No High Heels!

Quick now -- what is the very first, and most important, thing to do before you get into a life raft?

(answer) Take your seasickness pills. A crew life raft is enclosed, providing protection from the outside elements. However, 25 people have to crowd into it. The raft will bob up and down like crazy on the ocean, testing the strongest stomach. And Lordy how nasty it would be if somebody got sick to his stomach in that crowded space.

This and other nice tidbits were offered on the morning of March 28 in Salvador, Brazil, as 3 life raft groups, 75 people in all, were given three instructional drills out on the flat open area of the bow. In drill #1, each group of 25 crowded into a raft, as officers gave us tips on how to best deal with the situation if it really happened. The seasickness pills were mentioned quite a few times, as well as “NO HIGH HEELS!!”

Drill #2 had to do with identifying life raft supplies. The raft is initially packed into a large cylinder which looks like an extra-large white plastic garbage can. When the proper rope is pulled, the can opens and the raft inflates.

Also packed into the big white cylinder are 2 paddles, food and water rations for 25 people, flares, a signal-sending device, a raft repair kit just in case someone DID wear high-heel shoes, and a big thermal bag for people pulled out of the cold water.

The third drill was the familiar fire-extinguisher drill. If a crew person spots a fire, he should make a phone call on it immediately. The Fire Team will arrive pretty quickly, but the crew person can be a huge help if he can quickly find and use an extinguisher on a small fire.

The Fire Teams are well-trained, practicing their procedures at least once a week. The alarm goes off, passengers are told to ignore it, while the Fire Teams are told the location of “simulated” fire. The photos below were not taken by me, I would not be allowed in the Fire Team drill area.

Brigitte Bardot

On March 22-23-24 the Veendam visited 3 consecutive ports in Brazil -- Paranagua, Ilhabela, and Buzios. Knowing nothing about any of these places, I went to Channel 28 on the cabin TV to get some info from the “Spencer Brown Show“.

Spencer is the Veendam travel guide, and an excellent one. Thoroughly passionate about travel, thoroughly knowledgeable, thoroughly eloquent, thoroughly a nice guy. The day before the 3 consecutive ports was a sea day, and Spencer gave a 3PM lecture in the Main Showroom, pointing out what each of these 3 ports had to offer.

70 slides were shown, with Spencer commenting on each. Those who missed the presentation in the Showroom could see it over and over again on Channel 28, with the slides filling the TV screen and the Spencer voiceover.

Suddenly there it was, on channel 28. In the slide show of the classy beach resort town of Buzios -- the Brigitte Bardot statue, life-sized and intriguing, with Spencer saying it was commissioned by the loving and appreciative citizens of Buzios.

A strange statue, I thought. Perhaps it was the un-statuelike pose? She was seated, seemingly wearing jeans, on a non-descript slab the size of a suitcase, her right hand oddly placed on her upper thigh. Or perhaps she seemed to me an odd subject for a statue? I couldn’t think of any other statues of sexy actresses.

Whatever the reason, this was a Must See for me. After all, there’s a million beautiful beaches and resorts in the world, but maybe only one Brigitte Bardot statue. After taking a boat over to the main dock, one walks on a scenic pathway just above the beach. 200 yards later, there she is, with a small bunch of tourists gathered around, one by one posing for photos with “Brigitte”.

She looks out on the water, perhaps in the direction of France, perhaps in the direction of Wherever. She’s captured in her prime, a woman once thought to be the most beautiful in the film world.But her stardom was pretty much based on her sex-kitten image, and she was out of movies by her mid-30s. Now at the age of 75, the real Brigitte is just as well-known for her animal rights activism as for her film career.

But in her 1960s heyday, she discovered Buzios, and vacationed there regularly, sometimes with Brazilian boyfriends. She was a key factor in the popularity and commercial growth of Buzios, thus her immortalization in bronze on the waterfront.

The Buzios visit was the last day of this particular cruise. The following morning all passengers disembarked in Rio. A whole new group of passengers was on board by 4PM, about to go on a long and unique cruise.

This last South American cruise is a “re-positioning” cruise that will take 30 days, the ship making its way back north, to reach New York City on April 25. It will then settle in to 4 months of week-long cruises, New York to Bermuda round-trips, for the entire summer.

Rio de Janeiro has a really striking harbor, so I joined the many people lingering on the open decks last night during a an idyllic sailaway. For me it was the beginning of the Return Home, goodbye to Rio and everything “south” -- Chile, Argentina, Antarctica, all the places that made me seek out this contract in the first place.

The Southern Cross, a small and notable constellation of 4 stars that can only be seen in Southern latitudes, (actually pictured on the Australian flag) will now be seen less and less in the next 2 weeks, and then will disappear altogether. Back to the Big Dipper.

Guest Entertainers

It’s always seemed to me that the best job on the ship is that of Guest Entertainer. Reportedly they get paid well, better than me anyway, and they have a ridiculous amount of days off.

The ship must put something different in the Showroom every night of a cruise. The problem is partially solved by a small troupe of young singers and dancers called the “cast”, who stay on the ship for contracts of many months. Typically they have four “prepared shows”, sung and choreographed to taped tracks. The shows are produced by a big company called Stiletto, which rehearses all the performers in Los Angeles. Then the singers and dancers are packaged as troupes and sent off to any one of the 14 Holland America ships.

They can’t be repeating shows during a cruise, so a troupe will perform only four nights per cruise, whether it’s a 7-day cruise or a 20-day cruise. If it’s a 20-day cruise, they get 16 nights off, and other entertainment is needed to cover those 16 days.

And so there are comics, jugglers, singers, instrumental virtuosos, brought to the ship in strategic cities with good airports. On this South American itinerary, there have been many large gaps between cities with good airports. If a guest entertainer boards in Buenos Aires, the most financially feasible thing may be to keep him on the ship a week or more, even if he’s featured only one night.

Or maybe one-and-one-third nights. On a guest entertainer’s featured night he does his 45-minute show at 8PM and 10PM. Then, many nights later, he may participate in 8PM and 10PM “Variety Shows” with two other Guest Entertainers, chipping in a previously unseen 15-minute performance.

I’ve now come to understand that all the idle days on the ship are not necessarily wanted, and may be seen as a necessary inconvenience. Some of these Guest Entertainers don’t particularly like cruising, or may be bored with the itinerary, and would just as soon disembark after their performance is done.

A few years ago I was a little more unsure about my standing in the entertainment pecking order, and would shy away from chatting with a Guest Entertainer, especially when they were chatting with each other in a group.

To be sure, my status is different from theirs in many ways. Technically I’m “crew” and they’re not. When I’m in a public area I’m supposed wear a crew nametag, which they don’t have. On the other hand, I never wear the nametag while on the job. There I’m an entertainer “in costume” as I see it, and the nametag would be silly and inappropriate.

On the Ryndam gig two years ago I struck up a friendship with a comic named Janine. She dropped in on the piano bar on her many off nights, and quickly found out that I played Scrabble. She actually expected it, having met other pianist / Scrabble players elsewhere, and we played quite a few games in the library during her time on the ship. She is very down to earth, which is reflected in her brand of humor both on and off-stage. But when she was “talking shop” with other Guest Entertainers I suddenly felt out of place. After two years of not seeing her, she turned up here on the Veendam a few months ago and it was Scrabble Time all over again.

In all my previous contracts, my cabin was down on B Deck with the other crew. However this ship underwent a renovation last year which made the piano bar a more high-profile place, much more exposed to passenger traffic. And in a stunning recent development, I was assigned a cabin on the 6th Deck, on “Guest Entertainer Row”. A bigger cabin, with a bathtub ( I hear I can sell “bathtub time” to other crew people). Although I’m still crew, the new cabin is an official shift in status, a new Veendam policy.

But policies can differ from one HAL ship to another, from one piano bar situation to another. My next contract, if on a different ship, could send me right back down to B Deck again. So I’ll appreciate this while I have it.

One of my neighbors is a classically trained pianist named Juan Pablo. Cuban, long hair, ridiculously buff body, thick accent, and an exciting 45-minute show. He managed to string two cruises together, so he’s been here two weeks, with at least another week to go. Actually I met him on another contract a while back, but we’ve gotten pretty friendly lately.

This despite his reclusiveness. On his many off-days and off-nights, he hangs out in his cabin, orders room service, practices his electric piano, and goes unseen for days. This may have to do with his difficulty in speaking English . No Scrabble games with Juan Pablo. It also has to do with his seriousness about his craft. For the next few days he’ll be in an uptight “must practice must practice” mode, and will stay that way until his next actual Showroom performance, which won’t be for another few days. He doesn’t know the actual date yet, and this makes him even more neurotic.

After he finally does perform, the pressure is finally off, and he can relax for a few days until his next performance starts creeping up on him, or completely relax if he’s finished his contract.

He can play circles around me, but he’s intrigued by the spontaneous musicmaking in the piano bar every night. And as a pianist, he has an appreciation of what it requires. He certainly doesn’t want my gig, it’s way too many nights of work without a night off. Although the ship has to put something different in the Showroom every night of a cruise, it’ll be the same old Steve in the piano bar every night. A familiar face, hopefully doing things a little differently and unpredictably each time.

Pianobar players have been known to make the Big Switch over to the Showroom. Devise a show, invest in charts for the orchestra, and come up a videotaped performance of oneself in front of a Showroom-sized audience, and sell it. And, as Juan Pablo said, don’t try to be anyone else, no matter how successful Someone Else may be. In my case, do what I do best, and somehow fit it into a Showroom setting.

And don’t try to sell it to Holland America. They’re already quite happy to have me in the piano bar. Which actually makes sense. Why tamper with a good pianoman situation with HAL? This Showroom whim should be pursued elsewhere. Quite an interesting star to reach for. I’ll be delighted if it works out. I could use the extra money, a few more nights off, and whatever buzz comes from playing to 600 people in a Showroom.

Que Es Shamrock?

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, but I only became aware of it the day before, when I saw a flyer taped to the crew bar wall. Basically the flyer said “come on in and get smashed on St. Patrick’s Night. Wear some green if you can find it anywhere.”

This was an abrupt intrusion into the trance that I sometimes walk in around here. The arrival of March should have brought St. Patrick’s Day to mind, but it didn’t. As a 4th -generation Irishman raised in the New York City area, March 17 has always been a fairly big day for me, both as a marker of seasonal change and a cultural event. Typically I would feel it many weeks prior -- the upcoming big parade in Manhattan, Kelly green decorations all around, advertised events in restaurants and pubs all over the metropolitan area…..

….and my annual immersion into Irish music. Despite my shaky “Irish” qualifications, I’ve managed to get a St. Pat’s gig in the NYC area almost every year since 1990. As the gig approached, there would be a flurry of activity as I learned a new Irish tune, or re-learned what I forgot from the previous year, or maybe tweaked the Green Wardrobe.

My qualifications are shaky because, well, I’m not really an Irishman or a serious “Irish musician”. The Real Irish musicians of New York have a ton of repertoire, play it all year long, and would scoff at my meager 2-hour Green Songlist. Which is fine, because I would go nuts if I had to specialize in that genre.

These musicians have brogues and direct connections to the Homeland, which I’ve never known. Although my mother could put on a good Irish brogue if asked, it was done by remembering some dear departed uncle who got off the boat in 1910, and off the planet in 1940. My folks were assimilated New Yawkers, and never went too crazy with the tribal Irish thing, thank goodness.

But I’m Irish enough, or maybe “New York” enough, or maybe simply old enough, to expect, enjoy, and be comforted by March 17 and every cheery thing that comes with it, including the first day of spring a few days later. So today I have a distinct feeling of pretty much having missed, not so much the day itself, but the familiar ritual of its approach.

There were certainly no cardboard leprechauns or shamrocks to be found anywhere on the ship. Also, yesterday the ship was in Montevideo, Uruguay, which is not exactly noted for its big St. Patty’s Parade. The ship will not be visiting Montevideo again, so yesterday I went for one last stroll in the downtown shopping area. And, since I left my Green Wardrobe back home, I kept an eye out for something green or “Irish” I might wear on the job. Quite futile. One chat with a local storeowner resulted in him saying “No Senor. Que es Shamrock” ? I tend to remember sentences like that.

But it didn’t matter, as it turned out. No piano bar patron wore green last night, so I would have felt uncomfortable being the only one. There was one request for Irish tunes, so we had a little singalong of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Danny Boy, Irish Lullaby, Molly Malone, and my favorite, MacNamara’s Band. I skipped the crew bar bash later on, but this morning I heard that the only green worn were some lime-green “Antarctica” sweatshirts.

So the Northern spring is a few days away, and I hear I’ve missed a particularly brutal winter up in the NYC area. Well I hope it comes to a sudden end. In the meantime, seasonality has been pretty distorted on this ship the past few months, with Antarctica one week, 90 degrees in Rio the next, constant changes in latitude. This plus the general fact that seasons are reversed down here, for instance March 21 marks the change from the Southern summer to the Southern autumn.

And in one month all of this will get flipped around as the ship heads north toward the Caribbean, then to New York. I’m at the three-quarter point now of this 6-month contract, with the May 1 end date looming large. I’m looking forward to a Northern spring and summer, something far different than that of the past 4 ½ weird months, a warm season full of Mets baseball, barbeques, Oldies on the radio, and red, white and blue colors.

HALcats

Jodie and the HALcats on the back deck, doing 5PM "Sailaway" set in Paraty, Brazil

Every Holland America ship has a 7-piece orchestra called the “HALcats”, the “HAL” part being the regularly-used acronym for Holland America Line.

The instrumentation is the same from one HAL ship to another -- a pianist, an electric keyboardist, a drummer, a percussionist, a bassist, a sax player, and a guitarist. In “the old days” there was always trumpet and trombone, to complete a the horn section, but those instruments were traded off for the extra keyboard and the percussionist, for a more modern sound. The sax man was retained, forever flexible for rock and jazz, and doubling on flute.

What all seven musicians have in common is that they’re good sight readers.
With the various contract lengths, -- usually 3 to 4 months -- any major port could mean the departure of as many as 4 guys, with their replacements on the stage that very night, immediately fitting in with the band via the written charts. In the 4 months I’ve been here, there’s been 5 different lineups, with personnel changes at least once a month.

Sometimes the HALcats are an “orchestra”, sometimes they’re a “band”. When they’re an orchestra, they’re in the Showroom providing backup for guest entertainers. If, say for instance, a particular guest entertainer is doing an 8PM and 10PM show one night, he and the HALcats will rehearse the show once that afternoon, with the entertainer providing charts for every instrument.

When the HALcats are a “band“, they’re deployed to various parts of the ship, playing dance or ambiance music for a variety of special situations. Tropical-sounding music for poolside in balmy weather, Pop-rocks hits for a sailaway on the back deck, Big Band music for a tuxedo dance event. They also break down into smaller units, quintet down to duo, for jazz performances.

Quite a few are from the USA, but they could be from anywhere in the world. Recently a French-Canadian guitarist got off the ship, replaced that evening by a Chilean guitarist. On the same day, a Ukrainian sax guy left, replaced that evening by an American.

Sometimes they know each other from previous contracts, but just as frequently they’re just meeting for the first time. If two or more know each other from previous HAL work, it’s a reunion of guys involved in a special niche of the music business, and they’re comrades.

Although the pianist is frequently the bandleader, anybody can work his way up to the title by demonstrating leadership. A drummer named Gabe, who was a sideman when I met him on the Amsterdam last year, was bandleader when I met him on the Veendam this year. He finished his Veendam contract a few weeks ago, and the bandleader job was given to a newly arrived pianist.

Being “Bandleader” entitles a person to his own cabin, and the remaining six musicians bunk up, two to a cabin. This would certainly motivate me to become a bandleader as quickly as possible.

There is also a job here for a female singer, who serves as frontperson for the HALcats on those dance and ambiance music assignments. The billing will be “Mary and the HALcats” or “Tootsie and the HALcats” or whatever. In my opinion Holland America has been fumbling around, making some awful decisions in their search for singers that are “youthful” enough to rock out, but ladylike enough not to alienate the older folks. On my previous contracts on other ships I saw HALcats singers -- overwrought Whitney Houston wannabes -- that the passengers hated.

But it’s a sweet job for the qualified girl. She gets her own cabin, and is not involved in the HALcats’ work with the guest entertainers, therefore she gets many days off. Recently a lady named Jodie got on the ship, and she’s the best HALcats singer I’ve seen so far.

Generally the HALcats are pretty young -- the current group runs from young 20s to mid-40s. I’ve met two older ones who seemed to be “lifers”, well into their 40s, experienced bandleaders, who been sailing 10 months a year, for many years. With that kind of consistent service comes some kind of health and retirement plan.

By contrast, most of the younger guys are just trying to save some money with some consistent work, in a day and age where there isn’t much consistent work to be had on land. Save some bucks, see the world a bit, accumulate experience, keep the skills sharp, make a plan. If you can live with the drawbacks of claustrophobia and separation from “back home”, it’s a decent deal, short-term or long-term.

I’ve never heard of a HALcats feud. They play together, go ashore together, dine together, drink together in the crew bar, basically (as Steely Dan once put it) “sharing the things they know and love, with those of their kind”. And in most cases, having the time of their lives.

Pianist-bandleader Anthony (San Diego) and singer Jodie (Australia)

Armando from Chile on guitar

Jennings from Wisconsin on bass


Graham from England on drums

Chris from Denver on percussion

"K V" from Detroit on keyboards

Eric from Georgia on sax and flute

On all HAL ships, HALcats repertoire is standardized with an official HALcats book of rock and pop hits. The singer is expected to fit right in, knowing the lead vocal to the tunes in the book, in the designated key.

"Nothin' you can say can tear me away from My Guy...."

Without a Microphone

I’m not allowed to let anyone use a microphone in the piano bar. A mic is provided for me and that’s it. Any guest singer must do without both amplification and the electronic effects (reverb, for instance) which enhance the voice.

Despite these less-than-perfect circumstances, there has been a remarkable amount of effective guest-singing in the piano bar for the past four months. It’s actually been a revelation to me that an unamplified voice, with soft piano accompaniment, can command the attention of an entire roomful of people and draw a big applause.

To be sure, timing is important. Sometimes the crowd will contain noisy people who refuse to participate in the listening. This is their right, strictly speaking, I can’t tell them to shut up. What I can do is wait for a good moment and hope the singer will carry the day.

If the singer is sitting right at the piano, he’ll immediately create a hushed audience there. Then (usually) it expands as people nearby quickly put their chatting on hold to check out this “ordinary Joe” trying to perform over at the piano.

Soft piano, none of the bombast of Karaoke. The performer not so much performs “out to” the listeners, but more likely looking inward, maybe casually holding his drink, maybe an occasional loving glance at his wife sitting next to him. It is very personal, and raw quality of the voice is both endearing and fascinating, regardless of quality. Encores are rare -- most listeners’ curiosity is satisfied after the first song, and only an obviously wonderful singer should try a second song. Or, to extend an old adage, Quit While You’re Ahead, Wait Till Later On to Sing Again, Maybe Wait Till Tomorrow Night.

I wish I’d thought of it earlier, but I’m now remembering to take photos of people who have sung here, helped create magic moments, helped my nights out tremendously. Herewith is a little gallery.

Teresa was perhaps the showiest. An old pro, she wandered from table to table, winking at people and rubbing guys heads, while singing Cabaret, including the middle "Elsie" verse. While her husband beamed.


I think his name was Stan. Very soft voice, but an absolute encyclopedia and stickler for the intro verses to the Tin Pan Alley tunes of Gershwin, Berlin, etc.

The guy holding the camera is John from Alberta Canada, who I mentioned in the "Bum Darts" blog entry, with his renditions of Guess Who songs

Karen and John from England. He plays trumpet, can't sing. She plays trombone, sings just fine. "On My Own" from Le Miz, "You're the One that I Want" from Grease (with me being John Travolta), and "Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square"

The big guy on the left is Doug, a longtime pianobar fan with an index card in his wallet with about 40 Sinatra-esque tunes listed. The guy on the right is Brian, who did "Chances Are" and "When Sonny Gets Blue"

Guinda from Orlando Fla had a big booming soprano Broadway voice and knocked 'em dead with "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Memory" from Cats.

The huge guy in the checkered shirt is Frank from Holland, with a huge booming voice, who did "Country Roads", "Top of the World", and "Leaving on a Jet Plane"

Bob did "Some Enchanted Evening" and "My Way"

The guy on the right is Philippe from Montreal, a country fan who livened things up with "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and "City of New Orleans"

Bugs and Bum Darts

It was about 6PM somewhere on a nice stretch of ocean off the coast of Argentina, the weather was perfect for an exercise walk on the “walkaround deck”, with a nice sunset about to happen, and as usual, everybody inside the ship dining at this quiet evening time.

Not so fast, Steve. No sooner did I get started, in gym shorts and T-shirt, on the first lap, when I ran into a blockade of people toward the back end of the ship.

There happens to be a few cabins with both front and back doors, with the back doors opening to this walkaround deck. This never hampered my walk before, but now all of a sudden there was a dozen middle-aged people lounging around in front of these special cabins, drinking wine, talking and laughing loudly, seemingly enjoying the beautiful weather, the ocean scenery and a liquid dinner.

What’s more -- I KNEW these people. Some of them anyway. They were a bunch of goofy Canadians who had participated in the piano bar antics this past week. One of them - named John, leading the charge in the goofiness, was a big fan of the Guess Who, a Canadian rock band of the 60s, and had made some passionate performances of their hit tunes down in the piano bar. It was John who immediately recognized and stopped me. Within seconds I was holding a glass of white wine and the exercise walk was forgotten.

These folks were from the province of Alberta, and it so happens that I toured this province extensively in the late 70s with a small rock-lounge group, and I could name 20 small towns there without hesitation. Shortly into the second glass of wine, utilizing the old Johnny Cash tune “I’ve Been Everywhere”, I attempted a rapid-fire rap of these town names that only an Albertan would know.

The wine flowed, as did my anecdotes of the Canadian road, discussion of snow and Northern Lights and hockey, punctuated by further ragged renditions of Guess Who tunes, a comfy breeze, a beautiful sunset, and to top it off….

…..Bum Darts. Although “bum” is a common word used by Brits and Canadians to describe the “derriere”, this game is rather mis-named, not actually involving one’s bum, nor darts.

The idea is to wedge a coin (in this case a Canadian dollar coin called a Loony) between your upper thighs, holding it there, then “waddling” about ten feet toward a bowl on the ground. Upon reaching the bowl, you open your thighs, release the coin, and it clanks into the bowl. Viewed from the front, it looks like the coin is being dropped from the upper thighs, or maybe from elsewhere in the general area. Good for a laugh each time.

OK, actually it was not a bowl. It was one of those shiny chrome-colored covers for the room-service dinners. It made a terrific clanking noise, and had a little “wall” surrounding it which kept the coin from bouncing away. Perhaps there’s a scoring system and a science to this charming game, but we never reached that point. One by one, each of these dozen middle-aged Canucks took his or her turn dropping the Loony. A pair of fat thighs is a help to holding the coin in place, so Pianoman Steve turned out to have a natural Bum Darts talent.

The Wine & Bum Darts party was later followed by a pretty crazy night in the piano bar. I woke up the next morning not exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The following night I drank not at all, because the alarm clock was scheduled to ring at 7AM the morning after. This is because I had paid into and was committed to a 12-hour excursion to Iguazu Falls in the interior of Argentina.

This Natural Wonder of the World had been described by the Port Lecturer as “Niagara Falls on Steroids”. A four-hour pilgrimage of bus - then airplane - then train was required to reach this place, an all-day affair that would put me back on the ship at 8PM, in time for the night’s work.

However, on “Iguazu Falls” day, only ten minutes after the alarm clock rang, I looked out and noticed that the ship was not docked in Buenos Aires, as it should have been at this time. Instead it was anchored way out in the open water, surrounded by anchored container ships and a couple of tugboats.

Then the announcement came. Over the PA system was the familiar British voice of the Captain, with an exceptionally long message. The ship had been “detained” by Argentine authorities because of unacceptable engine problems.

Throughout this South American itinerary there have been specialized local navigators, called “pilots”, who board the ship, go up to the bridge and tell the Captain where to steer. These pilots were used extensively in Antarctica, the Chilean fiords, and other tricky waters where - by law - a local expert is needed.

An Argentine pilot took charge when the Veendam entered Rio de Plata, the fairly shallow inlet that goes to Buenos Aires. This guy found something wrong, radioed the Argentine Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard ordered the ship to stop, and sent for an engine expert to board the ship and perform tests. This went on for four hours before the ship was finally cleared to enter the harbor. By that time my excursion to Iguazu Falls was squashed. The excursion did eventually start, but much too late for me to ever get back in the evening in time for work at 9PM.

They refunded my money pretty quickly, around 8AM, shortly after this whole mess started, and I went dejectedly to the outside deck to curse the Coast Guard ships and tugboats that were ruining my day.

And now the day was further ruined by the biggest mosquitoes I’ve ever seen in my life. I could almost photograph these things with my little point-and-shoot camera, they were so big. And they bit. In only two minutes out on that deck I got about 20 mosquito bites. This was the same deck where only 36 hours before I’d played Bum Darts in perfect comfort. But now anybody who stepped outside for more than a few seconds got eaten alive.

The 4-hour delay threw the entire Buenos Aires excursion schedule into chaos, with the Shore Excursion Staff (“Shorex” employees as they say here) having an extraordinarily long and difficult day re-scheduling, cancelling, refunding, and dealing with cranky mosquito-bitten passengers.

Some conspiracy theorists spoke of recent political strife between Argentina and Britain, and the many British officers on this ship, suggesting the whole Coast Guard thing was just Argentina being nasty and / or paranoid. In any case it was highly disruptive and humiliating for Holland America, with loss of revenue, and one would hope there was a decent reason for it.

It was fairly quiet that night in the piano bar, which only further annoyed me that I’d missed the Iguazu Falls trip. This was an overnight Buenos Aires stay, so huge amounts of people were off the ship in the evening doing the town.

More bewilderment the next day, as the ship left Buenos Aires three hours early, disrupting even more excursions. Then came another long announcement from the Captain, this one bordering on the inane…first of all, we had to rush out of Buenos Aires prematurely, full speed ahead for Rio, because the immigration officials in Rio were going to be slow and difficult with their process of letting the disembarking passengers get off the ship.

Secondly, in a statement of exceptional candor - the Captain said the previous morning’s engine fiasco had to do with an engine that was DEAD. Well guess what -- there’s only TWO engines to start with -- both gigantic, each with a big fat propeller, attached underneath the back end of the ship, underwater, one on the left, one on the right.

And so the Argentine Coast Guard -- understandably I think -- was scared that the remaining engine would also quit, leaving a big dead 1800-person cruise ship in Buenos Aires harbor. The Captain had planned to keep on the general South American itinerary, using one engine instead of two. And he had approval from the Seattle head office for this. That’s what he said in this announcement. Sounds nuts to me, but what do I know.

Happily, as the Captain now announced, the “good” engine had passed the tests, and even more happily, the Dead Engine came back to life later on, thanks to the troubleshooting efforts of the Chief Engineer and the Chief Electrician, who found the problem to be a simple matter of “loose bolts”. Huh?

Does all this sound fishy? Is this Captain OK? Who knows what the truth is, but the last night in the piano bar, before the Rio disembark, was glorious, with everybody forgetting the abovementioned insanity, and indulging in some standard piano bar insanity. The Canadians were there in full force for one more round of Guess Who, and the debut of Piano Bar Bum Darts. They used a waiter’s tray for the Loony drop, and I was able to get a photo.

Bum Darts can be played indoors, outdoors, anywhere on the ship, using any foreign coin, and it’s a guaranteed laugh. A new cruise ship craze? Why not? Get it started with the lunatics in the crew bar, then gradually introduce it to the passengers, perhaps in conjunction with Karaoke or Shuffleboard or some other tired thing. Maybe Bum Darts Bingo.

And who knows, maybe the game could catch on with the officers. With all this tension between the Captain and these foreign pilots, especially in Argentina, maybe some waddling and clanking up on the bridge would be therapeutic.