I must say I admired the captain’s self-control. He resumed the inspection and stayed dangerously quiet even when we found the vegetable chef not at his workstation but outside, innocently asleep in a deck chair. He even smiled thinly a few times at some of the other cooks we met that morning. Wisely, and probably to avoid heart failure, he refrained from asking any more questions, but he wasn’t happy. That, at least, was very clear. Neither was the hotel director, for that matter. I ran into him a few hours later as he stood at the railing with a strained look on his face, shakily lighting a cigarette and muttering to himself. Another unhappy person, no doubt, was our executive chef, but I didn’t find this out until three days later when we were back in our homeport. I saw the two of them walking down the gangway with their suitcases. The third victim of this debacle, and a truly innocent one, was the poor violin. I found it in the garbage room broken into three pieces.
The improvement of the standards in our kitchens was impressive and immediate. The results of the inspection the following week could easily compete with those done today. Everything was spotless, the cooks were all present, and if they didn’t always know what to say, they certainly knew what not to say. I was impressed with what our captain had achieved in one week.
Doing kitchen inspections myself, I often smile when seeing my hotel director, always efficient and professional. Some time ago, I asked him if he liked violin music. I can’t remember what his answer was, but I remember his face, because he didn’t understand my question at all. When he reads this, he will.
Chapter 3
Hurricane Season
Hurricanes! The name alone fills everyone with dread. We’ve all seen the terrible devastation such a storm can cause, and many people living in Florida and other coastal states have experienced the awesome power of the weather, especially during the late summer and early fall months. For us onboard ships, and particularly the captains, the hurricane season is a difficult one, too. You might think it’s for the same reasons, but that’s not altogether correct.
I’ve never been afraid of the high winds, the horrible weather, or the extremely high seas during these storms. A ship is in an enviable position because it can move away from the coming storm. A cruise ship is fast enough to do that, and frequently we run as speedy as we can.
Passengers booking a cruise during hurricane season don’t have to be too afraid of getting caught in one. What they do have to take in account is that they might not end up in the exotic ports mentioned in the colorful brochures – places full of sunshine and with people sipping cocktails, lounging in the sun on incredibly white beaches. Oh, yes, they still will be pampered and sit in the sun, but it might be on a different beach and in a completely different part of the Caribbean.
That last part is exactly what is dreaded by the captains who sail during hurricane season. Changing a port at the last possible moment can be a logistical nightmare. The answer would be to make that decision a bit earlier, but such would require extraordinary weather anticipation skills from the captain. The ship could go to another port for sure, but so might the hurricane. It’s so unpredictable that it might change course and threaten the very port the captain has just announced as a safe place to go, leaving the originally scheduled port unharmed. Passengers generally accept these changes, but they don’t take too kindly to a captain who changes the schedule unnecessarily. We’re expected to be infallible and able to predict the weather. In many cases, it is a nice thing to be put on such a high pedestal, but only if afterward your decision proves to be the right one.
Making a decision too late is even worse, not only because this might take the ship directly in the path of a hurricane, but also because this would pose danger to the ship and considerable inconvenience to the passengers and crew. If you have to run far ahead of the hurricane, the ship might not find a safe harbor for days.
I have sailed through a hurricane once in all my nearly thirty years at sea, and it was a remarkable experience. The ship took it well enough – after all, she was built to withstand the worst possible weather. But no matter how big the ship is, she bounces around like a ping-pong ball. This creates terrible sounds that cause an average person to think the ship is falling apart. Creaking panels and ceilings and the sounds of breaking plates in the kitchens are one thing, but my shopkeepers with Lladro porcelain and Swarovski crystal don’t take kindly to this sort of movement. All reasons for a captain to do anything to avoid a hurricane.
Another important reason to make a timely decision is that other ships encountering the same storm are likely to reach a similar conclusion at the same time. Those ports that aren’t threatened by the storm will see every ship diverting to them, and whoever books a berth first gets it.
Watching the news from my comfortable chair at home and seeing that one hurricane after the other was threatening the Caribbean, my thoughts went back to a cruise about fifteen years ago. The company I worked for had just started to operate, and dealing with cruise ships was still somewhat of a novelty to the management ashore.
For more than a week I’d been uneasy about a tropical depression that had developed into a hurricane and was slowly moving from the Atlantic into the Caribbean. For the present cruise we were fine, but our next itinerary was up for grabs as far as I could track it. Back in the homeport and embarking new passengers, I must have checked the weather every thirty minutes on every website available to me. Our route was supposed to take us to Nassau and then to St. Maarten, but the hurricane was already threatening that last island and I didn’t feel very good about going to Nassau either.
Calling my boss was no help. The man simply had no experience avoiding hurricanes. His question if we had enough plywood on the ship to board up the windows was enough proof to me that calling him was a waste of time. However, he insisted of being part of the decision-making group.
“Call me back tomorrow at 2 pm so we can discuss this further. I’ll make sure that I have a weather expert here in the office to advise you,” he chatted happily.
My remark that it wasn’t even 11am yet, making the 2 pm phone call more than twenty-seven hours away, an eternity when it comes to hurricanes, didn’t impress him. Hi boss Al also wanted to be involved in the conference call and had no time on his agenda before that. Seething, I put down the phone, cursing myself for even calling him. Waiting twenty-seven hours for a decision while a hurricane was approaching something I’d never contemplated.
That afternoon we left our Florida port. I did my staff introductions and later that evening, finished with my work, I decided to check the weather one more time before going to bed. To my horror, I saw my gut feeling had been right. The hurricane had increased in speed and force and was headed straight for Nassau and us. For a moment I sat there, thinking. But then I jumped up. The heck with my boss and Al, whoever he was. I wasn’t knowingly going to put my ship in the path of a hurricane and risking injuries to passengers. There was only one way to go from our position in the Florida Strait – south, as fast as we could.
Changing course, getting all engines on line, and revving up to full speed took only a few minutes because the officers had prepared this contingency plan. Calling an agent in Cozumel, a man I’d known from the days with my old company, then arranging a tour operator to set us up there took no more than an hour. After all, everybody living and working in the islands is as flexible as can be during this time of the year.
With grim satisfaction, I decided not to call my boss since it was almost midnight and I didn’t want to listen to his objections and his obvious fear of Al. He wouldn’t be able to change my mind anyway. The next morning, however, he called me, clearly in a panic. I’d just finished making a ship-wide announcement about the change of plan and received not one complaint from our passengers, which showed their good sense.
“The hurricane is almost in Nassau,” he shrieked in the phone. “Didn’t you see it coming? It’s dangerous over there.”
Then his boss came on the line. “Captain, you’re in hundred mile an hour winds. Are you aware of that?”
I looked at the phone. Was this guy for real?
“Well…errr,