Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1200-horsepower pilot boat chugging astern. A little short of Caine's Head Scally hands
off the conn and boards the pilot boat for the trip back to Seward.
July 10-11, Whittier
Captains Ron Ward and Jim Wright board the
Coral Princess
, a 964-foot cruise ship
with 2,000 passengers, 920 crew members, and Captain Giuseppe Romano, a courtly Itali-
an, in command. Two pilots working shifts are necessary on board cruise ships because
while the ships are within Alaskan coastal waters a pilot must be on the bridge twenty-
four hours a day, although Ward says, “Sometimes cruise ships are so long and pilot cab-
ins so far aft that we say we need three pilots—one on the bridge, one in the bunk, and
one in transit.”
At 2135 that evening Ward appears on the bridge, elegant in a charcoal suit and gold-
patterned tie. On board the cruise ships, suit and tie is de rigeur for
SWAPA
pilots.
There is a delay in departure. A busload of passengers are stuck on the wrong side of
the Whittier tunnel. The ship waits for them. As the bus comes out of the tunnel, the
bridge crew laughs as they see its windows light up with camera flashes. “They're happy
the ship is still here,” Ward says.
Down to business, as Romano and Ward do the master pilot exchange, conferring over
a checklist of the route. Captain Romano does the undocking, using the bow and stern
thrusters, and then says, “The pilot has the conn.” “The pilot has the conn,” the first of-
ficer echoes, and Ward repeats, “The pilot has the conn.”
The next morning Wright consults with Captain Romano on the most desirable course
up College Fjord to the face of Harvard Glacier. “I was going to go up the east side,” he
says, but the way looks clear to go more or less straight up the middle to the dark moraine
in the center of the glacier's face. “This—“ Wright nods at the ice-strewn water ahead
“—this whole thing goes against everything industry stands for. But it's what people pay
to see.”
This morning the ice in front of Harvard Glacier is relatively small and scarce. Wright
calls it “brash.” At 0751, dead slow ahead a third of a mile off the glacier's face, Captain
Wright yields the conn to Captain Romano, who uses the bow and stern thrusters to man-
euver first the starboard side of the ship to the glacier's face, and then the port side. Pas-
