A Tragic End
I’ve just re-read my next-to-last post, in which I described mountainous waves as being a thing of beauty. In the context of sitting in Marco’s Bistro and eating breakfast while watching the sea, I still stand by that, but with what happened over the 24 hours that followed, I may have to revise my thoughts on mountainous waves.
The sea was getting steadily rougher as the morning progressed, and by the time I arrived at the Craft Room, around 12:15, things were really starting to kick off. Determined to try and run the workshops, whatever the weather, I collected a bowlful of water as I always do and proceeded to set up things as per normal. With only one massive lurch of the ship, however, the large table upon which the water bowl stood tipped over…. almost as if in slow motion… and crashed to the ground, depositing brushes, palettes and the entire contents of the bowl onto the floor. At the same time, several chairs fell over also, and at that moment, I knew a watercolour class was out of the question.
A compromise was decided upon; a drawing class instead. Everyone was given a sheet of paper and a pencil, and I proceeded to give them a lesson on drawing skills, and basic composition.
Things were getting decidedly hairy during the course of the session, and I began to wonder if I’d done the right thing or not. Outside, people were being instructed to sit on the floor and to refrain from moving about the ship at all. In the craft room, occasional deep lunges produced more than a few worried faces but the class continued regardless. The waves outside the windows got bigger, and the exhilaration of earlier on in the day was changing to something slightly less comfortable…..
It was around this time that tragedy struck; the precise details of which I am not equipped to report, since I am not a first-hand observer – I’ll attempt to describe what I do know, though. It was lunchtime, which meant many passengers were in the Waldorf Restaurant; had my class been cancelled, I might very well have been in there myself. What has been described as a particularly large, and ‘freak’ wave, hit the ship, which blew in four of the restaurant windows, causing instant devastation and mayhem. In a matter of seconds people were standing knee-high in water, and broken glass. The order to evacuate the restaurant must, I’m sure, have induced quite a sense of panic, and the annoucement over the ship’s PA for all crew to attend to the Waldorf immediately told us that something had gone terribly wrong. The class finished and the passengers went back to their cabins, the 2nd and 3rd classes were cancelled.
We were in the middle of a force-12 storm, with swells of about 50 feet, conditions that were expected for another 6 hours or more. Although we’d left the Bay of Biscay and had turned into the English Channel, we couldn’t get into port. Linda, the Jewellery Craft Tutor, joined me in the craft room and we sat with our backs pressed to the wall by the window, bracing ourselves at every lurch of the ship, and watched in amazement as the tables in the room (which are quite large and heavy) rolled over and disintegrated before our very eyes. Occasional glances at the waves outside confirmed that this was the worse sea either of us had ever sailed in; the Christmas and New Year cruise had been well and truly trumped.
Two people had been seriously injured during the Waldorf incident and a helicopter evacuation was promptly arranged. Suffice to say that two helicopter airllifts took place within about ninety minutes of each other. At each of these points in time, the ship had to be repositioned, so that it was pointing into the oncoming waves. These were the hairiest, and scariest, times; in manouvering, the ship would dip horrifically towards the water’s surface, several times, and the sensation of being in a precarious situation entirely out of one’s control was heightened.
Sadly; one man died and a woman was badly injured; many more were patched up in the medical centre. The fallout and speculation surrounding these events, I’m sure, will continue for a long time. It should be said, though, that every member of crew stepped up to the plate and excelled far and above their call of duty. These were exceptional circumstances, where decisions have to be made swiftly in order to protect everyone on board the ship. What matters most is that we got through it, and, much to everyone’s relief, arrived in Tilbury safe and sound on Saturday evening; a true testament to everyone involved.
It’s been a challenging cruise with ups and downs a plenty. It hasn’t put me off working on cruises, and I maintain that the Marco Polo, despite its almost fifty years in service, feels like a vessel that can be relied upon on in the most extreme of conditions. I hope so… I’ll be returning to it again in October, when it sails to the Baltic Cities and the Northern Lights. In the meantime, I think I’ll enjoy some solid ground for a while….
