I don’t normally write on a sea day because they are – shall we say relaxing. Yesterday somewhat more exciting. We were in our cabin waiting for dinner service to begin when we heard an emergency signal followed by an unknown voice, who I will call the Commander, call the emergency fire crew to activate. A quick check of our balcony showed black smoke, apparently coming from one of the stacks.

Throughout dinner, messages from the commander interleaved with messages from the captain. The commander’s messages were orders to emergency responders. They were short, professional, and completely clear. That was reassuring. It was obvious the captain was waiting to confirm the situation before using the same ship-wide system to update the passengers. That was also quite reassuring. The captain continuously said there was no action required of the passengers, the situation was well in hand. But the emergency evacuation lights were on. They were a quite attractive shade of green. When the captain said the black smoke was entirely normal, I began to wonder. The emergency exit lights were still on. We decided to go to the evening show, but we brought our tote bags with medicine and a jacket, just in case.

The evening show went on as scheduled. The emergency lights eventually turned off. We went back to our cabin and unpacked the tote bags. We’re still sailing on the Pacific, still headed for Fiji. We should arrive about 8:00 AM local time.

Today we had a program seeing the ship through the eyes of cadets studying to earn officer’s positions. As everybody knew, somebody would ask about the incident. We learned there was a fire in the number 2 generator. The ship has 5 generators. It uses two or three at any one time. There are also two emergency backup generators. We are assured the cruise will continue as scheduled.