Sea life: cruising after COVID

"I never want to see that ship ruby princess ever again," shrieked the Premier of NSW almost 3 years ago.

What on earth was she thinking? That an inanimate object could bring her career down any more than a toaster could've done earlier that day if her toast was burnt?

Nothing to do with the people in charge, the operators, nothing to see here and be assured, the senior bureaucrats are skilled doctors in virology, media and spin.

Little did Premier Gladys nor Dictator Dan know or realise that passenger ships were the ideal centres for quarantine as they had been for over 200 years, and instead of making them anchor in the already allocated quarantine anchorages around most ports in the nation, they and other inexperienced Premiers shooed them away and nominated their quarantine centres in their CBD Hotels. How dumb!

This demonizing of cruise ships of course brought a screeching halt to my addictive habit of cruising under the guise of working, at least 3 times a year.

So, a couple of weeks ago I made a last-minute booking for a ship going from Sydney to Melbourne then round New Zealand. This was a dangerous undertaking for Queenslanders as we knew that Melbourne was now firmly the epicentre of green madness and New Zealand was spiraling down the socialist path with a burgeoning bureaucracy and the accompanying national poverty. We know this because hundreds of thousands of escapees arriving from Victoria and NZ have been blocking up our Queensland roadways in the last few months

But was I prepared for the post Covid upgrades of border security, biosecurity and the created armies of bureaucrats by socialist leaders? The first security encounter was amusing to me in that a retired Swedish couple in front of us had their luggage checked and where security pulled out 3 objects obviously beeping the scanner. Two were miniature metal replica souvenirs of the KL Tower and the Sydney Tower, and the 3^rd item was a miniature steamer to unwrinkled clothes. The first 2 could have been used for stabbing had the couple been young and athletic, but contrary to logic they confiscated the clothes steamer. Perhaps they thought the ship's laundry would be under commercial threat?

To get the ship out of White Bay my ship pilotage friends said "We just stick her inta astern, spin her around into Darling Harbour and head out under the Harbour bridge, hoping that the sea levels haven't risen since this morning or else we may hit it." I knew the 54 metre bridge clearance was safe.

Wearing a CPAC cap and carrying a copy of the Spectator around all the public areas of the ship for the 2 days down to Melbourne confirmed my discovery that most of the 2,000 passengers had flown in from the US, and thankfully no sign of local left-wing loonies, greens or teals.

The Melbourne visit broke the splendid news that Jacinda Ardern (or as my pals from the marine industry call her "Just in'ta Astern" the same as she has done to New Zealand) had resigned ! This resignation was surely her reaction to my impending visit and my notified land claim for all of the South Island to be given back to Scotland.

Yes, you may scorn, but it was only the Scots that were brave enough to face the constant rain, cold weather and sheep with unfortunate looks, to develop the place. It was in 1848 that the first large contingent of Scots arrived and created the town they named Dunedin (Gaelic term for Edinburgh) and developed the community, built the hospitals, schools and churches. Looking at the old photographs at the museum there was not much there before that.

Of course, I hadn't realized the depths of despair that New Zealand had plummeted into and the minute the ship arrived in Dunedin's Port Chalmers she was boarded with brigades of uniformed bureaucrats from different agencies making sure that us "temporary invaders" would toe the line.

Immediately the long biosecurity announcements including all screens on board, started warning of taking food off the ship or wearing muddy shoes from farms "as other countries have had foot and mouth". This long message was repeated every 30 minutes and after 2 hours I approached the reception pleading that was enough for reasonable coherent and educated people to bear. But that was the NZ government instruction and they had to follow rules. After several ports it was a scramble for passengers to get off or listen to the Groundhog day message and by now we had all been on a farm - New Zealand - for the last few days.

Clearly the army within biosecurity had to be kept busy. In the previous few weeks four cruise ships of impeccable credentials have been found in breach of biofoul standards, due to algae and barnacles on their hulls, and had to cancel schedules, upsetting some 15,000 tourists. Having owned boats and commercial vessels for the last 5 decades, I can assure readers that you can find algae and barnacles within 3 weeks of coming out of a drydock or slipping, given the right water conditions. Such growth starts immediately the vessel is immersed and if New Zealand bureaucrats are serious, they should check every ship or boat arrival or even their own domestic fleets, but there's no money there.

Keeping bureaucrats busy is one thing but picking on 5 star cruise ships and upsetting inbound tourists and national tourism operators is a new and dangerous game.

Not to be dissuaded from my voyage mission and armed with my land claim entitled "Gies it Back" I ventured ashore at Port Chalmers and caught the bus into Dunedin.

Ardern's Army also instructed all passengers to show not just their electronic cabin keys (which has an embedded foto for ships' scanners) but also to show a separate picture ID. This employed another army of checkers at all the dock gates and interestingly the NZ domestic airlines don't impose such a duplication when transitting flights.

"Put your seat belts on" instructed the bus driver in Wellington, "in case the police board, or it is a $50 fine each of you!"

The beggars in the six ports visited, unnoticed in my last visit before the Arden policies came into effect, were in every street. This, along with the burgeoning army of bureaucrats and new measures of total control even for tourists, is a great sign of socialism at work.

I also hadn't realized that all NZ bureaucracies do not attend their offices on a Monday or a Friday and now have embedded the 4 day weekends in their psyche to offset the recent pay rises that the poor souls had to grapple with. So my Dunedin and Auckland visits were disappointing as no-one was home to accept the land claim for Scotland.

We have agreed that our next cruise will be to the Pacific Islands where the locals actually do welcome visitors.