Three days after driving back to Philadelphia from cave diving in Florida, I got a call from National Geographic wanting to hire me for a weekend shoot in Freeport Grand Bahamas. So two days later I found myself on a plane flying down to Ft. Lauderdale to board the Radiance of the Seas cruise ship. The shoot is for a new show called "Worlds Toughest Fixes."

The plan is to shoot work being done to the interior/exterior of the ship while underway, but the main shots are deep down in the engine room where workers are quickly preparing the ship for a new generator the size of 3 city buses. It will take 20 days to do all the work that needs to be done in dry dock before picking up a new load of passengers and cruising off for another vacation. I shot plenty of B-Roll and beauty shots on the passenger free vessel on our way to the Bahamas, the large rock climbing wall, the pools, and several fancy dining rooms. We finally arrived in Freeport at midnight and the dry docking took place. The 90,000 Ton ship is carefully pulled and positioned atop large 400 ton blocks then the water is pumped out and the ship rests upon the blocks. I spent the night in my own cabin and made the long haul with all the gear the next morning to the Freeport airport. That was a short shoot!  

I was supposed to shoot underwater with the host Riley as the ship came into port and was positioned onto the blocks, but time didn't permit since we were 5 hours late. It would have made for some amazing shots and a totally "different kind of overhead" to shoot video in. Hopefully next time! 

At the end of the month National Geographic called again and I was off to Freeport to try to get the shots under the ship that they wanted. The captain ended up canceling our dive due to safety issues, you can't argue with that! Everyone was really disappointed but there was nothing that we could do. It was a tough shoot but worth it!

Worlds Toughest Fixes, Cruise ship engine Airs on the National Geographic Channel and this episode premiered Dec 4, 2008. Keep checking your TV guide on Wednesdays for the show. It's currently showing.