The Malacca Incident

So many things went wrong with the stop in Malacca that I'm not surprised we only tried to go there once! Firstly there had been a massive party in the crew bar the night before and everyone was still drunk or horrifically hungover. I remember trying to rouse one of the photogs who only hours before had said 'Yeah, definitely give me a call in the morning' she was still passed out and was not going to make it.

As most crews shore time is limited there really can be no fucking around waiting for people if you have to be back on board for work at a certain time so the generally agreed rule is to meet at the gangway or gunport at a set time and if someone is late, tough you leave as its like herding cats the more people want to do something ashore.

Even to this day I couldn't tell you where or what Malacca is, by that I mean I think it was in Malyasia but more than that I couldn't tell you if it was a country, a city, an island without checking, thats one of hazards of ship life is that sometimes you are woefully unprepared for where you are the next day.

After a quick google I can indeed confirm that I got the area right and Malacca is in Malyasia and it is a state rather than an island or country!

As this was a one off stop for 'operational reasons' most of the photo team had planned to get ashore early and spend as much time as we could but as it was a first stop in Malacca there was no shore excursions on offer and it was a tender port meaning as a crew member you'd usually have to wait hours for all the PAX to get ashore before you can but thankfully this is where the photo department has a little hack to beat the system.

When its a tender port the first boat will always have security and the photog gangway team on it, security to set up for processing the PAX and photogs to get ready to take pictures of the PAX as they get off the tender. Usually there are between 3-4 photogs on a gangway shoot but unbelievably if its a good tender port where we want more time ashore then most of the photo team will be in uniform and on that boat.

Of course few of us would actually be working and if we helped security set up their gear they'd turn a blind eye to the fact that theres double the amount of people in the department there. Then once shore we'd change our shirts to regular human clothes and have at least an extra hour or two to spend ashore as well as gettin first look at everything before 2-3 thousand people get ashore.

My plan for the day was to get in a tuk tuk and ride around the city filming despite having no idea of where or what I was doing, but my hangover was savage and I was not walking in the Malyasian heat.

As we were the first off the tender ashore we got in our tuk tuk convoy and set off to explore for the day planning to be back about a hour before crew all aboard to be safe as it was one off port, we checked our watches which we always left on ship time rather than local and headed off.

What we didn't know was that someone on the bridge had massively fucked up analysing the tides and the port was going to be cancelled. I can't imagine how this cock up happened but the gist was due to that error the water was too low for the tenders to get get into the dock and the 2nd one after us was close to getting stuck in the mud. After some brief consultation onboard the call was made to cancel the port and sail onto the next port of call, except we were still ashore!

Still to this day it could have been an awesome disaster as if the ship had no way of contacting us to let us know the port was cancelled how long could they wait? This was apparently figured out by the cost of having to transport 3/4 of the photo team to Singapore and put us up in a hotel for a few days while we waited for the ship to get there.

What would have happened is that our passports would have been taken ashore and left with the port agent and then we would have been taken to the nearest airport to begin our journey to Singapore, fortunately / unfortunately depending on your point of view one of the photogs Eva had a mobile phone on her that actually worked and Mick our manager told us to get back as quickly as possible.

I hadn't managed to film much as we had only been ashore for little more than an hour but I stopped filming straight away as I knew right away if we missed the port we'd get complaints if I put the little footage we did have of Malacca on the DVD.

We gently chided Eva on the way back 'If you hadn't brought your bloody mobile phone with you...' as we thought through all the possibilities of what would happen if we missed the ship. as we were technically working and not on a jolly (even though that was fully the intention) if the ship had to leave before we got back, it wasn't our fault and therefore we wouldn't be fired which is the standard response to missing the ship.

However this was a unique situation and we were fairly certain we'd be fine and if anything we were more exicted about the possability of having a few days holiday in Singapore paid for by the company! When we reached the port area our hopes were up security were gone and the ship looked miles away an anchor across the bay, as one the locals told us that the first PAX tender had trouble docking and they had to go back as the tide was too low and the call was made to abort the port!

Unfortunately for us there was local boat there ready to take us back!

Yep! Someone had the brains to get a smaller local boat to get the 8 of us back to the ship meaning we missed out on a much better adventure which would have been a few days in a hotel in Singapore. The greek translation of the word 'Malaka' basically means 'wanker' which most definitely sums up the guy who got the fucking tides wrong!

Next time on the cruise diaries - A third helping of temples in Asia!