Evaluating Voyages

 

How does the song go: A life on the ocean wave… How I longed to have that life when I was a teenager looking for a career after high school. Assistant purser was what I had in mind, and most of my friends had no idea what that was or why on earth I was determined to be one. (Before I go any further, let’s have full disclosure: I never attained my dream due to discovering the most important skill needed to be an assistant purser was a high level of math. Talk about a downer for this dummy, who didn’t even pass her Maths O Level!) What I would have been good at was Social Director, but it wasn’t a thing back then.

What, you may wonder, attracted me to a life aboard an ocean liner? From the first voyage I made with my parents when I was nearly three and we were on our way to Hamburg overnight from Harwich just after WWII so my father’s Army posting as Port Commandant could begin, I was hooked. There was something about falling asleep to the gentle hum of the ship’s engines, the fun of trying to walk in a straight line and not bump into things, or watching seagulls circle us with their mournful mewing that drew me in.

My first real voyage was in 1950 when my mother escorted her three children from Southampton to Port Said, where my father was once again the Port Commandant for British Army shipping. This journey was on the impressive S.S. Empress of Australia, although now I look at her, she would be dwarfed by any Caribbean monstrosities of today. 

The best thing about being a kid on a liner is the sense of freedom. Sure, there was a “nursery” but as long as you stayed to your deck, you could roam around, play Monopoly in the lounge or Shuffleboard on the deck, and have your own sitting for High Tea (supper). On the Empress of Australia John and I shared a cabin, and John insisted on having the top bunk, although he was only five. A steward was assigned to kids’ cabins to check in on them while adults (including 11-year-old Jill) were all dressed up and dining on an upper deck. One night, John was leaning down to badger me (as usual) from his lofty perch and lost his balance. He fell hard hitting his head and, well, you know how much blood there is with a head wound. His loud wailing and my pressing the call button got the steward’s attention and poor lad, not knowing what to do with this bleeding, screaming child, he apparently decided the boy needed his mother. Jill regaled us later about how John was carried through the dining room, blood dripping from his nose and head while the steward loudly called my mother’s name, stopping diners’ forks halfway to their mouths. When she saw her darling boy, she shrieked bloody murder at the poor steward, and overcome with embarrassment shooed him out and down to the ship’s surgeon. You can bet John never lived that story down. And better still, I got the top bunk!

After a home leave in 1953, we again took ship back to Egypt and it was on the SS. Boschfontein (a Dutch cargo-passenger vessel) when I truly fell in  love with ships. My mother will never understand the affection I had for this unimpressive ship, but I was old enough to make friends and it was small enough that I got to know all the crew (I was known to be very social even then!), and I had to be dragged off at Port Said! This time, we were going to our new home in Suez—at the other end of the Canal—and my father was so anxious to see my mum, he drove the 100 miles to greet us instead of waiting another day for the canal convoy. A little way down the road that ran right alongside the canal, we spotted the Boschfontein on its slow way, got out of our car and stood on the bank to wave. At this point, so my mum tells me, I started weeping and begging them to let me back on! I cried all the way to Suez.

The last time I left Egypt—although at the time we had no idea it would be our last voyage home—John and I were going back to boarding school. I was 10 and John 8. My father was now CEO of a French shipping agency in Suez and one of the company’s clients was Stavros Niarchos (Onassis’s far more successful brother in law). Daddy was given permission for the four of us (Jill was already living in England by then) to use Niarchos’s private suite on the World Unity. An oil tanker—but not just any oil tanker, I found out as I searched for a photo for this blog. In 1951, Niarchos’s 31,745-ton World Unity laid claim to the largest oil tanker in the water. 

 

Talk about luxurious quarters, and as the only two kids on board, we were given the run of the whole stern quarters with bridges that housed the galley, cabins and crew quarters, including a ping-pong table in the storage room. The oil tanks being full from the refineries in the Gulf, the ship sat very low in the water, which was a godsend through the Bay of Biscay when we saw 30 foot waves crash over the decks and splash the high bridge glass. The heavy vessel just plowed through like butter. (Luckily none of my family suffered from mal de mer, except for Jill, poor thing. She would get sick on a cross-channel ferry!)

Since those voyages of childhood, I have had some memorable times on the ocean, most notably my five-day crossing on the Queen Elizabeth in 1968 when I came to the US with a London flatmate “to check out the colonies.” Scott and I have chartered sailboats in the British Virgin Islands several times, on Lake Champlain, and lately in the Grenadines. Never have I experienced sea-sickness.  All except once!

In April 2001, we saw an ad in the Boston Globe that British Air and Cunard were joining to offer a “fly one way, sail the other” deal. Scott had always hankered after a Atlantic crossing, only ever experiencing a cross-channel ferry to France before then. Knowing from my first crossing how much more impressive sailing is under the Verazzano Bridge and into New York harbor compared with arriving in boring Southampton, we flew to Heathrow and spent 10 days with my family before boarding the QEII (interior not as classy as the old Queen, let me tell you!) 

 

Our second day out we encountered a Force 8 gale out of the Bay of Biscay off Ireland’s south coast. To add insult to injury, when the captain informed us that the ship’s stabilizer system wasn’t working, we knew we were in for a rocky ride. No problem, I thought, I will have my evening shower, get into my fancy dinner outfit (one dressed up every night back then), and saunter upstairs for cocktails and dinner. 

Halfway through my shower in our inside cabin (never book an inside cabin!), I felt a bit queasy but thought it was hunger pangs. We dressed and went up to the restaurant deck. Scott offered me a cocktail, but it just didn’t sound good and so we went straight into the dining room to our table of eight. Only one other person joined us, and the steward said how brave we were considering this was the worst storm he had been through on the ship in his decade service! I chose the mushroom soup—a bland, calming soup, I figured—followed by my favorite lamb dish. As I was finally owning up to Scott that I believed I was experiencing seasickness, the steward returned with the silver-lidded salver with the main course. He lifted the lid and saying: “Rack of lamb, madam?” I took one look, smiled wanly and said, “I don’t think so, thank you!” I apologized to Scott and made to leave.

Only then did Scott admit he too was unwell, and so the steward sent us right down to C deck where a very officious British nurse asked if we wanted the expensive dramamine shot or free pills. Scott immediately opted for the pills, but I wanted something NOW! “How much for the shot?” I murmured. “£21,” the nurse intoned solemnly. “Such a deal!” I enthused, “Where do I pay?” Warning us it would work quickly, she jabbed me and the effects were almost instantaneous. By the time we got to our cabin one deck down, Scott was dragging me on my knees. I don’t remember how I ended up tucked in bed, but I woke up and, miraculously, the awful sensation was gone! I felt as though I was floating outside my body for most of the day, but it was worth it.

In sunnier, smoother sails, here we are on a catamaran in 2018 in the Grenadines with our best sailing buddies, Phil and Maryann Long, a month before my ankle replacement probably put paid to more chartered sails for me. A Caribbean cruise on one of those behemoths does not excite! But a river cruise in Europe is still on my bucket list. I hope Scott is listening…

Happy Easter and Smooth Sailing!