The Other Side of the Story

It was a gloomy day as the P&O Cruise ship Oriana dropped its anchor off the port of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. Not the sort of day on which any sane person would decide to go for a walk. But we were not a sane person - there were six of us. And Reykjavik beckoned. But we couldn't get ashore by walking down the brow. Oh no! Such simple pleasures were not for us. We were hundreds of yards from the shore - there was no room in the harbour for our ship. So we had to go ashore by tender. This meant that we had to wait a while to let all those lucky people who had booked coach tours to get away first. Then it was our turn, and we six, Janet and John, Audrey and Norman, Mary and I, made our way to the nether regions of the ship, out through a hole in the side, and down a ladder to a pontoon alongside of which a rather small motor boat (it only held about seventy passengers) was bobbing up and down on the waves. Once loaded, the tender let go fore and aft, and we were off.

It wasn't long before we were all jumping off on to the jetty in the old harbour, and it only took us a couple of minutes walking to reach the nearest shops. Our first port of call was to be the Information Bureau. It turned out to be the second, because we all decided to check the delights of a nice looking shop to see if there was anything worth buying. In the end, the only things we bought were postcards to send home to our relatives and friends to show them what delights they were missing by not being there with us. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), the weather on the pictures wasn't the same as the weather we were enduring. After this brief side step we strode onto our intended destination. On the way I was asked by some stranger in town how to get to the Information Bureau. Fortunately I managed to enlighten him, for, although a stranger to the town myself, I could see it on the other side of the square we had just reached. Once inside the bureau we managed to find some maps of the town, but tended to linger a while - it was nice and warm. However, we bold explorers had a purpose in being there. We wanted to visit the Halgrimskirka, the new Lutheran Cathedral.

So off we strode. The first thing to do was find the lake. It is over half a mile long, so we didn't have much trouble in finding it. On it were all sorts of ducks and sea birds, and there were display panels full of pictures explaining what they all were. But we didn't stop to look. We were on a mission. Past the lake, and then a turn to the left and up the hill. By then the wind had got up a bit, and it had started to rain. That is when things started to go wrong. Norman was getting fed up - there was very little to see, apart from the ducks on the lake, and he couldn't see them very well. On top of that, walking up hill started to upset Mary's new hip joint. And my left leg wasn't taking too kindly to the up-hill bit which I could see ahead of us. So the three of us decided to call it a day and proceed back to the comfort of the ship. We stopped by the lake for a while to look at the display panels and take a couple of photographs, and then wandered back into town, wondering if we should find a friendly watering hole and have a cup of coffee. When we realised that we wouldn't get much change from a ten pound note, and that it would only take a quarter of an hour to get back on board and have as much free coffee as we could drink, we changed our mind, hopped on the first available tender and were soon back into the warmth and comfort of the good ship, Oriana.

What we didn't realise at the time was that we had been on the last tender back to the ship. The weather had taken a turn for the worse - that we knew from the bumpy ride we had back. We found out later that another tender had tried the trip but found it impossible to tie up alongside, so all the passengers had a return trip back to the harbour. By this time more passengers who had booked shore excursions were preparing to go ashore. Unfortunately for them, the winds had increased to storm force, and the only trip they were going to get was a trip out to sea - the captain had decided that it was unsafe to stay in the harbour. So up came the anchor and off we went. This brought back memories of tales we had heard of how a cruise ship anchored off a port with most of its passengers ashore had to go to sea because of the weather, and couldn't get back into port for three days. Rather unfortunate for those ashore as hotel rooms were in short supply. It is said that one poor woman objected most strongly when she found out that her husband would have to sleep in a bed with two other men.

Norman, of course, was enjoying the situation. He decided that he would send a message to the Captain, and trotted off to the Purser's desk. Over the few days that we had been on the ship he had become friendly with the girls behind the desk, and they were quite willing to help him. While he dictated the message they wrote it down on the correct form. His message was simple. His wife was ashore. The ship couldn't get back in to pick her up. He thought it would be a good idea to carry on with the cruise straight away. The boss man behind the counter declared that such a message should certainly not be forwarded to the Captain, but the form was ceremoniously folded and placed in the Captain's pigeon hole. Whether he actually got the message, and what he thought of it if he did, I never found out.

It wasn't until early in the evening that a ship which had been tied up in the container port left Reykjavik, and the captain decided to take a chance at going alongside in its place. He got the ship into the harbour, but found it impossible to tie up, and so the ship was kept alongside the jetty by using the side thrusters and a couple of tugs for long enough to get all the stranded passengers and crew back on board and all the tenders hoisted up on their davits. Possibly the only person on board who was more relieved than Norman was the captain.

Bill Hutchings

 The series, "Iceland and Norway on the Oriana", will continue in next month's issue.