The Captain's Quest. Hans Mateboer
The Captain’s Quest
by
Captain Hans Mateboer
© 2013 Hans Mateboer
All rights reserved
6514 Wakehurst Road
Charlotte, NC 28226
Published in eBook format by Captains Publishing
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9759-4873-6
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the permission of the publisher.
Introduction
Years ago, when I had just been named captain of a new ship, the publisher of Cruise Industry News interviewed me for his magazine. He mentioned that he was looking for someone to write short stories, then I countered that I came from a long line of writers. I jokingly said that this person could be me, and I was sure he was also joking when he told me this was a great idea.
But I decided to try. I quickly found out that writing serious insider stories wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Ship computers are much better suited for navigation than word processing, so I wasted many sheets of paper trying to write about things that interested me very little and would interest a reader even less! Then something amusing happened on the bridge one day, and the story became funnier the more it was told. That’s when I decided to write a few pieces about everyday ship life instead. I had no idea if the stories were pearls of wisdom or pearls cast before swine and very nearly threw them away. But I had opened my big mouth and made a promise to write a few stories, so I decided to send them in after all.
Imagine my surprise when a month later I received a magazine that featured one of my stories on the last two pages. Now, more than fifteen years and many tales later, my stories still appear on the last two pages of Cruise Industry News. The have also filled two paperback books called The Captain’s Log and The Captain’s Journal.
As the book market continues to change, Captain’s Publishing tries to change with it. The two paperbacks are now available as eBooks, and The Captain’s Quest you’re viewing recently entered the market as a 99-cent sampler, with six new stories and one each from The Captain’s Log and The Captain’s Journal.
I’d like to thank Oivind Mathisen of Cruise Industry News, Ron Pramschufer of booksjustbooks.com, Jonathan Ayoob of Solitary Solutions, Inc., Dana Cole at selfpublishing.com and Captain’s Publishing editor Anne Hardin for their help and support.
We all hope you enjoy The Captain’s Quest!
1. The Captain’s Table
When creating stories about life onboard cruise ships, it never takes much effort to find topics to write about. Strange things do happen all the time, and I only need to sit down for a few minutes with a guest relations manager or a dining room steward before I return to my office with a big smile on my face and a story in my head. Lots of things happen that don’t always directly involve me. That’s when I know it’s best not to accept the stories I hear at face value or to start writing them up immediately. It’s human nature for every person who passes it on to add a bit of personal fantasy, often to such extent that it’s unrecognizable to the original teller. However, I never have to embellish my stories because often enough what I see and hear is so fantastic that I am almost obliged, for believability’s sake, to understate rather than overstate the tale.
When people are removed from their usual environment, they often display the oddest behavior and ask the strangest questions. This probably is true for any industry, but must be even more so in the middle of the ocean where even the most basic things suddenly become unfamiliar. First-time cruisers can’t help but act like “fish out of water.” Questions like “Does this elevator go up or down,” or “Does the crew sleep onboard” are all too often used by cruise directors doing their end-of-the-cruise talk. This frequently results in quite a few red faces in the audience, knowing it was they who asked them. One actually has to be a bit careful when answering such questions. This applies to me, too, when being asked for the tenth time “Who is steering the ship when you are down here having dinner?” A few times I’ve made up something silly, only to discover going by the disappointed face in front of me, that the question was serious. But I must say, sometimes it’s really difficult to keep a straight face.
Then there are the old salts who have cruised so many times that by now they know it all. These passengers are not without their specific challenges either. While it’s impossible to recognize a guest as a frequent cruiser just by looking at them, we do invite our frequent travelers to special parties or dinners, and they often end up at my table. In most cases, having dinner with our guests is a delightful experience. At the end of the meal, I sometimes catch myself wondering how in the world we managed to have conversations about such strange and interesting subjects.
Of course, this is not complete chance. Before choosing someone for my table, the dining room manager checks out prospective invitees. The number of cruises a guest has taken doesn’t matter to me, and my manager knows that the only decisive factor is if the guests can carry on a good conversation with each other and have a life story to tell. There is nothing worse than having eight pairs of eyes looking at you, waiting for your feeble attempts to get some small talk going and they answer every remark with a shy “Yes” or “No.”
The dining room manager isn’t always successful in his endeavors to make the right selection. Take this particular dinner.
“You must be Norwegian,” the lady sitting next to me stated.
“Uhh, actually I’m...”
“My third husband was Norwegian. Best sailors in the world!”
“Well, I was born in…”
“I wouldn’t feel safe on any ship if the captain weren’t Norwegian.” She smiled at me. “I’m so pleased having you as a captain.”
I then decided it might be prudent to assume the Norwegian nationality, at least for the course of the dinner. After all, a pleased passenger is what we like to see. She then uttered a few unintelligible words and smiled again.
“I’m sure you understood what I was saying. My third husband taught me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I missed part of it. What does it mean?”
“It means that it’s snowing in the mountains.”
“It is?” My eyes widened. First, I couldn’t see the relevance of snow in the mountains while we were sailing in the hot Caribbean, and second, whatever she had said certainly wasn’t Norwegian.
She looked at me, clearly expecting me to say something clever in response. “I apologize. Maybe it’s difficult to understand. It’s the accent from Jutland, you know.”
I decided it would serve no purpose to bring up the fact that Jutland was in Denmark or that the words she had spoken weren’t Danish either, so it was high time to give some attention the couple on my left. The woman was a walking Tiffany’s based on the near-blinding sparkles coming from the jewelry she wore. Yes, jewelry I can appraise quite well, coming from repeated experiences with jewelers inviting my wife and me to have a close look at all kinds of diamonds they hope to peddle. Countless are the times that I’ve stared through those little magnifiers conveniently supplied by the storekeeper to assure me they’re not exaggerating.
It was a bit of a letdown to hear that the woman had nothing complimentary to report about the cruise. The food was horrible, of course, but I must have known that because I had ordered the same thing she had. With a sneer she disgustedly pushed her empty plate away. Worse than the food was the fact that