Pirate briefing

Today we had a really interesting talk from the captain on pirates. He gave us some background, statistics and an update on the piracy situation. He then reviewed the ship's procedures and our responsibilities with respect to following the procedures. It was very well done and remarkably informative.

Oddly enough they are going to use a code word to indicate a pirate attack. He told us this just after telling us that the reason they use code words for other emergencies was not to alarm us. In this instance however we have a procedure we are to follow so he was telling us the code words. It seems that in the event of a pirate attack the code words should be something like "pirate attack". Instead our code phrase is something like "papa xxxx". I can't even remember the second word but I'm pretty sure the first was 'papa'. I'll check tomorrow and see if anyone remembers it. I'm not sure who they are protecting from alarm since both passengers and crew have procedures to follow so why use a code at all?

The other odd thing is that we are supposed to sit in our room doorway with the door open. Our room doors have a pretty powerful closing mechanism and are very heavy. I'm pretty sure in emergency maneuvers these doors will do some significant damage to a number of the very elderly passengers who weigh less than the doors as they swing back and forth. I'm not elderly and I don't weigh less than the door but there is no way I would sit in the doorway with the ship doing emergency maneuvers. I'll be sitting in the hall.

We will get to try our hand at following the procedures pretty soon since there is going to be a drill that everyone participates in.