the line. One of the hooks or just the line had to give way. The one embedded in the carpet held and so did the one in the collar of his shirt. The line didn’t break either. Instead, with a tearing sound I saw him coming free, leaving the complete shirt collar behind. His neck was red with the effort and with friction marks the shirt had left. At the same time we entered Snow Passage. After having conned the ship through, which took about twenty minutes, he turned around, as if nothing unusual had happened and started to talk to the pilot again, asking him what he thought about the gear.
“I think you should get me those scissors. I’m still stuck to the floor and I didn’t bring an extra pair of pants.” He grumbled.
After having freed our pilot, they kept talking for almost an hour, before the captain finally went down to put on another shirt. He, nor the pilot, ever seemed to think twice about what had just happened, or even to mention it any further. Anything for their hobby! They were already making plans to go out fishing together later that week.
“We’ll go out in my brother’s boat when we get to Sitka. I know the best fishing grounds there are. I bet we come back loaded with fish—salmon, halibut, and you name it!”
It was all fine with me. As far as I was concerned, they could go fishing every day, as long as they stopped doing it on the bridge.
After we had anchored in Sitka a few days later, the pilot, our captain, and myself, were the first ones to leave the ship. I had shore duty on the pier, regulating the tenders arriving from the ship with passengers. The other two were both loaded down with a whole collection of fishing equipment. Rods, tackle, bait, a big cooler straight from the ship’s galleys, and a host of other items the purpose of which mostly eluded me.
Shortly afterward, I saw a little worn out looking cabin cruisers leave the small harbor of Sitka. The plume of blue smoke, and the very few spots where the original blue paint still showed through on a rusty hull, told me that the pilot’s brother was not into maintaining his equipment to cruise ship standards. They disappeared behind the breakwater, and the last thing I saw was the pilot digging into the cooler. Sitka is usually only a morning stop for cruise ships. Carrying all the passengers back and forth from and to the ship can be a very intense business. Needless to say, I had not given any more thought to our captain and his pilot fishing friend.
Close to sailing time, our passengers always returned to the pier in droves at the last minute and formed a long waiting line for a ship’s tender to bring them back aboard. The line progressively grew to more than two hundred, a normal enough weekly occurrence.
Puff … Puff … Puff …
The cabin cruiser was returning to port. The pilot behind the wheel and our captain standing in front, a line in is hand, ready to moor the little craft. It was very obvious how excited he was about the catch. From more than a hundred feet away, he was already telling me about what a great morning they had and how much they had caught. The waiting passengers stretched their necks, as not to miss anything of what was being said. A few of them, obviously avid fishermen themselves, even joined in on the long distance conversation.
The captain at this time looked around, then turned around to the pilot and said; “Hey man slow down a bit, or we’re going to hit the dock.”
I saw the pilot stretching his neck from behind the wheel, his view obstructed by a collection of old lobster traps and other equipment on top of the cabin, and even more by the captain himself. He fumbled with the controls.
“I can’t see. You’re standing in my line of view. How far to go?”
“It’s okay. Just go a bit slower to get her stopped.”
Clearly the pilot misunderstood the captain’s words, and took the word “stop” a little too literally. He yanked the throttle back to full astern. The intermittent puffs coming from the antiquated exhaust pipe increased to a heavy boost of black smoke. Whatever my earlier thoughts were about the state of maintenance of the little boat and her engine, I must admit, her stopping power was certainly not affected at all. Who really was affected, was our captain. At the very front of the boat, he had just bent over to pick up a mooring line to throw to the dock, still more than 20 feet away. He uttered a startled cry, and with arms wildly flailing in the air, he lost his balance and disappeared into the black water of Sitka’s harbor, head first.
There was total silence. Nobody uttered a sound. Our passengers who had watched the approach, most of them with bored interest, were now holding their breath, eyes wide and mouths open in sheer amazement. The expression on their faces, however, changed in record time to one of sheer delight, when our captain surfaced like a breaching whale, screamed: “Get me out of here! It’s cold.”
Saving him bodily was done easy enough, but saving his pride was a different matter altogether. I think it drowned, right there in the dark depths of the harbor.
“You keep quiet about this.”
That was the first thing he said to me when he stood there dripping and shivering on the pier in front of me. I readily promised I would. He turned around and got into an empty tender and told the driver to get him back to the ship. Wisely, I didn’t suggest he share the boat with fifty or so waiting passengers, as based on his distorted facial expression, this likely would have been a serious career diverter. My real dilemma was how to keep this quiet. Impossible I thought! Two hundred passengers and a good number of crew had been spectator to this most unusual sight. I could imagine that just about everybody was dying to share witnessing this first class entertainment event.
The cruise industry is a small community; and this was evident once again the same day when all kinds of funny messages started arriving on our poor captain’s desk. Messages from other ships, offering him a supply of life rings or inquiring about the Sitka harbor water temperature. We hardly saw him in public during that cruise, and only the most pressing matters could lure him from his cabin. I felt sorry for him when I heard him sneezing, but couldn’t help myself from laughing and eventually sharing the story with others.
The Two Sisters
Going on a world cruise must be just about one of the most coveted ways of making a statement to the neighbors. Imagine the prospective travelers on tea gatherings throughout the world, or at the second hole of the golf course visiting the country club. Casually, they drop the idea that they might not be around during next winter.
“We are thinking about doing something else, perhaps taking a “world cruise.” Hate the weather here, you know.”
Remarks like this often are made to show off a little. The desired effect could be the opponent’s golf ball ending up in a sand trap or just to create envy. Casually making a remark about world cruising almost automatically puts the speaker in a different league. Normal mortals don’t take a world cruise, even though cruising has become a main stream vacation. The world cruise still stands out as special, and rightfully so. It’s the same for us as well. We all hope to be on the list of officers planned to be on board. I can still remember every single one I made. The privilege of being on board is usually preceded by some ferocious behind the screen scheming and trading of favors.
“I wasn’t planned last year, so it’s about time to put me on.”
We conveniently forget that the company has quite a few other ships, which need a crew as well. I will not tell you how many world cruises I’ve made, but I believe I have had my fair share of them, or not?
Every time again, it’s amazing to see the passengers come on board, usually in New York, as a cruise like this should start there; it’s tradition and nobody would want it otherwise. The far majority of them have done it before, traveling the world at leisure, and they know exactly what to expect. Often they even book the same cabin year after year. At first I could hardly believe the stories of people doing world cruises more than once, but now I find it almost normal when meeting somebody who tells me, she has done it every year for the last twenty or so. Amazing is also the amount of luggage