The summer months are considered the low season for tourism and the news of a cruise ship arrival is almost cause for celebration - and if not all that, at least, it's a good day's wages. But hundreds of Belizeans who depend on this industry are without those wages tonight.
That's because a Carnival cruise ship which was scheduled to come into port today never did. The ship named Valor Of The Seas and its 3,623 passengers pulled up to English Caye as it should have at 4:00 this morning to wait for a local marine pilot to bring the vessel in. But that pilot never showed up. And if you don't know the importance of a marine pilot, months ago on this newscast we featured those elite navigators who work for the Port Of Belize Limited. In Belize's waters it is mandatory that all ships must have a local pilot to come into the port?
Today all fingers pointed to the Port of Belize whose CEO told us that a decision was made for the safety of their pilots due to strong winds and rough seas:....
Reynaldo Guerrero - Chief Executive Officer, Port of Belize Limited
"Our pilots went out this morning to meet the vessel and because of the rough conditions; he chose to go alongside closer to the Caye side. As they got closer to what we refer to as the Sugarbird he realized that the conditions out there were too rough and as the person in charge of the vessel along with the captain, they called in and say that it's too rough out there and there's a risk of life and property and so they called in and say that they do not recommend that they continue and that they abort the trip. So they called in and we spoke to them, we were back and forth with them and we decided that we would go with their recommendation. Primarily because the captain of the vessel is ultimately the one in charge of the vessel who makes the final decision and we don't necessarily believe that we make decisions while on shore without knowing what the conditions are; those on the spot knows exactly what the conditions are. So as a part of the process we notified Port Authority and we advise them that it would be good to get a waiver so that it can come in without a pilot so that the vessel can come in and then we were subsequently notified that even though Port Authority had given the waiver Carnival decide that they would not come in because their policy is that they would use the "do not come in without a pilot" and as a result they decided to continue on their way rather than coming in."
Tom Greenwood, President - FECTAB
"I think it's the understatement of the year if I ever said it was disastrous. It was extremely disastrous to a couple of thousand operators and this isn't just Belize City that when you start spreading your wings throughout Belize City all the people around the sites; Altun Ha, Cahal Pech, Xunantunich, the cave tubing, the Belize Zoo and various private operations which have been put up by private operators that employ a lot of people, so its affected a couple of thousand people very badly. It just goes to show how when there is one little disturbance in our efforts to put a little money in our pockets how much that can hurt."
Linda Munoz, Manager - Bannister Island
"The cruise ship business is an ad hoc business its 2-3 days a week. We employ people from care takers up to captains, sidemen, waitresses, bar tenders, cooks, cleaners these are your base line service providers. They look forward to a cruise ship day. If we don't have business they don't get pay because they are day workers. In this economic light where school fees a lot of our employees are single moms, they have all these other genuine cost that are coming up. The cancellation of a ship at such a late stage creates a lot of hardships on our employees."
Tom Greenwood
"You have got to stand up say outside the cruise tourism village and look at all the people and look at their faces and their faces will read 'God, I hope I get anything today, anything at all' from our hair braiders who are so magnificent at what they do to the taxi drivers to the tour operators to the tour guides, the shops, the rentals, the handicraft makers line up in the streets, it's a whole melee of different people and it hurts grievously."
Linda Munoz
"Bannister Island is not isolated, I am sure Bakabush tours, Belize Paradise, we have several independent tour operators, Hammer Head, Belize Ec0-Tours, Fab Tours, all these other small operators. Then going down the road you have all the independent providers, the hair braiders, the tattoo artist all the one man guys. So the trickledown effect become large."
Tom Greenwood
"It is a major disappointment and a bad let down."
Reynaldo Guerro
"Look at it this way; if our vessel had gone down and our pilot had been lost, you imagine what would have been the outcry then? So we cannot even consider risking not even one person for the economic gains to be made, not even for the Port. On the other hand, the extreme weather condition that we are facing right now is even not advisable even for the small craft who will be servicing that vessel when it's in port. So whether of not the vessel had come in, maybe the larger vessels would have been able to do some tendering but a lot of the smaller vessels wouldn't have been able to do what they normally would do. I believe it's an act of God, it's a nature issue and ultimately people will try to put the blame where it belongs but the Port has to make the necessary decisions and as far as I remember this is one of the first times that we have made a decision to abort because of inclement weather."
Another Carnival ship, the Legend Of The Seas is set to arrive tomorrow - and operators are hoping that it does. The Carnival agent, Eurocaribe had no comment today.
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