Expecting to see my daughter Tammie somewhere among the cruise ship passengers in the hallway, I stopped walking and slowly turned full circle. All the faces I saw belonged to strangers.

“What did Tammie say when we separated at the restroom door?” I wondered. Unfortunately, I now realized I hadn’t paid very close attention. When I entered the restroom, I’d seen her walking away down the hall.  

As I slowly walked in the direction I’d seen my daughter go, I glanced at groups of people sitting together enjoying drinks, some people sitting next to the large windows watching the ocean, and I even saw one woman busily working on a craft. By this time, I realized I was a long way from where we’d last seen each other so I retraced my steps.

Concerned, but not worried about becoming separated, I shrugged and pulled out my phone and dialed Tammie’s phone number. A message popped up on the screen, stating my phone was out of the network. Then I decided to text her. Surely, that would go through. It didn’t.

Suddenly feeling very alone, despite seeing many fellow passengers everywhere I went, I wondered how to find Tammie. Approaching one of the ship’s workers, I said, “My daughter and I got separated.”

She asked in a heavily accented voice, “Are you Miss Kathy?” I nodded, thinking. “Good, Tammie is looking for me. We should find each other soon.” The worker pointed down the hall and said, “She went towards the food court looking for you.” I turned in that direction and slowly walked the entire ship’s length but didn’t find my daughter.

As I walked back to where I started, I realized that with both of us searching, we could one hundred percent miss finding each other all day long. So, I found a chair where I could sit and watch people walking down the hall, confident I’d soon see Tammie again.

After sitting for what felt like a long time, I wanted to return to our cabin, but felt reluctant to go there. We had lost each other on deck 9, so I felt that was where she would be searching for me. Then I realized that my daughter may have gone to the cabin to wait for me. I was happy that I had my own key card to enter the cabin. Finding an elevator, I took it to deck four. She wasn’t in the cabin. Dropping down onto the settee, I picked up the room phone and dialed guest services.

When I explained that my daughter and I had gotten separated, the woman asked, “Is your daughter’s name, Tammie? If it is, she’s right here in the office!”

Tammie returned to our cabin. We were both frustrated. She didn’t know where I’d gone and feared something bad had happened to me. I was upset that my phone hadn’t worked. When we separated, she’d only gone around a corner to sit next to a window to watch for signs of wildlife on the ocean. When I started to look for her, I hadn’t looked closely at the people sitting next to the windows. This whole episode had lasted for a full hour, which made us miss a wildlife talk we planned to attend.

Not many people can say that they’d spent time lost at sea! But I can. Being on a cruise ship is a rare luxury, so that made getting lost in the Northern Pacific Ocean a cushy experience! Despite that, my daughter and I agreed that the feeling of being disconnected from each other was not fun!