PORT-OF-PAIN

The passengers arrived with tickets in hand for a 6.30 am sailing, but were told to sit and wait.

Hours and hours later, with no vessel in sight, frustration gave way to anger as some passengers loudly demanded to know what was really going on. Newsday was told there was a 6.30 am sailing of the TT Spirit from Tobago to Trinidad.

The TT Express did not operate yesterday because it was completing a ‘survey’.

The non-sailing from Trinidad resulted in many people abandoning all hope of a trip to Tobago yesterday and hiring maxis to take them back to their respective homes. Some said they left as far as Toco and Chaguanas to reach Port-of-Spain, only to waste an entire day waiting for the TT Express, which never arrived.

Many said yesterday’s experience was courtesy the authorities giving scant courtesy to paying customers, as they would have known in advance the TT Express would be off the route and should have made contingency plans such as an alternative ferry to service the sea bridge or, at the very least, inform them via all media formats that the vessel would not be in operation, so they would not waste their time and energy.

The Port Authority and Inter- Island Transportation Co. Ltd (TTIT) said in respective statements, that both vessels would be operating as normal from today.

Additionally, the water taxi would operate to/from Tobago over the extended Easter weekend.

An official of TT Inter-Island Transportation Co Ltd said it had announced, via sms and radio ads, that there would only be two sailings yesterday — one at 6.30 am leaving Scarborough and the other at 4 pm, leaving Port-of-Spain. The announcement was not carried in the print media, the official admitted.

It was clear by the hundreds gathered, the advisory was not heard by many.

Members of a family, who asked not to be identified, said they were heading to Tobago for vacation and were at the terminal since 4 am.

“We hungry, tired and frustrated,” said a member of the family of eight.

Stranded passenger Crystal Furlonge of Woodbrook, knocked the poor service of terminal officials saying an announcement should have been made at specific intervals that the TT Express was off the route for the day and there would be one trip at 4 pm, so as to allow passengers to make arrangements to get back home rather than sit in ignorance and wait all day hoping for the arrival of the TT Express.

“The transportation system between the two islands needs to be more fluid…there should have been an alternative, cheaper charter,” Furlonge said.

Meanwhile, chairperson of the Inter-Island Committee Diana Hadad was an angry woman yesterday at the way commuters who depend on the Tobago ferry were treated.

Hadad said she was not the one to ask how the people and their businesses were affected as they were unable to get their goods across to the sister isle.

“You have to ask the people how they are suffering, how it is affecting them. They have trucks backed up all the way from Wrightson Road, but cannot get on the other boat because that boat is full. I think you all need to go down to the Port, see what is happening and what is going on with those people.

The media needs to go out there and get cracking. This is serious business.

“They are human beings out there who are being treated like cattle. You have enough trucks there to fill another boat and there is no boat, and it happened yesterday, too. You need to ask them how they feel. Where is the boat they sold you a ticket for? Where is the minister who said technically, to hell with you, you getting a barge anyway? We need to reach the people,” Hadad said.