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My positive response was, “Yes, but when do you need me?” to which he
replied, “You start as chief officer tonight, okay.” Fine with me though that was,
I had no uniform with me, but that didn’t matter; a quick call to Judith and she
came over from Vancouver by the next ferry with my uniform. On the ferry with
her, though of course unbeknownst to her, was another applicant, who appeared
before Mr Case two hours after me. That fellow, Malcolm Pearson, had a ticket
virtually identical and contemporaneous with mine; he was forthwith made 2nd
mate. Such are the vagaries of life as it really is.

I should point out that it now appeared that this was evidently not too much
of a ‘venture’; Holland America was cut from the same cloth as P&O, a very
well-established and reputed company, with fine ships and very high standards,
though more attuned to North American trade than was P&O. It also hardly
needs to be said that that company had outsmarted P&O, for they now operated
the premier tour company in Alaska, though there were other companies that
had undertaken this cruise scenario before, but none of which had the scope
of West Tours, which operated tour busses, hotels, exotic destinations and all
manner of frontier excitements.

When West Star arrived in port, I saw an unusual looking ship of 4,437
gross tons, virtually a motor-boat in comparison with my experience of ships. I
introduced myself to the Captain, a cheerful Scotsman named Harry Blackwell.
We had a good talk, his primary issue at that time being whether I had my Masters’,
as he was the only Master that had to this date been located by the Company,
and a deep-sea ticket was required to man the vessel when it was not devoted to
Alaska cruising. I pointed out that I was about three months short of sea-time to
take that ticket but did not point out that I had no intention of staying at sea. He
was delighted to hear that I was available until early September, permanently, as it
were, as I would need no relief for some four months. There were a couple of other
things that really appealed to me; firstly, our (sic) Union had negotiated a day-for-
day leave scheme (which is to say that for every day worked on six-hour watches,
we received one day of paid leave) and, secondly, officers were paid overtime.
In other words, I would be paid for eight months while only having to actually
work for four, and that I would be adequately paid. I then introduced myself to
the mate and the 2nd mate who were to leave the ship that day. These old salts,
Steve and Archie, whose combined ages doubtless exceeded 150 years, had only
coastal tickets, which to that point had sufficed because only at the end of the
summer cruise season would the ship be travelling to the Philippines for other
employment (Holland America wanted to maximise income from their ships, for
in the past anything operating in the North-East Pacific was essentially laid up in
Seattle or Vancouver for the winters). But I use the word ‘only’ coastal tickets with
some deference, for these old guys had operated in some of the world’s trickiest
waters more on acquired knowledge than by adequate equipment. For example,
in navigating the Granville Channel, a narrow unlit passage between two islands

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