Antigua

We arrived at Antigua slightly later in the morning than scheduled, due to holding our speed down, but thankfully we were not late enough to cause the same aggravation with passengers as happened in St Maarten. Unfortunately the sea was a little choppy, and getting worse, so we knew it would limit the number of trips the tenders could make. Naturally, we gave priority to the passengers who had booked and paid for our island tour.

By noon, all the “tour” passengers had got to shore, but then we had to suspend the tenders. Even though we explained to passengers that this was in their own interests of safety at sea, there was a totally unreasonable amount of complaining, and even hostility towards me and my officers. As is our custom now, we provided complimentary rum cocktails with lunch, but even that didn’t placate some of the ungrateful ones. I really don’t understand people at all. Did they really want to risk their lives in a choppy sea?

After lunch, things had quietened down, and I was relaxing with a double rum and coke, when I got some unfortunate news. When we left St Petersburg, on our Baltic cruise, an elderly lady passenger was detained by the authorities, for being found asleep after hours in their main museum. After a short spell in prison, she was allowed to stay in a hotel, but not allowed to leave the city. I’d assumed that long ago she must have returned home, but it seems her case in court got one delay after another, and now the news was that she has passed away, still at the hotel. It raises considerable difficulty for me with paperwork. I’d originally avoided the issue by not mentioning her detention to the authorities in London, and had made minor corrections in the disembarkation list to cover myself. So it’s all very embarrassing for me. Some of my officers feel sorry for this lady, but I think I’m the main victim in all this. And after all, it was her who fell asleep in the museum, not me.

Late in the afternoon, I had a call from my officer on shore. All our tours were now complete, and passengers were ready to return to the ship. Unfortunately, the harbormaster has vetoed all use of tenders for the rest of the day, given the current sea state. Accordingly, the officer has been chasing around to find hotel accommodation for the passengers for the night, without much success. There are only a limited number of hotel rooms available, and knowing of our predicament, the money-grabbing hoteliers are refusing to negotiate on price. The good news is that the officer has managed to rent space in the public areas of a hotel under construction. There are no beds, but plenty of bedding, and he’s been assured that the toilets are functional, and that some limited food service can be arranged. You’d think the passengers would be appreciative, but you’d be wrong. Some of them have refused the accommodation, and all our officer could do was tell them to go and stay in a hotel at their own expense.

So the day ended, with the ship still at Antigua. The one person who was happy about all this was the chief engineer. This delay meant we would be skipping one of our stops, and thus saving on fuel. He’s feeling more confident than ever that we can complete the cruise without refueling.

I went to bed, and tried to settle, after all this chaos, but late on I heard of a new concern. We have had six passengers go to the medical center today, with the same mysterious ailment. Stomach ache, with headaches, and a temperature. They’ve all been treated (with generic paracetamol), but the doctor says it’s strange that they had identical symptoms, with no obvious cause.