St Petersburg

Captain’s Log, October 24th: The highlight of the cruise is our day in St Petersburg.
Most of the passengers have chosen to go on our organized tours and have paid in advance, not least because our website states that if they don’t, there’s always the risk of the tours being fully booked. It’s nonsense of course, as at the price we charge, it’s worth running an extra bus for even a handful of customers. Passengers on our tours have all visa arrangements made under a group scheme, which is fairly expensive, but covered well enough in our charges.
A small number of passengers have objected to the price of our tours, and have made their own arrangements, to visit the sights using public transport, and getting their own visas. It’s been pointed out to them that the extra costs of a Gamalia tour give a lot more reassurance, and guarantee that the ship will not sail without them, but they seem firm in their arrogance. We must have panicked them though, as they left the ship very early to start their own tour.
The tour buses arrived a little later than planned, but by ten o’clock they were all gone, and the ship was peaceful. I was relaxing on the sun deck with a beer when two of the mystery ‘guests’ appeared. They wished to leave the ship, but did not intend to go through the official channels. Now in London, I could care less about flaunting the rules, but here in Russia? So I said they’d have to go through the Russian immigration and customs. That triggered some unpleasantness, with sight of that handgun again, so I agreed of course. Not that I had to do much as it turned out. They had friends coming shortly in an inflatable, to the side of the ship away from the dock, and my guests were to jump in with their luggage. I took them down to the lowest deck, and opened the door just as their friends arrived. Ten minutes later, I was back on the sun deck, letting the stress subside. The money I made from this was very satisfactory, but I was glad they were gone off the ship. The only puzzle was the third man. The others said that he had got off the ship by diving into the water and swimming ashore. Very bizarre.