An Explosive Moment

Our first night after leaving Norfolk brought heavy rain, thunderstorms and a stiff headwind. Since then, conditions have settled, and we’re now drifting towards New York under just a few sails in the lightest of breezes.

One of the highlights of the voyage still lies ahead: sailing straight through the city, past the Statue of Liberty, up the East River alongside Manhattan, past Rikers Island and through Hell Gate into Long Island Sound. We’re all looking forward to it. But first, here’s a rather amusing story from Norfolk.

Before we left, I asked our liaison whether there was somewhere we could dispose of the expired distress flares we still had on board. I thought no more about it until, during our Open Ship event, a very tall police officer stepped onto the quarterdeck.

“Sir, I believe you have an ordnance problem?”

Before I quite realised what was happening, one police vehicle pulled up alongside the ship, then another, and then a third. Within minutes, officers from the Norfolk Police Department, two FBI agents, members of the Norfolk Bomb Squad and the U.S. Coast Guard were all standing by in body armour, ready to deal with our supposed “bomb threat”.

Fortunately, it soon became clear that there had been a misunderstanding somewhere along the line, and everyone was eventually able to laugh about it. Our “explosives” were still examined with a portable X-ray scanner as a precaution, but it turned out they couldn’t accept them after all. So, once all the flashing lights had disappeared, I simply put the distress flares back in their box.

For now, they’ll continue travelling with us to the next port.