Being captain isn't an easy task. It requires dedication, knowledge, an eye for detail and people skill.
Perhaps I should tell her my baptism of fire came through Beebs back in 2004. Just 2 months after joining the company, the catastrophic Asian Tsunami hit the shores of Aceh, Sri Lanka and Phuket and I got thrown into the deep end. I think I spent a total of 2 months on the field coordinating hundreds of BBC reporters/crew covering the story. Two years later, again I had to fly into
Nias Island when a major earthquake killed thousands and flattened towns.
That was my first up close understanding of 'breaking news'. I never thought it was a biggie 'breaking news' flashed on tv screens but it took so much craziness to have it delivered on Channels. I recall clearly how my hair/clothes/skin smelled of dead corpses at the end of a very rough day with the team. That gut wrenching feeling of seeing firefighters pull out bodies of a father, mother and little newborn baby buried under concrete when the roof of their house collapsed on them- shudder.
These days I'm involved in less gruesome news and current affairs work. At least this live webcast involves no dead people, although I almost buried a crew member who totally screwed up until the very minute we went on-air. It marked the first time I lost my cool on a job, but I'm not sure it wasn't warranted. Blood and dead bodies don't faze me as much as a clueless crew member who talks more than he listens.
Pretty interesting setup, but the location was the one generating the crew's excitement.
After all, its not everyday we work on a tanker the size of 8 football fields, 15 stories high with a laden weight of 150,000 tonnes. Amazingly enough, it runs with a crew of only 26 seafarers.
It is captained by a man, of course, because women 'captains' like myself have a low threshold for BS and the weakest link gets the bitchy end of my tongue. At least it got the whole show on the road right *feeling guilty*.