Fooey To Kahului

Thursday, March 07, 2013
Kahului, Hawaii, United States
Gloria overheard a bit of conversation yesterday and I asked Megan to do a bit of shore research and she discovered the following article published at Fullastern.com:

Cruise Liner The Queen Elizabeth Collided With Tug Boat

26 February. The 32 meter long tug Toia packed with pleasure seekers collided with cruise liner The Queen Elizabeth during CentrePort's open day.

CentrePort has launched an internal investigation and notified Maritime NZ of the incident, which happened about 3pm on Saturday. NOTE: That means we were docked in Wellington at the time.

The tug master in charge of the Toia tug was today away from work on rostered days off, marine services manager and chief pilot Charles Smith confirmed.

He would not say whether the tug master had been suspended.

It was "conjecture" to say what would happen to the “very experienced” tug master, he said. It was also conjecture as to say whether the incident would jeopardise future open days.

Mr. Smith said nobody was injured in the incident but the Toila was filled to capacity with 50 people on board.

The incident happened as the Toia was motoring up the port side of the Queen Elizabeth. The tug’s funnel hit the cruise liner’s docking platform, which was about 12 metres above the water line.

It damaged the funnel but the tug had remained in service.

As far as we know, no QE passengers were aware of this event. Certainly, it was never announced. If memory serves correctly, Gloria would have been napping at that time and I was suffering through the movie, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” in the Royal Court Theatre. We sailed 45 minutes late that day and I wrote in this blog that it was “for no apparent reason.” Perhaps that was the reason. I do not know. The docking platform (I think) is at the bow of the ship which is where the Theatre is. The tug captain must have cut the corner beneath the bow too closely.

Also today, at breakfast, I got into a conversation with a consultant working with the CDC team on board and he told me that at our peak we had 120 cases of Norovirus on board the QE. The CDC team is sailing with us to Los Angeles to continue their investigation to see what they can learn about our outbreak and preventing future situations such as this one.

Cunard has brought us to a port where there is, literally nothing. Here is the port description for Kahului, Hawaii, in the Daily Programme: With total area of 16.3 square miles, Kahului is the retail center for Maui residents and there are several malls and major stores (including department stores in theQueen Kaahumanu Center) such as the Lahaina Cannery Mall, the Happy Valley area of Wailuku, Maui Market Place and Maui Mall, which are both also located in Kahului, and the shops at Wailea in Wailea. You can take a free shuttle to a shopping mall or a different free shuttle to Hilo Hatties. Both of those lines are two to three shuttle loads long. People are angry. Mark is particularly angry.

There is a LONG (45 minute wait) line for taxi cabs to take you, for $75, to the other side of Maui to Lahaina. It is there that the whale watching happens along with bars, restaurants, and other sundry fun.

After waiting in the various lines (there is NO Cunard employee anywhere to be found), we start walking. After a mile or so we find a cab. “Take us anywhere.”

We end up, $75 later, in Lahaina. Here we see a Princess ship anchored in the busy harbor, shuttling happy passengers into the wharf. There is whale watching plus sport fishing, bars, shops and restaurants. In Kahului, there were shipping containers and barbed wire.

Come to Maui by ship but be certain your port of call is Lahaina and not Kahului. If you come on Cunard, make sure they have coaches to get you somewhere without long delays. Our theory is that if you don’t take a Cunard Excursion, they want you to suffer. Today, their strategy worked. Generally, we are ticked at Cunard today.
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