Another day and we arrive in Sydney and I disembark. The last couple of days have been full of incident. Eating breakfast when a Code 4 was announced over the PA system and a cabin number given. This is an emergency, a total emergency and later we learned that a passenger had suffered a stroke. While we took this in we became aware that the ship was turning round and the captain announced that we were returning to NZ where a helicopter would fly out to meet us and the passenger would be airlifted to hospital. As we had been steaming away overnight this mean practically a full day’s sailing before we were in the limit of the helicopter. It arrived at 3pm and of course most people whipped out their phones to take pictures which I found pretty nauseating. One guy had a huge telephoto lens which he put to use as the stretcher was being winched up, no doubt hoping for a close up. Yuk.
Well, by turning back we were then caught up in the back lash of the end of the cyclone which had just caught NZ and we had pitched seas for the next 24 hours. Deck were roped off and so everyone was inside and though most people were perfectly accepting of what had happened there were the usual moaners. One guy in the Quiz afternoon complained that it was not fair that one team had six instead of seven even though this lady was just sitting there drinking a glass of wine and was not taking part. Pathetic. The prize for this quiz was a ship’s biro and, considering that a possibly dying man had just been taken off the ship, the pettiness and utter banality of some people is truly lowering.
Went to bed fairly early and had a dire night. The anchor is close to my window when it is being lowered and I do not think after having to stop mid ocean that it had been locked in properly as with every movement of the ship when the waves were pitching it bashed against the side making sleep impossible. But I told myself, Elaine you cannot sleep, you have a headache but it does not matter. You are alive and well.
I was still glad when morning came though….
So Sydney tomorrow and disembarkation the following day. I have enjoyed this cruise immensely, minor irritations aside, but there have been moments in the last 24 hours when I have wanted to shriek “Stop the Ship I want to Get Off!”
And I will soon
Oh and by the way I have read 42 books while on board….