Saturday, April 4, 2015

March 20, 2015 - BF - Cindy and Kevin compositions on the Calex

The kids wrote these after a tour on the mega yacht and then having a crew member come onto Adagio for a personal interview.  The Captain was off for a few days for a birthday celebration.  We appreciate their generosity and kindness and inspirational attitudes with the kids.  We are back in Nuevo Vallarta with family and this brought up that they had written these between our visits to this beautiful area.

Interviewing Matt, who works on the Calex

            I had plenty of questions for Matt, a mega yacht worker who loves his job. “The uneven schedule is odd, but we get used to it,” Matt explained. “The Calex is named after the owner’s 2 kids: Cameron and Alex.”
            There are 4 floors in the Calex (from top to bottom); the sundeck, the bridge, the main deck, and the engine room. There are 3 TT (tenders to) the Calex. There is a large amount of technology on this mega yacht; there are electric sliding doors, blinds that put themselves down by pressing a button on an iPad, security cameras in every public room, Wi-Fi no matter where you are on the Calex and wherever the Calex is in the world, and wireless Wii U and Xbox 1. The Calex is quite new, because it is only 18 months old. “This boat sleeps 11 crew and 12 guests, but we can use the fold-out beds and the air mattresses to add an extra ten, so about 22 guests,” Matt stated. The owner sends in 3 divers to clean the bottom of the boat. It takes 3 hours, once a month. “The boat gets hauled out of the water every 12 months, so the boat can get re-painted. Most mega-yachts get hauled out every 10 months or so,” Matt informed.
            “The crew is allowed to use the amenities while the owner isn’t there,” Matt explained. “The owner is on the boat 5-10 days each month, from November to July. From August to October we do maintenance and repairs.” Matt elaborated. “I am starting to get to know the owner, but I don’t know him that much yet.” The crew calls the owner “Boss” and does anything he asks, from putting a TV in the bathroom, to filling gasoline into the jet skis. The crew has to work on holidays, from 8-5 from Monday to Friday, sometimes on weekends. There are 6 permanent workers onboard, and 5 fly in when the owner is there. The captain is almost always onboard, and he is the one that gives the orders. There is 1 chef, but when the owner is onboard an assistant helps to prepare food too. Anyone who works on the Calex has food given to them and prepared by the chef. Everyone knows each other, and are comfortable with one another. To dock the Calex, they put down the fenders, which takes 2-3 people per fender. Then, one person drives the mega yacht while 2-3 other people are on the decks telling distances and informing which way to turn and how many degrees.
            “I travel with the boat, working on it all the time. My jobs go from cleaning the outside of the boat, to fixing some wires that have burned out,” Matt explains. “I got this job through my brother. He was on a mega yacht next to the Calex, and the owner walked over and asked if there was anyone he knew that could be a possible employee. My brother recommended me, and I was then offered a job on the Calex after I had a few interviews over the time period of 2 weeks.” Matt has worked on this boat for 3 months now, and he gets plenty of time off from his job.
            The interview with Matt was very informative and fun! I think that working on a mega yacht would be a great experience, and a lot of fun, with quite a lot of work, too. Matt says that this mega yacht is different than others because the Calex spends most of its time in port, while the other mega yachts spend most of their time out at sea. I think working on a mega yacht would be fun!

-Cindy Elston

                                                      The Calex                                           
I wanted to interview Matt from the crew of the mega yacht Calex because I wanted to know more about privately owned mega yachts. I got a tour of the boat and Matt came on our boat for interviewing.
There are eleven crew, with two cooks and nine workers, when the owners are on board. When the owners are not on board there are five crew that are fixing and cleaning the boat. They work harder if the owners on board. They work from eight a.m. to five p.m., Monday through Friday. Sometimes they work on weekends and holidays if it’s their shift. They clean the outside and inside of the boat. Divers are hired to clean the bottom of the boat. One cook does the cooking and the other one does the cutting. They help themselves to T.V., treats, and Jet skis.
The boat has four floors. It is one hundred-sixty four feet long. They use colors to mark which floor items belong to. The staircase is zigzagged. The master bathroom has a T.V. on the opposite wall of the toilet. The kitchen has tons of expensive tools for cooking. The boat has an iPad for each room that you could control the boat with (besides driving). The boat has a lot of security cameras. What I found really funny is that you could see our boat in the security camera.
And that is the words of Matt. Everything inside the boat and on the outside of the boat was really expensive and I could only dream of having that much money. It sounds like a lot of fun to work on the Calex!

-Kevin Elston

1 comment:

  1. Great job you two! I really enjoy reading your compositions about your experiences in Mexico.
    Aunt Doofus

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