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About 1,500 cruise passengers were stranded 25km off Sydney last night after storms forced the closure of city ports.
The passengers on P&O's Pacific Sky had hoped to end their cruise at 7am yesterday, but winds gusting up to 100km/h delayed their progress towards Sydney. Port authorities declared conditions too dangerous to allow a pilot to board the vessel yesterday afternoon.
The 46,000-tonne ship, which has been operating out of Sydney since November, was returning from Noumea after a 10-day South Pacific cruise.
In addition to Pacific Sky, which was 26km south of Sydney, two container ships and a tanker were 13km off Port Botany last night waiting to dock.
"We experienced 35 knot [65km/h] winds and swells of up to 10 metres," the spokeswoman said. "It's just too dangerous to bring vessels in." She said conditions would be reviewed this morning.
The Bureau of Meteorology expects gale-force winds to continue to whip Sydney today, easing in the afternoon
A typical 10-day cruise on the Pacific Sky takes in a couple of nights in Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia - rarely does it detour for a jaunt around Ulladulla, Port Kembla and Wollongong.
But 10-metre swells at the weekend prevented P&O Cruises' largest and newest ship from berthing on Saturday night, and it was to the south coast the 1,500 passengers were taken for an unscheduled extra night on board.
It was not until 4.30pm yesterday that a Sydney Ports pilot was able to board the 46,000-tonne ship to guide it home, and 5.30pm before tugs nudged the boat into its Darling Harbour berth.
Passengers did not begin to disembark until after 6pm, almost 36 hours after they were due.
The ship ran into a storm as it headed down the NSW coast on Friday, the last night of its tour, encountering waves that crashed over its bow.
"The ship actually comes from Alaska, and they were the worst seas it has ever encountered," a P&O spokesman said.
He said although people were treated for bruising and strains, there were no serious injuries.
There was, however, seasickness. "It was excellent until everybody started chucking," said Mr Jeff Brennan, a Perth man who was on holiday with his mother, sister and grandmother.
He said staff were quick to distribute little white bags - lining corridors with them, hanging them on handrails, leaving piles of them on tables - and equally as quick to dispose of them.
In fact, all the passengers the Herald spoke to were full of praise for P&O's staff.
"We were well looked after, fed and entertained," said Mr Peter Hibberd, from Erina on theCentral Coast.
"They were bloody terrific, and they were affected [by sea-sickness] too," added a fellow traveller, Mr Terry Hummelstad.
But the delay was a logistical nightmare for P&O, which not only had to arrange transport for inbound passengers, but accommodation for delayed outgoing passengers, who bravely strode up the gangplank for their days in the sun at midnight last night, just four hours after the last woozy passengers disembarked
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