Saipan - sort of

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Thursday 15^th March 2012:

Today didn’t exactly go to plan and in a way that means I can’t tell you anything about Saipan because we didn’t go there. We had to report for Saipan’s immigration checks between 6.30 and 7.00 am but while we were getting ready to go, the Captain broadcast over the ship’s tannoy and that’s a very rare thing at half six in the morning. He said they had just sent the first tender ashore (we were already at anchor just off the island) and the boat was having an awful journey. They were going to pick up the immigration people but it was blowing a Force 7 and the sea was pretty choppy. He warned us that he was considering abandoning any efforts to get passengers ashore. To give him his credit, he kept broadcasting to update us but all the updates were awful. We could see the ship’s tender and it was bobbing about like a cork. I guess when you have 2,000 guests, many of whom are quite elderly, the thought of getting them off the ship into a lifeboat in a choppy sea is way too risky. You’d only need one person to fall and break a bone and Cunard would be sued … and would lose. So after about an hour, the Captain made the decision that Saipan was off.

Then he came back to tell us that, even though no-one could go ashore, the Saipan authorities had decided they were going to board the ship and do a full face-to-face immigration check on every single passenger and crew. It turns out that the Captain had a “lengthy and detailed conversation” with the immigration people about this and the decision was ultimately made not to do the check. But he later told us that this wasn’t agreed until they had made it clear that Cunard would make an official complaint to the government of Saipan and even the Governor was involved in conversations and the immigration people had to phone their authorities in Washington to get the OK to go back to shore without having checked us all out. Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall in that meeting room!

They still needed to get the passenger off the ship today – the one who had a heart attack 2 days ago. But in the end, the water was just too rough and so after conversations with Chief Medical Officer in Washington, they decided to keep him on board and are now taking him to Japan with us.

So it’s Osaka next after what will now be 3 more days at sea instead of 2. I guess they’ll just slow down a bit so that we still get there on time. We had a lovely swim this afternoon but may curtail that activity soon as the temperature in Osaka is just 10º at the moment. You can tell we’re heading almost directly north. Brrrrr!

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Comments

[Walt Goodridge]

Sorry we missed you.--Sincerely yours, Saipan.
On behalf of the people of Saipan, I'd like to welcome, wave goodbye, and wish you well all in the same breath! :-) Yes, many were disappointed that the Queen Mary's visit didn't go as hoped. However, if it's any consolation, there were many fellow Aussies who DID enjoy the scenery and hospitality last year. In particular, I was honored to be able to conduct a tour for 41 visitors from the Sun Princess! Here's a taste of what you missed, and a virtual tour that may at least be of some entertainment value! See you next year, perhaps! http://jamaicaninchina.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/the-short-happy-tale-of-41-australians-and-the-jamaican-on-saipan/

[The Tilsons]

Hello
Hello Walt Now that we are home, my husband and I just wanted to say thank you to you for sending us a comment on our travel blog. We were terribly disappointed not to be able to visit Saipan. From where we anchored, we could see little bits of your island and a little bit more through our binoculars. But it was a real shame that we could not come ashore and get to know something about your lovely island and experience it first-hand. I guess it has to remain on our To Do List for a while longer! Best wishes from Claire and Richard Tilson