OzSail

Aight, this one's in English, because I'd like google to pick it up and other people to read it.

Yesterday I booked a sailing trip with a company called OzSail, located in Airlie Beach. The brochure praised the ship (Pacific Star) as a modern catamaran with comfortable cabins, hot showers, etc. The 3day/3night-cruise would have taken us to the Whitsunday islands, then further to the Great Barrier reef and back. The first scubadive was included, and including additional fees for reef tax, stinger suit and fuel, I paid 400 AUD. Not too bad, I thought, except that the weather seemed to be deteriorating and quite a wind was forecast for the next two days.



I noticed what a cozy 3 days we'd be looking forward to as we boarded the boat, since there were 21 guests and four crewmembers on 60feet of boat. The latter did not have cabins and slept on the floor, while I was assigned a 3-bunk cabin, joining a couple from Vancouver, Canada. The couple was quite nice, but the cabin smelled like poo - from the toilet next door. We were told to just flush it as often as possible and the smell would go away. I asked the skipper about the likelihood of bedbugs waiting for us in the beds; he said the turnover was just too high to be sure there were none but OzSail took "the greatest possible care" to ensure there were none, which meant they'd be fumigating the boat after every trip. As other people raised concerns about their cabins, we were told we could also sleep on the benches in the common room, which smelled of fungus - rainwater was dripping in.



Of course I got seasick as soon as we left the port around 7pm and spent the rest of the night staring at the horizon, until Shane-the-skipper stopped halfway to the Whitsunday islands. I went into my cabin to find out that the poo-smell had vanished (because someone had spent his evening repeatedly flushing the toilet), only to be replaced by a frightening stench of fungus. So I left my rainjacket on and went to sleep in the common room, next to 7 other people.



The next morning, I picked up a conversation between a Danish family of 5 and the crewmembers. The Family was pretty mad for being assigned a cabin in which the water stood 5cm high in the bottom bunks - because it came flowing from the upper bunks, obviously soaking the mattresses. The youngest of their three children was about 8y/o and had threatened to jump overboard if he had to stay in his bed - not because of the water, but because of the intense smell of engine oil and diesel from the generator's broken exhaust.

Thus, the skipper addressed all of us, saying that a whopping 7 people (me not yet included) wanted to go back, which would happen after visiting a beach on the first island.





We went to the first island and took a path to a scenic lookout point, where our guide almost ran into a pretty frightening spider, face-first. Just when we got there, I took my camera to snap a picture of the view. Suddenly, there was a rather intense pain in my right foot, and I thought I had stepped onto something sharp. Having already focused, I took the picture and then noticed that I was bleeding from two small cuts, the area around it slowly swelling. Shit, not just "something" sharp then.





When I told the guide, she became rather frightened and slowly realized she had no idea what to do in case of a spiderbite. Fortunately, it turned out that the Danish family's mom was a nurse. She asked whether I was allergic to Bee-stings, in which case I'd better be finding some anti-histamines. As I was not, she said I should go back on the Pacific Star, just in case something happened. By that time, the area around the bite had become quite red and a little harder.

I was brought back to the boat and chatted to the skipper, who told me about his encounters with Bull-ants and spiders, showing me the scars of each tale on his legs. Half an hour later, he was off to his VHF two-way-radio, so I decided to go back to the beach. Arriving there, the danish family told me about their night in the "cabin" and Catherine vented her anger at the guide, who seemed absolutely clueless when it came to bites. Does she know how to treat marine stinger attacks?

When we all came back to the boat, we were told the reason why the skipper ran off to his radio. There was a storm-warning coming in, 4m-waves and 40knot winds were expected later that same day. Which was surprising, the weather forecast hadn't really changed for 24 hours. Normally, that means we'd be looking for a sheltered spot in a random bay, but as we had to drop off 7 people at the harbor, this meant the end of our trip: with such a forecast, ships are not allowed to leave the harbor.

We went back from noon to 4pm, I spent 4 hours looking at the horizon, hoping not to puke.

And then the fun started. OzSail's "operation manager" Ross came up and gave us printouts stating that the trip was canceled after the first day due to bad weather. This paper would convince our travel insurance to refund the whole money, accommodation for the next night (not the next two) had been arranged at some hostel. Also, instead of the planned meal on board, there would be free food for us tonight at beaches, a local pub.

People started protesting, because
- some (including me) did not have travel insurance
- the boat was not in a condition suitable for travelling (poo, fungus, moisture, ...)
- the boats license for carrying tourists had expired
- the weather forecast had been disastrous even before we left

Especially the Danish family and an English couple on their honeymoon(!) wanted their money refunded from Ross, who said that he was not authorized to do that. It was OzSails policy to not give any refunds. Being asked for his superior, he declined to disclose even her name. Instead, we agreed to meet the next day at 11am at the OzSail HQ.

Later that day, we found out that another ship (either "Spank Me" or "Freight Train", I can't remember) had also returned to its harbor. Contrary to our crew, that ship's crew was so embarrassed by their ship's condition that they had quit their job on arrival. Wow, that really was impressive.

It turned out that accommodation was NOT taken care of - Ross had just phoned a hostel, saying that "a group" would be arriving tonight. They did not have enough beds. I didn't care as I could sleep in my van, but when others successfully pressured Ross to find them another hostel (and pay for it), I joined them. Following that, we went to beaches for dinner only to find out that there was no free food. OzSail, you suck!





Next day, 20 angry people met Ross at OzSail HQ. He took us to a nearby restaurant, probably because he didn't want customers signing up for a trip to witness our complaints. In the restaurant, he first dealt with the danish family and the English couple. He gave them his boss' business card and told them to email their complaints to her, Shannon Platt.

Then, I was left at the table with ~12 other victims. One of them had caught bedbugs in his cabin - his right arm featured a cluster of around 200 badly itching bites - exactly where the arm had touched the pillow. Anyway, Ross started babbling about how we should talk to our travel insurance. They once had refunded money to people who had pretended they had no insurance, and those people then did use their insurance, in effect getting twice the money back. And that, Ross tried to convince us, would then be his company's legal problem.

I told Ross that calling the non-refunding of money a "company policy" would not make it right (he agreed), that I was absolutely NOT ready to pay 400 dollars for 20 hours on a boat that was equipped with cabins not quite as comfortable as prison cells in the middle east and that I *suspected* OzSail would ignore the weather forecast, willing to cancel trips at any time, then ripping of travellers by not refunding any money.

He grew unprofessional and said that if I honestly suspected that, I should get my "head checked", gave me Shannon Platt's business card, told me to call her and see how far I'd get with this. So, I left the table, only to find out that my phone wasn't charged. After it was, I called her - someone answered and said that Shannon was not in the office (weird, as we heard Ross phone her shortly before). No, not tomorrow either, maybe next week. Screw you.

I met the other travellers, who had been offered a refund of AUD 50. That, I thought, was quite an insult, given some had spent up to 479$ for the trip, 39$ reef teax, 15$ for a stinger suit and 6$ for fuel. I had previously come up with a maximum of 100$ that I'd be willing to spent for 20 hours on the "boat".

Fortunately, Andreas-the-Danish had told me before about him being ripped off by a cayaking company at Abel Tasman park. He had called his bank and canceled the credit card transaction. Unwilling to spend my time running after Ross, OzSail's incompetent employees at the counter and Shannon-in-Sydney, I intended to do just that. Unfortunately, it was 4a.m. in Germany.

Only after we got off the boat, I got to know two fellow victims from England. One of her was close to tears as the sailing trip was only one of the many things that went sour on her trip (Fraser Island being evacuated due to the storm was another one). We kept chatting and spent the night at the same hostel, had dinner at my car after there was no food at beaches and shared a washload at the laundry. Then we found out that we all wanted to go north, so we did.



Arriving in Townsville and checking up on the beach we found them a place to stay, then went for a swim. As I grew nervous thinking I might also have caught bedbugs (got a weird bite on the other foot), I found an internet cafe and read up on them on wikipedia. The concept of "Traumatic insemination" is just one of the many things that makes me wish I had never put a foot on that boat.



Finally the time being 9 a.m. in Germany, I called my bank. It took four minutes to cancel the payments. Up yours, OzSail!