It was a miserable tail end to a nearly seven-month Middle East deployment for sailors and Marines on the USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group — as well as for some of their family back home.

A flu outbreak — including at least 69 confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu — on the multi-ship amphibious group interfered with a stop in Guam for some of the ships.

It also led to the cancelation of what's known as a "tiger cruise" for lots of family members who made arrangements to sail with a crew member from Hawai'i back to San Diego.

Bob Jenkins of Rochester, Minn., paid $480 for a ticket on US Airways to fly to Honolulu. He planned to meet up with his son-in-law, Daniel Clark, a gunner's mate, and sail back with him on the USS New Orleans, an amphibious transport dock ship.

The Pacific Daily News reported on July 8 that the amphibious assault ship Boxer, the dock landing ship Comstock and cruiser Lake Champlain, which were set to pull into port in Guam, instead were resupplied offshore as a precautionary measure when flulike symptoms were noted.

About the same time, the Navy started notifying families that the tiger cruise out of Pearl Harbor, scheduled last Friday through Saturday, had been canceled.

Jenkins, who immediately canceled his flight, said his understanding was that there were going to be about 85 "tigers" on the New Orleans.

"There were probably that many on the Lake Champlain and even more on the Comstock, but the Boxer, there were probably a lot more, because that's a bigger ship," he said.

That meant a lot of flight and hotel cancellations. All four ships had sailors in quarantine with flulike symptoms while they were here in Hawai'i. The last of the amphibious group left Friday.

Jenkins said his son-in-law spent some time at the Hale Koa Hotel.

"He was kind of bored — didn't have anything to do; he planned on me being on the shore," Jenkins said.

The Navy sent all the "tigers" a letter explaining what had happened, which they could show to the airlines to try to get a refund.

Jenkins said he hasn't gotten any money back.

"Not yet. I'm waiting," he said. "I gave the airline all my information, and I haven't heard a thing."

Jenkins said he understands the decision to cancel the tiger cruise.

"I was in the Navy. This is just one of those unfortunate things," he said. "I know one of the things they were concerned about was that maybe it would be irresponsible to expose the tigers to the flu."

Jenkins missed a trip with his son-in-law and a visit with his daughter in San Diego, but he heard the Navy may offer a "day sail" in the fall from San Diego to try to make up for the lost tiger cruise.