Today, our outstanding crew here on Campobello has handled about a 100 passengers from a visiting cruise ship. Yes, we have had cruise ships visiting here before, but none of them having more than 60 passengers. The Pearl Mist of the Pearl Seas Adventures has a capacity of 210 passengers. We sure got a little taste of half of that number.
We had been up early this morning and Bea had used marinetraffic.com to find out where exactly the Pearl Mist would be at the time. Well, she was already on the east side of Campobello so we jumped in the van and drove out to Head Harbour Lightstation. After waiting for about 5 minutes she appeared around the eastern point and took course towards us. The weather was still grey and it was really cold. Her first stop would be the "Eastern-most City of the U.S. - Eastport, ME. From there she would come across the bay to Welshpool at 1:30pm.
The ship is about 380ft long and doesn't fit into our harbour, so had to stay at anchor, tendering their guests in, 40 at a time.
It was low tide and the walk up the gangway steep.
All of them wanted to visit the Roosevelt Park. It's only about 3 minutes to drive from the harbour, but it took 4 buses to get them there. 
As the responsible person for transportation I got a full plate today organizing the steady flow of buses, making sure nobody had to wait too long for the next bus to arrive. Weather had turned out clear and sunny, even though it could have been a lot warmer. The Nor-Easter was bitter cold and nobody was hanging around outside any longer than necessary.
When the last passengers left in the tender we were all shaking hands. A crew of security volunteers had guarded the wharf, others had been way guides and yet others had set up the hall so welcoming that people found it hard to leave again.
Tonight we go to bed happy and content.
Great job Peter an impressive community effort. Hopefully the start of many island visitors this year.
ReplyDelete