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.