Up Your Game by Paolo Amodeo tells the story of the author’s break from medical school to work as the ship’s doctor on board a series of cruise ships around the Caribbean.
A cross between Doctor At Sea and Carry On Cruising, it documents the adventures and misadventures of the trainee surgeon and the variety of colourful characters who are all at sea.
Swapping the delights of sunny scunny (Scunthorpe) in the UK for the tropical paradise made famous by Jack Sparrow and his piratical crew.
Whilst not having to be alert for pirates, Paolo still needs to watch his back after he makes an enemy of one of the ship’s captains.
This is a delightful collection of anecdotes, masterfully told, which entertain and inform in equal measure. I was captivated at I followed Paolo through the good and not so good times aboard ship and on shore leave.
The descriptions of the ship’s crew and the passengers are fun to read and some of the incidents that the author gets caught up in are laugh out loud funny. The episode where the crew have to extract an unconscious overweight nun through a too small doorway, whilst being heckled by a gospel choir, is just plain hilarious.
The author claims that everything is true except one particular thing, what it is he doesn’t say but I think I spotted it among the rest of the remarkable happenings. I won’t spoil it but I think you’ll know it when you see it.
What James Herriot did for the Yorkshire Dales and Cow’s bottoms, Paolo Amodeo has done for the West Indies and nautical surgical procedures.
In summary, this is a genuinely funny and engaging tale of a novice ship’s doctor with interesting characters and situations that leaves you wanting a sequel. An excellent memoir that is entertaining throughout.