What started off as a little trip to the V&A Waterfront a couple of weeks ago turned into full on debauchery complete with copious amounts of alcohol and a near arrest of the editor and his SLXS party crew. We were going into some old school journalism to find out what exactly Semester at Sea was. Here we give you the true story, a 12 hour drinking binge that has us being found out by Waterfront security and nearly arrested. Just because we wanted to have some fun!

The day started off calmly with myself organising a meeting with my shipmate who was on three month leave, because that’s how the industry works. Massive amounts of time spent at sea away from women and anything normal followed by massive holidays where you get so bored you don’t know what to do.

I had heard a couple of days prior that Semester at Sea was docking in Cape Town and it was going to be a boat packed full of American students. Not a boat as such, but rather an ocean liner of sorts. I was hectically excited as students who are only in town for a week are going to be keen to party. Always game for a bit of a smash up 6 or 7 times a week, it definitely appealed to the party boy inside me.

I met up with the shipmate for our first beer of the day at Quay Four and from there we quietly meandered around the Waterfront, scouting for student looking people. The day seemed to be going nowhere and after a little while we decided to cut our losses and go home to shower and change as the days heat was beating us down. We went home, refuelled, showered, changed and then made our way back to the V&A Waterfront to see what evil shenanigans we could get up to.

Semester at Sea: Daytime, sober.

I was chilling at home, knitting and having a quiet Jack on the rocks when I received the call:

“Bugger we hitting Fat Cactus now, meet us there. Bring your A game”

“See you now”

I knew what had to be done. I knew that tonight, more than any other night, I needed to have a liver on me. I had to bring out the A game like I had never brought it before. I kind of had this idea that American students were brought up on Bud Light and had no chance against us in the drinking stakes. Raised on vodka and whisky, I was in with a fair to middling chance of walking away with the game. And possibly four or five smoking hot American students who I would then make tea for all night.

I arrived at the Waterfront at around 9pm and my drinking partners for the night were still not there. So I casually walked into Fat Cactus where there was just loads of sex available! But not quite the type you want. There were the usual Waterfront hookers, just chilling there. But not in any inconspicuous way. You are chilling there with your mates in jeans and t-shirts, all the normal girls are in jeans and whatever. And then there are the slags of the night. Short PVC skirts, high heels and just chilling at the corner of the bar by themselves. They aren’t shy either to approach you.

I nearly had to whip out my 9 and bust a cap in someones ass. So after being in there for all of two minutes I had scoped out the situation. Keep away from chick in PVC skirt in corner of bar. Keep far away from her to avoid even breathing the same air as her. Prone to airborne diseases. Move closer to American students, who are looking extremely stunning. All hot, all students, all drinking tequila.

I met up with my crew outside Fat Cactus and told them the situation:

“Ok, beware of the ladies of the night. Kick them if you must to keep them away from you. Everyone is drinking tequila. Some weird people around though, especially the guy in his ship uniform thing. He thinks the chicks dig him. They think they need more Mace for him. Stun gun even. We need to find out as much as possible about Semester at Sea. It’s work related so the hangover will be well worth it. Maybe.”

We literally rolled into Fat Cactus and as we walked in, and got our first beer, all the students decided that they would be leaving. We were left with PVC chick and a bunch of sailors. I have NEVER been that disappointed in my entire life. Anyway as the sailor got out of control and literally started spear tackling people, we decided to cut our losses and head for another drinking spot. We were learning nothing new here.

Off to Mitchell’s it was where we were to meet all the students. It was a very strange atmosphere there that night. There were a lot of very drunk and disorderly people there, and they were acting strange. I was just outside the front door, and there were two girls sitting at the table right next to the window.

But there were two middle aged guys inside, just staring at them like stalkers. They were literally just staring at these two girls. Then it got more bizarre as they started tapping on the window to get these girls attention.

I always wonder how on earth middle aged guys think that they actually have a chance with girls in their twenties. Unless they are rich or famous, there is no chance. These guys were overweight, balding, sweating and drunk. Look I won’t ever claim to know exactly what women want, because they constantly confuse me, but I know they don’t want fat drunk guys! I think it’s a case of “Ah we have nothing to lose, we might as well act like stalkers” Maybe if you lost some weight and stopped drinking so much you would attract a different sort of person. Just a thought.

It was about this time that we met three girls, who we won’t name. Maybe because we forgot their names! No we remember them, it’s just that…you know not everyone is keen to be revealed. They came up to me, one girl grabbing my hand and saying “Did you get my drink?”

Right about now I was not quite sure what was going on. I was a little under the weather, but this was bizarre. I then realised what was happening. Clearly this night was stalker night, and I looked behind these three girls to see yet another middle aged fat and drunk man just chilling there staring at these girls, and now staring at me. So I played it:

“Of course babe, where have you been?” I then looked at this old fat guy and said “Hi can I help you?”

He then just kind of stumbled away. Which was lucky for me because he was about ten times bigger than me.

We then started chatting to the girls, apologised that there were so many stalkers out on this particular night and just chatted about what it is exactly that I do. I don’t really tell anyone what I really do. I mean obviously I write…but that’s just one part of the multi faceted equation. I just told them that I run a website and basically play in and amongst the beautiful people of Cape Town all the time.

Everything was going alright when I started enquiring as to how much it costs, what their curfew was etc.

I found out the three month trip costs a cool $20000. Even better was the fact that the students did not have to be back on the ship at any given time. We could literally sit there the entire night drinking whisky and eating roofies, and it would all be cool. So the night went on and on and on, I drank more and more and before long I was speaking in morse code.

The girls decided that they were going to leave at around 2am mainly because all the pubs had closed. I was not really keen to sober up though and people who I party with consider it a sin to end a party before 3am at least. So I said to the girls that we should head back to the floating university AKA the Semester at Sea cruise ship.

They mentioned that security was quite tight around the ship. Which was a given, given that it’s American students. I mean you carry one extra tube of toothpaste and they think it is some mix that can be conveniently chewed, then stuck to the starboard side, and when ocean air has mixed with it for ten minutes it blows the ship up.

Fearing that security would be tight, I never really considered actually getting on board. Because once you are on board and you are caught, you are probably sent to a jail that you don’t want to know about. Anyway it all seemed so easy.

There was a security guard at the entrance to the berth that the ship was docked at. We literally breezed past him without having to say much. I flashed an old student card or something. Then there was another security guard at the stairs leading up to the ship. Once again he seemed to be on standby mode, and while other students stopped to show him their cards, I made direct eye contact with him and just walked on. There is nothing quite like ignorance like this. If anything does happen, just act stupid.

Nighttime: Drunk, speaking in morse code, near arrest

So now we were walking up towards the ship, and I was nearly on board. It all seemed ok. Until we met the Asian security force.

Sweet mother of God.

We arrive and we are made to walk through a metal detector. All three of us go through and we are then asked for identification. Now we are supposed to have identification to identify us as students on the ship.

So this Asian lady with absolutely no personality or sense of humour asks us what we are doing on board. So we say:

“We’re just coming to visit, we know these students(Point to girls) and we are just coming to have a look at the ship”

Bear in mind that this is now around 3am in the morning, I am about twenty drinks down in the day, and we are somehow trying to convince the strictest security guards on the planet that we are just trying to get on board with three girls “to have a look around” Which funny enough was our honest intention. It’s not like we were actually trying anything more, we are really quite respectable. I just thought that it would be the coolest thing to crack ship security and make it on board because it would be a cool story to tell.

So now things are getting a bit hectic as we are forced to show some sort of identification. So myself and L pull out our ID’s and hand it over to the Asian chick, who at this point looks like she wants to take a cleaver and chop my main chap off. It was getting even more weird because the more people get pissed off, the funnier I find it. So while this little lady was going off her rocker, demanding to know why we were on board, I was laughing hysterically. My laughing was cut short when an Asian guy came walking out with my ID book. And a photocopy of it. They were obviously doing background checks on it to see that we were not outlaws.

I am writings current outlaw but that does not show up on criminal records.

The Asian guy comes out, wearing his poker face (Not to be confused with his “Poke her” face. I was wearing my “Poke her” face two nights ago and I got pepper sprayed. Chicks are hectic these days. One wrong word and they kick you and spray you with mace and literally nearly kill you. I literally just said “You have great tits” Hectic) He looked like a proper poker player but I found it odd that he was wearing a ship uniform of sorts.

From what I gathered I think he might have been the captain of the ship. And we had just pissed him off beyond belief. I was tempted to take the joke beyond this, but at this time, for the first time in my life, I was sure I was about to be arrested. I was on the back foot, ready to run like hell out of there. But I wanted to say to him:

“Hey son, why the poker face?”

CAN. YOU. IMAGINE.?! He would have had me deported to some place where I sure as hell don’t want to go. I don’t think he spoke that much english though so I could have always fooled him with my ways of the english language. Or I could have thrown him a curve ball:

“Ergo concordantly vis a vi, wearing out the hedge fund on the bull end of a bear market, we need to cross reference Bear Sterns first quarter results”

He then asked G(Unit) where his ID was. G had forgotten it at home and was now in BEEEEG trouble. Somehow this could have had him arrested on grounds of being a terrorist or something. Wild! Now this guy was treating us with large amounts of suspicion and massive amounts of silence. He repeatedly asked “Purpose for visit?”

To which we would reply “To visit”

His English was horrendous and he never realised that we were just tuning him absolute shite! I was both scared and excited at the same time. I was nervous he would go through my wallet and find my cards, thereby finding out that I’m a writer. Even worse was the fact that I had my camera on me, and it had photos of the ship on it. This could have been construed as me trying to infiltrate the ship and find out secret information about it. I watch too much CSI but security love portraying people in the wrong light, to PUNISH them.

Anyway after sitting there and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, more security arrives. By this stage the students are trying to convince the captain dude that we are good people and are just wanting to have a look at the ship. He is not even looking at them.

Then the security from the stairs of the ship arrives and tries to make out as though he never let us in. So on the back of trying to convince the Asian security forces that we are not here to do harm, we have some security guy trying to get himself out of trouble. He tries to make out that we are suddenly bad people. We pay taxes, we don’t steal, don’t dabble in drugs and crime and yet here we are being portrayed as some sort of trespassers.

With the security forces now fighting it was time to take out the big guns. L has connections within the shipping industry and managed to throw a couple of names around to at least get these guys off our backs. I was sweating bullets. I wasn’t too concerned about arrest on these shores, but in my drunken state I thought they would ship me off somewhere and jail me! Ha ha not like it would ever really happen, but the fear I was feeling can only be desribed as “The Fear” you get when hitting a gravity bong and instead of becoming mellow, you get “The Fear” You freak out. Some people run away.
The Fear that Damian at Casa del Sandenbergh gets from time to time.

L was in negotiations with the Asian and SA security forces, and in the meantime I had slipped off the ship with G(Unit) and was running for my life down into The Waterfront. I had drunk so much though, and our extended stay on the ship, combined with nerves had me seriously needing to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately it was so late that the entire Waterfront was closed. I considered taking a piss just anywhere, but the V&A Waterfront is littered with security cameras and security guards.

I decided that the parking lot would be a good idea. So I just let go…into the gutter right near the parking ticket machine at the parking opposite Mitchells. And by some force of nature, or Miracle of God, a security guard walks out and nearly catches me. I quickly zip up my jean pant and pretend to pay for my parking.

The only difficulty was that I was not driving back and so had no ticket. I basically just said “Ok I’ll be back now” and then disappeared.

And so a night that started off calmly ended in me drunk, pissing in a gutter after nearly being arrested on a floating American University.From what I have learnt, don’t ever try to get on a ship without permission. People in the shipping industry don’t take any trash talk from anyone. Not even the SLXS crew. They will literally rip your head off. It’s exciting doing things like that, but they can end in disaster.

It’s crazy. It’s wild. It’s my life.

On a side note here: It’s been a couple of weeks and there have been no warrants out for my arrest. I have been allowed back into the Waterfront and everything seems to be pretty safe. Great success! Next time Semester at Sea docks in Cape Town, I’m making proper plans to get on board.

Do they know who I am?

For more information on Semester at Sea, please click SEMESTER AT SEA

Sean Lloyd

Editor