RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chop­py seas caused by the out­er bands of Trop­i­cal Storm Ernesto pre­vent­ed two of T&T’s Wa­ter Taxis from dock­ing at the Port-of-Spain ter­mi­nal yes­ter­day morn­ing, be­fore forc­ing the can­cel­la­tion of an­oth­er sail­ing.

Dur­ing the voy­ages be­tween 6 am and 6.30 am, some pas­sen­gers fell ill and had to be giv­en vom­it bags. The fer­ries—Paria Bul­let and Tri­ni Flash—re­mained at sea for more than an hour be­fore re­turn­ing to safer wa­ters at the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter Taxi ter­mi­nal.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia as they ar­rived at Kings Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, sev­er­al pas­sen­gers said the ex­pe­ri­ence was un­pleas­ant.

“We stayed on the boat for one hour and ten min­utes. Peo­ple were calm be­cause they kept up­dat­ing us about the sit­u­a­tion. They said we had to bob around un­til the wa­ters were safe enough to dock. Then they told us we could not dock as it was un­safe, so we head­ed back to San Fer­nan­do,” Aleya Gra­ham said.

An­oth­er pas­sen­ger, Naris­sa Gre­go­ry, added, “I start­ed feel­ing sick, nau­seous. It was an ex­pe­ri­ence—the first time I ever ex­pe­ri­enced this,” she said.

Natasha Kerr, who was on board the Paria Bul­let, said the weath­er was ex­cel­lent when they left San Fer­nan­do at 6.30 am.

“Mid­way through the voy­age, the wa­ter start­ed to get re­al­ly bad. It got worse when we reached Port-of-Spain. The wa­ter was low, and we could see the boat couldn’t dock, so the safest thing was to re­turn to San Fer­nan­do,” she said. She added that she was well-equipped with med­i­cine, so the ex­pe­ri­ence was not too un­pleas­ant for her.

An­oth­er pas­sen­ger, Mikela Alexan­der, ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the wis­dom of the fer­ry cap­tains.

“I am frus­trat­ed and tired, ex­haust­ed, but I am grate­ful for the cap­tains. I am grate­ful we made it back to the south,” she said. Alexan­der said she prayed fer­vent­ly for the fer­ries not to over­turn at sea.

Alexan­dria Ghany of San Fer­nan­do al­so ex­pressed grat­i­tude. 

“I want to com­mend the cap­tain and the crew who pri­ori­tised safe­ty,” she said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, the chair­man of the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co), Her­bert George, said stan­dard pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed to keep the pas­sen­gers com­fort­able.

“The sea state was just too bad, and it was not pos­si­ble to dock the ves­sels in Port-of-Spain,” he said.

He not­ed that dock­ing safe­ty was para­mount. “This is stan­dard pro­ce­dure. The cap­tain is in full con­trol. What the crew and cap­tain did was ex­pect­ed. They had to make the de­ci­sion to go back,” he said.

Asked whether he would have pre­ferred a dif­fer­ent ap­proach, George said, “In the past, be­fore the ves­sel sets sail, they re­ceive a re­port of the sea con­di­tions at the dock­ing point. Some­times, the re­port might in­di­cate that the sea ap­pears rough, but when they set sail and reach the area to dock, the sea is calm. So they re­ceived a re­port that the seas were calm enough to dock, but dur­ing the voy­age, things might have got­ten worse,” he said.

George as­sured pas­sen­gers that safe­ty would al­ways be of para­mount con­cern.

To peo­ple who are hes­i­tant about us­ing the wa­ter taxi, George said, “We take good care of pas­sen­gers, but you could en­counter rough seas some­times. I ac­cept that, but for those pas­sen­gers who choose to sail, they will be tak­en care of and will nev­er be put in a sit­u­a­tion where their lives are in per­il,” he added.