More tourists

Another unexpected part 2...but in a different direction this time.

I sat in solace. Beautiful view and although sunny it was cold. The tourists huddled inside, away from the salty spray that was misting into the wind.

Then it happened all over again - the mad rush, as a result of an announcement: "Attention passengers, this is the first officer speaking. A pod of killer whales is surfacing on the port side."

Within seconds my solo view of the water from the port side of the boat was obscured by about 80 tourists, chattering excitedly and pointing to whales, not 50 meters from where I sat.

An old, sun wrinkled man plunked down next to me and pulled out his cell phone. He squinted at the number pad, looked up at the pod of killer whales, then looked back down as if he was making a decision to call somebody or not. Slowly punching in the numbers I heard the dial tone turn to a ringing. That seems loud, I thought to myself.... until I realized he was calling using his speaker phone function.

"Hey sunshine, it's grandpa!" he yelled into the phone.

"Hey grandpa, where are you?" a young sounding girl shouted into the phone, or out of the speaker for all of us to hear.

"I'm on a ferry, in Canada. Isn't that exciting?" he exclaimed, with a slowness which could have been either him, or for his granddaughter.

"Yes..."

"And there are whales up here! Isn't that exciting!"

"Oh, whales!" she shrieked.

Right about now I was hoping a pause in the conversation would come up for me to jump in. Oh, excuse me sir, I'm going to throw your phone to the whales, isn't that exciting for all of us around you?

"Yes, lots of whales. I think it is so exciting, don't you!"

"For sure grandpa!"

"Yes, I'm glad the cell phone works up here. I wasn't sure if it would or not. Now I know I can call you anytime! Isn't that exciting!"

The conversation went back and forth for another 10 minutes, with another 8 or 9 "Isn't that exciting!"

Tourists. Speaker phones. Excitable grandparents. I think they need to split the ferry routes into tourist and non-tourist... now wouldn't that be exciting?