Sailing across a big
ocean can be an apprehensive prospect. Such cruises are considered
re-positioning, when the ship is moving from one continent to another
for a new season of clustered itineraries. Crossing the Atlantic in a
grand ship like the Queen Mary 2 is one thing. Such luxury
liners carry thousands of passengers; they are like small cities.
Brrrr ... not for me; it would take a week to find your most
pleasing spot and never see the same face twice. On the other end of
the scale are those hardy sailors who cross oceans in something like
a 30' sailboat, working like crazy all the way. Not to mention
lunatics who think a rubber dinghy or a wooden raft would be fun.
To my mind, "small
ships" are the ideal answer. Four of us friends are in synch on
that and on one
cruise we plan the next one: a November repositioning cruise from
Spain to the Caribbean. Such cruises are not exceedingly popular
because of the week or more at sea with no ports to visit. But we
knew and loved this British ship Voyager from previous
sailings. With a 600-passenger capacity, its nooks and crannies and
crew were familiar.
Well, sailing across
a wide, deep ocean makes any ship look like a tinker toy. Trepidation
about notorious November storms was turned into jokes with much
exchange of YouTube horrors. Alan*
prepped us, of course, as the experienced second-timer, by relating
how he was the only man standing on his first crossing. It was so
rough half the crew were sick. "Lots of empty tables in the
dining rooms!" he chortled, wonderful food being a highlight of
any cruise. With antic faces he gleefully imitated people throwing
up. Alan is a very entertaining guy.
*
All names disguised to protect the guilty
In preparation, I
google "pitch, roll, yaw." I pack gravol. I think about the
sinister sound of yaw.
Happily, on
departure day we find ourselves among less than 400 like-minded
fellows. Habit dictates
that you spend the first 24 hours, more or less, greeting people
you've met on past cruises whose names are a blank and you
desperately try to recall when that was so the other person
understands your brain is totally sharper than theirs.
Cabin numbers are
allotted at random; only
if you are up to negotiating with a
humourless front desk can you expect to
be anywhere near your friends.
Also
on the first day,
a ship normally holds
a mandatory lifeboat drill.
Plenty
of warning comes with it,
i.e. bursts of loud hooting and signals to the crew over the tannoy.
Whereupon
we must return to our
cabins from wherever we
are, retrieve
our life jackets,
and duly trek the
corridors and stairs to
pre-designated gathering points on deck. After
all this scrambling
around I am thinking the
ship could be half submerged by now.
Not
my
half,
I hope. The
particular deck
for gathering is
where the lifeboat stations are, although we do not board them. We
assemble
in whatever haphazard
order we arrived and hear
the captain deliver his well-practised
safety lecture.
In
a real emergency we would be directed
in groups
from assembly
point to specific
lifeboat stations.
This news causes
us four to discreetly shuffle and realign to be sitting together.
Thus we
reassure
ourselves that
we live,
die, or drown
with a
friend to hang onto.
We
enjoy a couple of stops in the Canary Islands as a sort of calm
before the― oops, no
negative thoughts.
First
morning at sea we meet
on deck to check
how big the swells are
and what calamity
is
forming. Not only blue
sky, we are
sliding through the ocean like it
was satin sheets. In
fact for eight days we are
forced to endure cloudless skies, bask in the sun, read our books,
and pass the drinks. On the smoothest sail
ever.
Okay, so it's not the north
North Atlantic.
Life jackets and perfect
storm drama are
forgotten.
Alan's nose is quite
out of joint at the peace of it
all, instead feeling
obliged to generate
furious
discussions about Brexit and what it means
for his imported Belgian
beer habit. The always-controversial
National
Health
system
is
another favourite
topic amongst Brits,
requiring
elaborate acting out.
Our
unbridled hilarity does not amuse fellow diners.
When Barbara
and Charlie begin
critically
comparing their denture
work I have
to opt out or upchuck.
On other levels, we
cover such important subjects as calculating how many trots around
the deck constitute a mile, or whether those Irish yahoos from
Manchester can consider themselves genuinely Celtic. The mystery of
Gaelic is touched upon. Competition in quiz contests is fierce.
Internet via satellite being blessedly
inconsistent or absent,
it's like the
19th century again.
Sunset is as close
as I can get to showing what are possibly the best parts of any
voyage ―
the clear nights when every star in the galaxy beckons. I did
take countless amateur photos, the kind that merely turn out black.
It was so good we
did it again.
Southampton to the
Caribbean via Madeira. To our great sorrow the good ship Voyager
had disappeared in a cloud of fuzzled corporate bankruptcy. Braemar
is the ship we chose for its itinerary, a somewhat larger vessel with
capacity for 900 passengers but carrying about 600. It's not
necessarily a well-designed ship: recently it was cut in half (!) to
add a large section into its middle (more passengers, heh). The
cruise line had already accomplished this with a sister ship:
Now I'm a two-fer.
But starting in Southampton in December was ill-advised; who needs
four days of winter on a holiday? Reaching
southerly Madeira
was like loosing a pack of starved rats on a giant hunk of cheese.
Lovely
Madeira, festooned for Christmas. Warm, laidback, comfortable
Madeira. Should have stayed there.
That's
not to say the Atlantic wasn't cooperative. It was. The weather was
not, particularly (especially for those who worship the sun god).
It's just that this was not our good old familiar ship. This one was
inflexible about formal dining arrangements; in the casual restaurant
the service was poor; crew members' tiny ID badges were impossible to
read; instructions for accessing the expensive internet never worked
for simpletons like me; front desk staff were professionally trained
unsmiling robots; stewards daily adjusted cabin temperatures to
frigidity; the medical centre made grievous errors in its billing;
workmen were still tiling the second swimming pool that never became
functional; the smell of drains invaded, pervaded, at times. And like
that.
The captain was nice, though; he's practically a chain smoker.
I
shan't mention the tribulations of the smokers' community. We expect
to have a restricted area, but not out of sight and sound and service
from the rest of the ship.
Good
things: nice, roomy library; excellent cuisine in the Thistle
restaurant; the smokers' community.
They
say you "shouldn't go back again." Sometimes they are
right.
©
2018 Brenda Dougall
Merriman
No comments:
Post a Comment