From ocean waves to airwaves

Posted Jan 26, 2012 By EMC News

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EMC Lifestyle - Some people who have booked their vacations on cruise ships are wondering about safety following the fiasco and disaster involving Carnival Corp's Costa Concordia. Stop. Don't go there.

Lisa Ray, a deejay with the K-Rock, KIX and The Lake radio crew, said the concern isn't warranted.

"This thing off the coast of Italy is just a very strange scenario," she said. "It doesn't make any sense." What is of concern is the mindset of the captain, Francesco Schettino, who abandoned ship, then refused orders to return to the ship to lead and assist in rescue operations. He claimed it was dark and the ship was tipping. Duh. That's why he was needed on board.

"The captain abandoning ship?" said Ray. "What kind of man is he? Buddy, take the responsibility that goes with your title." It has always been an unwritten law of the sea that the captain stands by his ship until the last person safely disembarks.

Captain Edward Smith, of the Titanic, helped evacuate the ship until there were no lifeboats left. He went down with his ship. Honour intact. More recently, in 2010, Captain Robert Royer, the captain of a fishing vessel in waters near Alaska, stayed with his doomed ship to keep in touch to guide the Coast Guard to his location. His crew was rescued. Royer died. Honour intact. Not so for Italian Captain Francesco Schettino.

Lisa Ray can justifiably comment on the goings-on at sea. Prior to her radio role, she worked on-board cruise lines.

"I was crew staff," she said. "I worked my way up to assistant cruise director." Before that she tended bar at Sassafraz in Toronto.

"I tell people I spent 13 years behind bars," she said. "It was a good gig." She saw an advertisement for work as a social hostess with Sunquest cruise lines and went for an audition/interview.

"Next thing I knew, I was whisked away to England for training, and then I was on an Aruba ship," she said. "I learned a lot. Everything I've done brought me to where I am now. What I've learned, school could not teach me." She said all crew members are supposed to receive training in crowd management and sea survival.

"We went through theory and practical issues," she said. "We had to jump from a ship, pull ourselves to a life raft, and help others. It was all in our training." She cannot understand what happened in Italy. Her training and experience tell her that things off the coast of Italy were handled poorly.

"It baffles me," she said. "There would have been a system to calmly get passengers off. We learned how to effectively manage these situations. Soon after boarding, usually before leaving port, we'd go to muster stations with passengers and explain what to do if they needed to disembark.

"Of course, when it comes to a crisis, people panic, regardless," she said. "You like to think the crew is trained and can calm your nerves and guide you. You turn to your senior staff for leadership. If the captain has abandoned ship, that's unbelievable, what kind of example has been set?" She said that only once in her career did a captain on a cruise leave a planned course when she was on board.

"We once veered to miss a bad storm," she said. "We were in the Caribbean. Captain Phillip Rentell wanted to avoid an approaching storm. We ended up rescuing two fishermen from Grenada who were swept out to sea completely unprepared. They had been stranded for a couple of days." It wasn't all smooth sailing for Ray. In fact, she was stuck at sea during the 9/11 events.

"We were stranded at sea in the Mediterranean and no one knew what was going on," she said.

In addition to the 9/11 events, the cruise lineRenaissance Cruisesshe worked for went bankrupt. She was stuck at sea for a month. Time for a new career.

Back on land, Ray left the cruise industry and landed an interview for the position of promotions director at a local Kingston radio station.

"I didn't necessarily want the job," said Ray. "But I wanted the experience of the interview. They asked me if I had any questions, so I told them I wanted to co-host their morning show. I got a call and had the opportunity to co-host one morning. After that I got the call for an on-air job, doing weekend shows.

Are there more career travels in her future? Not likely.

"If I was offered a cruise line dream job, I wouldn't take it," said Ray. "My life is here. I'm deliciously happily married to a wonderful man. I'm happy I came back to my roots. As for the cruise work, been there, done that. I'm glad I had the opportunity when I did." But, if she won a trip? "Absolutely, I'd be there," she said. "I'd rather be the person on a cruise ship than on a plane." Huh? "It's closer to the ground," she laughed. "I have experienced very bad weather on a ship. Much better than in a plane. Like I said, closer to the ground." As for her current work, Ray said she loves where she is.

"We're awesome," she said of her current job. "I can honestly say it's about roots. I don't want a job that would take me away from here. I'm very excited to be a part of this team and to be able to work with the community and charitable events." Next on her path is the literary scene. She's working on a children's book. Although she doesn't want to give away much about it, she shared her inspiration.

"I got the idea for this book while riding on a train to Chicago after 9/11." Quirky information regarding the Costa Concordia: According to the Boston Herald, Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," the theme song from James Cameron's "Titanic," was playing in the dining area when the ship ran aground. And, the New Zealand Herald reported that one of the female survivors of the Costa Concordia had relatives on the Titanic in 1912.

mbergin@theemc.ca




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