Family reunion

To commercially operate a zodiac boat in US waters, it needs to have passed an inspection by the US authorities. This is not a type-test for a certain model: Each boat needs to be indivdually inspected and certified. Great for safety, but extra effort for operators.

All of the17 zodiacs our ship carries had passed this inspection before the start of our first Alaska season. At the time, ours was the only ship in the fleet that operated in US waters, but this year, our sister ship was also headed for the Alaskan coast. She was carrying a full set of brand-new zodiacs, exactly the same model as ours, to take her guests out on cruises in the spectacular Alaskan fjords, but her boats had been so recently purchased that they had not yet received their US seal of approval. We, on the other hand, would not be needing to use our US-certified ones for a few more months: We were headed for Canada, Greenland, the Caribbean, the Chilean fjords, and finally, to Antarctica, so there would be no small boat cruising in US waters for a while.

So, the two sisters ships did the obvious: They met up on open waters somewhere along the Northwest Passage. Both ships dropped all their zodiacs in the water – and exchanged them: We got the shiny new ones. They got our tried-and-tested, US-authority-approved ones.

Meeting up in the middle of the ocean was incredibly exciting: all the available crew of each ship came out on deck to greet the colleagues on the other ship, along with many of our guests. The two captains pulled the ships up close to each other, bow to bow, and probably waved at each other from their respective bridges.

All in all, I’d say it was a succesful family reunion.