Embarkation Day
One of the perks of being loyal to Silversea Cruise Line is being able to embark the ship as early as 10:30am. One checks out of the hotel and takes a short cab ride (or sometimes a short walk) to the pier and gets on board early enough for a nice lunch (always Mahi Mahi it seems) and one renews acquaintanceship with the bartenders and other crew members and unpacks before the other guests arrive. It's always nice to brief the butler on how to shine shoes and arrange for lactose-free or other dietary issues to be dealt with. Mostly, it's to feel special. My mom used to say, "Aren't you special?", and my dad would say, "I hope you get all that's coming to you." You betcha.
It is also really nice to watch the ship arrive and watch the guests on the last segment disembark. This time we found no ship at the pier well over an hour after the scheduled 7 am arrival. Uh, oh. Barbara and I walked quickly to the breakwater and found that Silver Wind was visible far on the horizon. We watched the ship approach the narrow channel leading to the V & A Waterfront berth, and then we watched the ship turn away and head back out to sea. But then we watched it come back again. Oh joy. Then it turned away. Hey, it wasn't even a good holding pattern. We headed back to our nearby hotel, taking a shortcut through the very elegant Table Bay Hotel and fired up the netbook to check out http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais to further track the ship. Oddly enough, it was going in circles at 7 knots there as well. Something was up.
What was up was the wind. Who would guess that it would be windy in Cape Town in summer? Too windy for the Harbourmaster to open the port long enough for Silver Wind to get in. So, after 11 years after missing Madagascar (and seeing the lemurs, whatever they are) due to high winds holding Silver Shadow for an extra day in port, it was happening again. This time the wind was keeping Silver Wind from arriving. The friendly Silversea Hospitality Desk lady in our hotel said, "The ship is delayed." She certainly was on top of the situation, she was. I was climbing the walls so as to see her on top, metaphorically speaking. And no amount of pacing up and back seemed to help.
Then we got to see how Silversea can work magic. All of a sudden, the friendly Hospitality Desk lady come over to me and said the we and the other embarking guests--who were being gathered from the end of the empty pier and throughout Cape Town by some means--will be taken in 1/2 hour to the elegant Table Bay Hotel where an elegant buffet was being set up. It was, and it was, as the Silver Wind was being diverted to the big industrial port area of Cape Town where the harbo(u)r was still open. Suddenly, all was well. Silversea provided a tour bus to take us and the others to the elegant Table Bay Hotel and then after lunch the buses came back to take us to the pier adjacent to a drydock area where the ship had finally berthed 4 1/2 hours late. After climbing over all sorts of nautical machinery, we were whisked through check-in and were in our suite (Silversea's word for what used to be called, "cabin", since it is a suite) in minutes. My mood had so improved that I even went to the "Muster Drill" where all of 280 of Silver Wind's guests fit into the Panorama Lounge with the 222 crew members to show us the 4 lifeboats that could hold us all. The Costa Condordia the Silver Wind is not. We then sailed at 8 pm, passing the Cape of Good Hope as I had a superb veal shoulder in wine sauce and the Southern Cross became visible. This morning I had my dairy free pastries and we just came back from meeting with the Executive Chef, Pastry Chef, and various other torqued folks to ensure that I don't have any problems. Problems? All is well.
Thinking of yesterday's events, it was interesting to see the behavior of the other folks, most of whom could buy and sell me in a minute, as they handled the change of plans. Some got sullen, some took the delay in stride, but many got frantic. The hastily made arrangements were fantastic, but a number of our fellow guests began to attempt to retrieve their bags and place them in the buses themselves, some started complaining about Silversea, the friendly Hospitality Desk lady, but oddly enough not the wind.
Tomorrow, Port Elizabeth and a 5 hour tour to the Addo Elephant Park. I think it's a park with elephants.
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