alpha, Studio B, backstage." Studio B is, among other things, the ice rink. (Yes, the ship has an ice rink, and an ice show.) The ice show has been plagued with injured skaters with at least three being out of commission at the moment. They've had to bring in additional skaters and train them quickly to take over. One show this week was cancelled to give the new replacements time to rehearse. It appears that being an ice skater is the most dangerous job on the ship. Could the precision of their performance be compromised by the movement of the ship perhaps?

By the way, the "alpha alpha alpha" announcement above is just one of a few coded announcements we might hear over the p.a. system. Others are "bravo bravo bravo" followed by a location, which indicates a fire; "charlie charlie charlie", indicates a security threat; and "oscar oscar oscar" followed by "port side" or "starboard side", indicates a "man" overboard.

The announcements are delivered in a calm, matter-of-fact way so as not to alert passengers to trouble aboard the ship. Since I've been on the ship there have been several medical emergencies (as to be expected with 5000 people aboard every week) and a couple of fires.

So far there have been no "oscar oscar oscar" (man overboard) emergencies, but I am informed by reliable sources that they are not all that uncommon. Some people choose to commit suicide at sea. And this reminds me of the mystery of the ex-husband of Luanne, a friend of mine.

Luanne had left her husband (not her first husband) about a year before he booked himself on an expensive sea cruise up to Alaska – possibly on a Royal Caribbean ship. It was especially expensive because he got himself an outside cabin with a balcony, and some of his friends wondered what the hell he was doing. He was not a wealthy guy. He told them he just wanted to see what it was like to live "the good life" for once and went off, alone, on his cruise.

Now this guy had been a drinker, probably an alcoholic, while he was married to Luanne. But after she left him he quit drinking. During the cruise he was found to be missing (if you can be found to be missing). He was nowhere on the ship. The door to his balcony was ajar, and there were several empty bottles of rum lying about in the cabin. It appears he drank himself to the point where he could follow through with a suicide he must have planned.

I am told this sort of thing happens more often than you would think. The cruise lines, of course, like to keep it quiet. But when something like this happens, rumours circulate, especially among the crew. It's impossible to keep something like that a secret in an environment like a ship.

It could be interesting to find out what other kinds of things happen on ships that cruise lines don't want the public to know too much about. I think I'll start asking around.