Traveling On Time or Suffering the Consequences _ Time Out #480

This week's offering is quite a tale. My reading advice to you, loyal patrons in Our Town and far beyond is to carefully sit down for your safety, before starting this piece of writing. It is a real firecracker of a story.  

     First of all, it is totally true, no embellishments from your friendly writer. I witnessed the entire event over a quarter century ago, but in my remembering mind, it may as well as happened today.  

     The setting, the south island of New Zealand, over 9,000 miles from Our Town. Time, the Christmas holiday season, estimate 1998.  Three of us, youngest son, Robbie, my bride, Lady Deborah, and your scribe, are on a 2-week Holland America Line (HAL) named Noordam cruise ship from Sydney, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand (NZ). Our ship has just experienced a wonderful port day, touring the very British-influenced city of Christchurch, NZ. It is nearing sundown, but styill daylight enough to be able to see far in the distance from the back deck of our large vessel. 

     My bride and I enjoy being outside on an upper deck when we leave a port stop to be able to take in the city/destination we have just visited. It helps us recall our favorite experiences there. This particular late afternoon/early evening as I was looking back toward Christchurch, I could see a  pilot boat projecting it's typical blue pole light, racing toward our big cruise ship, Our vessel might not have been at full ocean speed, but we were moving at a brisk pace, leaving the harbor. The pursuing pilot ship was moving very fast in our direction, so I suspected something was certainly urgent. 

Quickly, the smaller vessel pulled up beside our large ship, but our ship did not appear to slow down. Therefore, even though both vessels were beside each other, the speed of each boat was brisk. Additionally, there was a  moderate ocean wind that day, too.   

     The next thing the upper deck spectators (us included, of course) witnessed was a flexible rope ladder was thrown down from our ship, about 6 decks down,

to the bobbing smaller vessel. Then, a middle-age, large lady emerged from the pilot boat, and began climbing (not well, either!) the swaying rope ladder. Shortly after she was completely on the unsteady ladder, a young HAL male casino worker was on the ladder, too. It was all he could do to stay on it himself, but he also helped her gradually move herself upward, by pushing hard on various parts of her body! We witnessed all of this action with much anxiety, and absolutely knew the climbers had plenty of anxiety!  

     Yes, it was pretty unbelievable for all spectators, safe far above this activity, watching the 2 unskilled climbers slowly progress.  I can honestly say we weren't sure one or both people, each wearing life preservers, weren't going  

 to to slip and tumble into the ocean! However, they did make it safely to a lower deck, finally assisted on-board by members of the ship's crew. The large viewing audience then broke out in spontaneous applause.  

     The rest of the story is the older lady just happened to be a dinner companion of ours at our dining room assigned seating table. Therefore, Ms. Debbie and I were able to hear the entire story from her. The short version is she was late for re-boarding the ship, and when our ship's casino worker found out, he volunteered to help her get back on board, with the required assistance of the "chasing" pilot boat. We also knew this somewhat disabled ( normally used a cane to walk) lady passenger had a difficult medical condition that limited her physical mobility. Yet, she successfully completed the unsteady rope ladder climb into a moderate ocean wind, on a briskly moving large ship. It was certainly an incredible accomplishment we watched, given the ocean conditions.    

     Moral of this story: DON'T be late during a port stop when returning to a cruise ship. The vessel's captain may not wait on you!