First Classes and an Air Evac

Having spent a night in Southampton, huddled against the quayside to protect us from the battering winds that were reeking havoc across the South of the country, we finally Left Southampton at around 10.30 am on Saturday morning.

The Captain told us the plan was to head west, hugging the southern coastline of Devon and Cornwall, towards Falmouth, where we would need to drop off the pilot who had helped us out of Southampton, and who didn’t really want to come to Tenerife with us. He explained that the sea would remain rough throughout the day, but not get any worse… until we’d dropped off the pilot and headed South, towards the North-Western tip of Spain, at which point the conditions would be likely to deteriorate and things become even choppier.

My first classes went relatively smoothly; during the morning class, we were still by the quayside. By the time we got to the afternoon session, things were definitely lumpier, but the turnout remained high. It’s always nice to get the first classes under my belt.

As is customary, and quite typical, both Tracey and myself were very tired, and napped a little after lunch, before the second class. In fact, by the end of the afternoon and into the evening, we were still pretty knackered, so we opted for an early dinner in The Grill, and a relatively early night, since we would have to be up at 7.30am again in the morning.

We’d only been in bed for about half an hour when the captain announced that there would be a helicopter air lift for a seriously ill guest. As part of the safety procedures, all the lounges and cabins at the front end of the ship would need to be evacuated for the duration. We lay there wondering if this included us, since our cabin is very near the front, and concluded after a few minutes of not hearing anything that it didn’t. But then… roughly 10 minutes later, at around 11pm, we heard a little knock on our door. We were required to evacuate.

Surprisingly, the evacuation affected all cabins and lounges, on all decks, stretching back – as far as we could tell – to about seven or eight cabins. When we plonked ourselves down into a sofa by the North Cape Bar, we noticed that we were surrounded by many tired-looking passengers, all of whom had been kicked out of their cabins, some of whom were still dressed in their night-wear.

We Googled it, and learnt that this is standard procedure on all ships, for the safety of the passengers. The helicopter doesn’t land on the deck, it has to hover above it and lower a winch, which – with the movement of the ship and the sea, and the challenge of maintaining a stationary position – is apparently one of the hardest maneuvers a helicopter pilot has to execute. One wrong move could result in the helicopter taking out part of the ships superstructure, so with firemen on the standby, it makes sense to take no chances, and evacuate.

It was roughly an hour before we were given the all-clear to return to our cabin. The disruption had taken its toll, though; the sea remained rough throughout the remainder of the night, and a broken sleep ensued. Tomorrow morning was going to be tough…