MISSING THE TENDER PUTS PASSENGERS AT THE END OF THEIR ROPE

Note: Al Hayward has cruised more than 100 times. He offered to share his experiences with us here. Thanks Al!

By Al Hayward
Special to Cruising Squared

Many years ago my wife and I were sailing with a large group of travel professionals on a 10-day Caribbean Cruise. At the time I was the owner of a travel agency on Singer Island called Ocean Travel. In those days it was not unusual for a ship to call on 2 ports in the same day. This day my wife and I went ashore via tender on a morning stop of one of the French Islands. Maybe Martinique or Guadalupe. I looked at the schedule in the ship's bulletin and thought I remembered when the last tender left to pier.

After buying a bottle of rum and poking around in the shops we stopped to have a drink in one of the outdoor cafes. About 12:30 or so my wife became concerned about missing the last tender. I said not to worry, the bulletin said it was at 1 PM. So we walked back to the pier and guess what? No tender in sight. Plus we could see the smoke coming from the ship which was about 1/2 mile out. (I was mistaken- it was 1 PM that the ship sailed. Not last tender)


I found a radio shack at the pier and asked the man to radio the ship. To tell them not to leave since we were still in port. Well, as I said, this was a French port. The radio operator did not speak much English. He got the captain on the radio and then handed me the mike. I explained that we missed the last tender. He asked in a very stern voice "Are you passengers or crew?" ( think if we were crew we would still be on that island. We had about $10 and a bottle of rum to our name)

I told the captain we were passengers and he then asked if there was anyone there to take us out to the ship. I looked around and said no. The Captain said OK and that he would send someone for us. We then saw an officer in a Boston Whaler coming full speed toward the shore. So fast that all I could see was the bottom of the boat. He picked up up and took us back to the ship. By this time they had been paging us on the ship over and over. The people in our group all knew we were missing and they were standing on deck and looking at us when we pulled up to the ship.

Since the ship was scheduled to go to another island that day they had already closed all the lower doors and pulled the platform up. So when we pulled up to the ship we looked up and guess what? They threw a rope ladder down for us. My wife looked at it and said "no way". But the officer in his heavy European accent said "don't worry- I will help you." So up the rope ladder we went- about 40 or 50 ft into the crew's quarters. Lots of Playboy calendars on the walls.

The next night we went to see the show and the captain was the MC. He spotted us in the audience, looked over and said "glad to see the Hayward's made it tonight."

That Christmas our travel club, the Royal Palm Bon Vivants, had their holiday party at the Breakers. They presented my wife and I will a miniature rope ladder with the name of the ship painted on it.

This is a good lesson to people that want to take tours on their own instead of taking the ship's shore excursions. They do guarantee to get you back to the ship on time!