Delayed Arrival… Oh, Those Pilots…
Yesterday was our final planned day on board ship. I ran my last classes, and we packed everything away ready for disembarkation; luggage has to be left outside the cabin door for collection by the crew, so that it’s waiting on the quayside when we finally leave the ship.
The plan was this: the pilot would be picked up at 3am, so that we’d be alongside Tilbury Cruise Terminal for around about 7am. 7am was also the time that all passengers were requested to have their cabins vacated by (which means getting up earlier – about 6am – to be able to achieve this).
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out like that. At 7am, when everyone left their cabins bleary-eyed and ready to disembark, it was clear that we were still very much out in the ocean, with no land in sight. We’d taken my art gear up to the Reception area, to dump it in the Shorex office, when we saw the Dutch interpreter, Peter, who broke the bad news that would soon be announced to the passengers in general…
The announcement which came soon after confirmed that the ship had received notification at 3am that the pilot station we were supposed to be heading for was closed due to bad weather, and that that we were being diverted to another pilot station. We were then told that the earliest a pilot would be able to board the ship would be 11am, making our arrival time at Tilbury no earlier than 3pm. Ouch.
I’ve seen pilots in ports all around the world manage to board ships in the most horrendous of sea conditions, leaping noncholantly from the small deck of a pilot boat, across a scary gap of wild water, into a small hole in the side of a cruise ship; I’ve always thought of it as being a young man’s job – a job for someone who also enjoys a bit of excitement and danger in their job. Pilots are a very special breed… there’s something very British, then, about a pilot station being closed, and not being able to board ship, due to bad weather… is all I’m saying…
So, through no fault of the ship, we’ve all had to endure a delay of 8 hours. For some, with other connections to make in order to get themselves home, the knock-on effect of that would be considerable. For Tracey and myself, the delay is no particular hardship; it just means we won’t get home until this evening, instead of this afternoon (and we’ll probably be hitting commuter traffic, which will be a bit of a pain). The good news is that they allowed us to rer-occupy our cabins until 2pm, so we took the opportunity to catch up on the sleep that we’d missed by having to be up at stupid o’clock.
As I write this, we’re finally approaching Tilbury, and the end of our Norwegian adventure…
