The Rise And Fall Of

Life On The Big Pond

A Pacific Passenger

One of a series, by BILL DAME

Our trans-Pacific luxury liner carries a cross section of society at any given time and it’s the cruise director’s responsi bility to make sure that each passenger enjoys his or her voyage. His job is one of the most sensitive aboard ship. He has to be a quick-witted super-diplomat, since he never knows what kind of new experience he’s going to have from day to day.

A veteran cruise director was having coffee one morning with an engineer who was glad that he worked with predictable equip ment instead of unpredictable people, and said so to the cruise director in no uncertain terms.

But the cruise director stuck up for people. He said: “People are always interesting, and I never know when someone will challenge my control of a situation.

“The closest I ever came to losing control came with dear Della, bless her heart. She was one of those old fashioned ladies from the old school. A cameo pin on her high lace collar, long sleeves trimmed with lace and she always smelled of violets.

Soft spoken, delicate and very polite, she had an inner radiance that approached being angelic. We all loved her.

But not Della

“Well, when the ship dropped anchor in the Bora Bora lagoon the main deck foyer was jammed with excited passengers waiting to board the launches for shore. A few passengers were up on Prom and Boat Decks taking pictures of the island backdrop, and when they came down to go ashore they brought word that dear Della was sitting up on deck under her lifeboat, wearing her life jacket.

Naturally, I went right up to see what was the matter, “I approached her gingerly and asked her what she was doing and why she was wearing a life jacket.

She said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about

me, dear boy. I’m not going ashore. I just want to sit here and look at the pretty island. I’ve never seen an island before and I wanted to before it’s too late, and isn’t it beautiful?’

“She turned her face back towards the island and started dabbing at her eyes with her hankie.

“I was quick to offer solace.

I said, ‘Yes, it is beautiful. But you’ll smile again as soon as you’re ashore and smell the flowers and see the people and all the scenery a little closer.

Come on; I’ll ride in the same launch with you’. I held out my hand to her.”

"The islands will sink"

“ ‘Oh, no!” She said. “I’d rather stay here, thank you, but I do feel that I . . . that I . . . should . . . tell someone what I know, but you’d think I’m foolish if I did. Would you?” She turned those big, troubled, misty blue eyes on me and I just had to ask her what she knew. And this is what she told me: “I read a book about the Pacific that had a chapter in it about sunken islands, and the author said that just as all islands have risen from the bottom of the sea in past ages, the islands that are out here now can just as surely sink!

“I hope all those people in the boats can swim, and all those poor people who live on the island, but, but, . . . Her voice really wavered and she began to sob as she confessed, ‘I can’t;’”.

This really amused the engineer who gave a belly laugh as he got up to leave. “That’s what you get

when you work with people!” he said.

“Wait a minute, Greasy Hands; you haven’t heard the best part,” the cruise director said, and the engineer sat down again. “Dear Della didn’t go ashore at Bora Bora, Tahiti, New Zealand or Suva.

“And there was nothing that I could do, or that anyone else could do, that would convince her that the islands wouldn’t sink.

This is a true story, brother. This is real.

He laughed again

“She was even afraid that the hook would get caught in some underwater cave or around some mammoth boulder which would pull the ship down when the island sank. But she did go ashore at Sydney because Aus tralia’s a continent.

“She was perfectly happy and relaxed at sea. It was only when we were anchored in some lagoon or tied up at a wharf that she got uneasy and either wore or carried her life jacket.”

The engineer laughed again and made to leave, but the cruise director said: “The best is yet to come,” and the engineer sat down again.

Her senator told her

“She was the first one off the ship at Honolulu,” the cruise director said with a satisfied smile.

The engineer looked blankly at him in silence for a moment, then asked, “What made her change her mind? Surely she knew that Honolulu’s on an island, didn’t she?

“She did, indeed,” the cruise director replied. “But she had written a letter to her senator before she left home and asked if Hawaii was safe to visit and he had answered that it was. She showed me the letter when I con gratulated her on the dock!”

The engineer left the officers’ mess for his predictable engines, still shaking his head.