An unexpected Sea Day

Captain’s Log, October 23rd. Today we should have docked at Tallinn, but unfortunately they did not have a berth spare for us. I was sure we had reserved a berth in advance, so contacted Mrs Negibi. It seems that although we had a reservation, the advance payment due to the port was not actually paid, so the reservation had been automatically cancelled. It wasn’t clear from the discussion who it was that failed to make the payment, and Mrs Negibi said she was far too busy to investigate. She did point out that we would have made very little profit from the tours, and as port fees were expensive, by missing this stop, the company was actually better off.

Of course, I had to tell the passengers something that they would understand, so blamed it all on the incompetence of the port authorities. So we have a bonus sea day, and as a little gesture towards any disappointed passengers, we’ve made available a special ‘Baltic’ cocktail in all the bars, at a price of only $10. I’ve had to cut the speed of the ship to the minimum, so that we don’t arrive at St Petersburg too early. And that’s meant a cost saving on the fuel. So although the day started badly, it wasn’t a bad outcome overall.