Don’t rock the boat baby, don’t tip the boat over….
….and don’t make a drama out of a crisis.
4pm, 21st December 2023. 200km from Denmark’s west coast, 330km from the east coast of Scotland.
I am lying on my cabin bed on HX’s (Hurtigruten) MS Maud having enjoyed a great expedition cruise with my Mum up and down the coast of Norway with Tilbury being our start and finish port.
We saw the Northern Lights on several occasions, came nose to nose with some very cute Arctic Foxes, climbed 951 steps to the summit of a local hill in gale force winds, caught up with wonderful family and enjoyed our voyage with new friends we made along the way. This was our 3rd expedition cruise with Hurtigruten, we like their style.
We had been kept well informed by the Captain and Expedition Leader before we left our last port of call about the rough weather we were due to experience heading back to Tilbury so, like good passengers, heeded advice and were hunkered down in our respective cabins riding out the storm. These ships are designed for such conditions, and I have been on another Hurtigruten ship higher up the coast of Norway where we rode through bigger seas. The ship’s crew are also used to such conditions, so I felt in very safe hands. None of us could have predicted what happened next.
At 4pm I felt a shudder go through the boat, a very different feeling to the rocking, rolling or pitching we had been experiencing for the last 24 hours. Within seconds the ship’s intercom went live with the intercom ‘bing bongs’. I was very attuned to the bing bongs as they were usually followed by an announcement from the Captain or Expedition team with important information. This time was different as no announcement followed, only the sound of wind, waves and rain. Not the kind of sounds you want to hear from an internal intercom located on the bridge.
Within seconds the alarms were blaring and I shot off my bed, grabbed some warm clothes and headed across the corridor to take Mum with me to our muster station on the deck below. There was an initial sense of quiet panic when we managed to clamber down the stairs trying not to fall over as the ship lurched violently from side to side, not knowing quite what had happened but knew that this was not a good situation to find ourselves in.
I intuitively switched into leader mode as I sat Mum down and went to grab our immersion suits and life vests from the ship’s crew. An outfit which I had hoped not to wear after seeing the safety demo at the start of our voyage but glad they were there non the less. Once Mum and I had worked our way into our bright orange grow bags with the solid but weirdly comforting life vests making movement a tad more challenging. I helped a few other passengers to get into theirs whilst our oldest passenger, a fabulous lady 96 years young who I had seen many a time whizzing around the ship with her stroller, was brought downstairs on the back of one of the crew.
We had to keep stopping whatever we were doing to hang onto something solid as the ship rocked from left to right whilst seeing the sea come up to the windows, or the windows head down to the sea, a frightening vision to say the least. I am used to being in challenging environments, but this was something else.
Our 96-year-old was having difficulty staying upright so once we had helped her into her safety gear, I sat behind her with my back to the wall and legs straddled with side to help her to stay upright. Her equally wonderful daughter who is in her 70s, sat beside me and we started to get to know each other with general chit chat to keep our minds busy.
The crew around us were busy making sure everyone was dressed correctly and were taking a roll call. 20 minutes or so after the initial alarm sounded, Andrea, our Expedition Leader, came to our deck soaking wet to tell us what had happened and what was going to happen in the next hour or so.
She explained that a rogue wave had hit the bridge windows, smashing a few which flooded the bridge and shut down the bridge electrics and the ship’s engines. No-one had been injured but there was a big effort bailing out the bridge and they were working on restarting the engines from the engine room. We were to stay on board for the time being as this was the safest place at that time and, once the engines were restarted and we regained forward momentum, we would hopefully stop rocking and rolling so much. Andrea also explained that ships local to us were on their way to offer support if required, a North Sea comfort blanket, and that 2 tugs were being dispatched from Denmark to aid our journey to our nearest port.
About 10 minutes after Andrea left, whilst we were still rocking and rolling, I saw lights to our right and felt that North Sea comfort blanket as a large ship stayed a safe and reassuring distance from our starboard side.
The crew were simply amazing. Whilst we waited for whatever was next, they started to bring around water, cookies, apples and any other snacks they could lay their hands on from the smashed galley kitchen and later on freshly prepared sandwiches appeared.
And from then on we sat and waited, being kept informed as soon as the engines had been restarted and knew that it wouldn’t be long before our stability in these angry seas would increase. I think it was around 3 hours later that Andrea came back to say that we were now in the safe with the engines running and the stabilisers back in position so were able to take our orange immersion suits off the top of our bodies and tie then around our waists but to keep the life vests on.
I then turned to the wonderful expedition team member who was sat beside me helping to keep an elderly gentleman upright and said ‘I think I am going to go’ to which she replied ‘go where?’ and I promptly passed out.
What caused this shut down is debatable. I was really hot and I guess had been on high alert mentally for far too long and I guess my body and brain went ‘that’s enough gal, time to rest’. I flopped to my right and heard my 96-year-old saying ‘what’s going on?’ as she felt me fall sideways onto her daughter. In fact, I could hear everything that was being said but could not move a muscle or speak a word.
The medics came over straight away and dealt with me expertly, talking to me calmly, explaining what they were doing as they stripped my immersion suit off my torso. I could hear them speaking to Mum who was sat 10 feet away, asking if I had any medical conditions. ‘No’, she replied, ‘she’s as strong as an ox’, to which I heard ‘even the strongest need rest at some point’. Oh so true.
Having checked me over by taking my pulse, oxygen sats, blood pressure and blood glucose, they were happy that nothing sinister was going on and made me comfortable until I came around. I have no idea how long I was out for the count, it felt like ages and all I wanted to do was sleep but they wanted to wake me up and get me talking.
I think the aftereffects of a huge amount of adrenalin was also having an impact on passengers nearby as the sick bags were being handed out and regularly used.
Another 2 hours went by and we were finally told that we could head back to our cabins. I wasn’t quite ready to move just yet and let the wave of relief sit well with me before I headed back up to Deck 6 and see the state of my cabin.
The cabins immediately behind the bridge on Deck 7 had been flooded too so those passengers were moved to dry cabins elsewhere on the ship. As I entered my cabin, I saw that it had been tidied and hoovered with the glasses and cups which had been smashed during the incident having been removed and anything else they thought was out of place put back neatly. What amazing care the crew were taking of us.
Unsurprisingly I did not sleep well that night and neither did Mum. I opted to pack my bag and do a crossword or two to keep my occupied all the while staying fully clothed with my immersion suit and life jacket by my bed. I finally dropped off at 3am with the lights on.
The following morning the crew brought breakfast around to our cabins. First a box of pastry goodies were delivered and then a boxed cooked breakfast arrived. The crew had surpassed all expectations so far and continued to do so.
The next couple of days came and went with plenty of chat amongst the passengers and crew whilst HX HQ, the office side of the ship’s crew and the expedition team arranged for our onward travel back to the UK on Christmas Eve. Whilst we limped along at a top speed of 3 knots per hour with two monster tugs either side for safety, tentatively making our way to our final port of call Bremerhaven, HX were, in my humble opinion, pulling an absolute blinder booking flight and rail travel for 266 passengers plus buses to German airports and from Heathrow back to Tilbury where many of our cars were waiting. I know Storm Pia had had an impact on travel the day before and we were travelling home on Christmas Eve so I was more than grateful that we were able to arrive home 21 hours after saying a sad farewell to the ship and her crew before the clock struck midnight and Christmas Day rolled in.
When I arrived home from Nepal in 2015 after the devastating earthquake which rocked so much of the country, and us on Everest, I was offered professional counselling by children’s mental health charity Place2Be who I was raising funds and awareness for. I thought I was fine, why would I need or want counselling, I was coping with what Nepal had thrown at us, of course I was. Oh, how wrong can one person be. I am sure it has taken me a lot longer to process that earthquake than if I had taken Place2Be up on their kind support so when HX sent us an offer for 2 sessions with a Marine counsellor I said a resounding yes and I am so glad I did.
Mum and I have spoken often about those hours on Thursday 21st December and acknowledge that we all process events differently. One person’s recollection of events is inevitably different from another’s. We remember different parts of the same event whilst we block out others and process the memories in different time frames. One thing we have agreed not to talk about is the post event ‘what ifs’. Delving down that particular rabbit hole serves no purpose as the what ifs didn’t happen. We didn’t have to abandon ship and we didn’t end up in the North Sea so why waste precious emotional energy worrying about something that did not happen.
As with the earthquake 8 years ago, I have experienced a few triggers since our incident in the North Sea. The HX counsellor suggested that I don’t leave it too long to get back on a ship so in a couple of weeks’ time I will hop onto a ferry and head over to the Isle of Wight for a walk with Monty and a lovely friend who is the perfect companion for my first time back on the water.
Onwards and upwards.
