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| Dawn at Sea |
We recently returned from a Caribbean cruise, one of many we’ve taken over the years, this one on the Celebrity Apex. For seven months we anticipated this and poof, in seven days it was over. The ship went to ports we’ve been to before, and it is a newer ship, larger than most we’ve been on, with all the glitz we try to avoid. As a one week Caribbean cruise at this time of the year, it was filled with people who were there simply to have fun and eat and drink a lot. The cruise catered to that crowd in their choice of entertainment, massive buffets, booming music in the pool area, and the constant encroachment of announcements.
My description cannot even approach the definitive work on such a cruise which was deliciously captured by David Foster Wallace’s experiences on a 7 day Celebrity Caribbean cruise in 1996’s Harpers Magazine, “Shipping Out; On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise.”
Although written almost thirty years earlier, its satirical truths and hilarious observations have stood up to the test of time and ought to be required reading, all 24 pages. Here are just a few of the breakouts from the article as teasers:
I have seen naked a lot of people I’d prefer not to have seen nearly naked.
On a cruise your capacities for choice, error, regret, and despair will be removed.
You don’t ever hear the ship’s big engines, but you can feel an oddly soothing spinal throb.
The atmosphere onboard the ship is sybaritic and nearly insanity-producing.
Not until Lobster Night did I understand the Roman phenomenon of vomitorium.
The vacuum toilet seems to hurl your waste into some kind of septic exile.
So why go? It was the one week our “kids” could accompany us for a family vacation, Jonathan and his wife Tracie, and Chris and his partner, Megan. We booked a table in one of the ship’s restaurants where leisurely dinners were permitted if not encouraged. We also sometimes met up in the morning or for lunch.
My usual routine was to get on the track at sunrise, get in a few laps of power walking (I still call it that although I’ve slowed as I’ve aged), frequently meeting Chris there, and then quietly having some coffee, bringing some to Ann as she got dressed for breakfast.
They did some port sightseeing, while we usually stayed on the ship, appreciating the quiet time, especially in the spa solarium. There we enjoyed soft spa music, a dip in the Jacuzzi for 15-20 minutes and then spent the rest of the morning lounging in comfy deck chairs reading our books. I finished one novel, more on that in a later entry. No direct sun in the solarium, so no need to lather up with sun screen. We either had the no calorie spa lunch that is served in small bite sized portions or splurged one day on a hamburger and fries. Those days were brief respites of blissful peacefulness.
None of us went to the so called entertainment in the evenings, opting instead to extend our dinners for as long as we wanted. The point was to be together and not to sit in a theatre watching their brand of shows. The piped in music onboard was excruciating, catering to a much younger crowd. But it was a week where we could really relax, be lazy and enjoy being with both sons and their spouses.
All those years raising our “boys,” Chris and Jonathan, now a distant memory but watching them interact with each other as if they were still kids. I tried to get a candid shot of them as they fooled around, and here I post one as well as one of when they were really kids watching TV on our bed. Can it be, all those years? But we’re happy they have a relationship as there is an eleven year age difference and different mothers as well, although Ann is “Mom” to Chris. We raised him during the angst of his teenage years.
A bit of serendipity led us to get off the ship in the Cayman Islands. Over the years this blog with its (now) massive amount of information and family history, has attracted many people who have been touched by connections closer to us than six degrees of separation. I get emails from them and follow up.
Two months ago I received one from Melanie, a woman who had been researching some family history online and found an entry in my blog and believed we shared some common ancestry. We do indeed. Her grandmother was the daughter of my grandfather’s sister. And I was at her grandmother’s wedding when I was ten years old, hardly remembering any of it, but I had photographs of the wedding which my father left in his files; I eventually scanned those and I was able to email some to her. You can imagine her shock and delight.
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| Tendering to the Caymans |
But the story doesn’t end there. I soon learned that she lived in, of all places, the Cayman Islands, with her husband and son. The light bulb went off; that was one of the ports the ship was going to so I suggested we get together and she was delighted. We had to tender to the port and it’s a busy place but we finally were able to connect and have lunch overlooking the Georgetown harbor. Thanks to AI I was able to pin down our exact relationship: Melanie is my 2nd Cousin, once removed.
There is more serendipity. Our ship arrived there on March 7 which was her 49th birthday. As Melanie said, “how cool is that?” Now about our meeting, I’ll turn this over to Ann who had emailed a friend the following (Ann is a very spontaneous, emotive and sometimes funny writer): “You know when you’re going to meet someone brand new, you know nothing about, you never know what to expect. They could be dull as dishwater and you’re rolling your eyes in 10 minutes praying for an early escape. Or as in today, you are met by someone totally precious and in fact, so utterly delightful that I wish we had known her years ago. It was her birthday and I brought her a gift Bob made for her especially, a photo of her grandmother’s wedding. Framed, wrapped and with a card delivered to her in a beautiful bag, useful for a million things.” I could not have said it better and more entertainingly than that.
I had an ulterior motive visiting the Caymans though. I had heard it is a decent place to live and here was a full time resident (her husband’s job led them there and coincidentally she works now in publishing which was my working moniker as well) and the opportunity to hear her story and who knows if the unthinkable happens this coming November, perhaps a place for us to consider. As I suspected, this is easier to ask than to do; it works for them as they are young (with an 11 year old son), employed, and don’t have the health challenges that we octogenarians have.
The Cayman Islands is a self-governing British Overseas Territory and as such enjoys some of the benefits. I was especially impressed by the low crime rate, the relative safety of living there, and the fact that firearms are forbidden. People there don’t have to worry about mass shootings in the shopping centers, the schools, in the houses of worship. Imagine that? Must the last bastions of civilization be on remote islands?
In any case, our fantasy of moving to escape the insanity of our self-destructive polarized politics had to be put to rest, but it is reassuring we know someone as lovely as Melanie is and who is part of our extended family.
After seeing her, we only had two nights left on the cruise and Ann and I had booked our only tour and that was of the ship itself the next day. Since 9/11 the bridge and the engineering parts of ship tours were mostly off limits but with a small group, a security check and an armed guard, the tour included the heartbeat and the brains of the ship. That is what I wanted to see.
First we toured other parts of the ship, the galley,
provision lockers, laundry, waste management, and what they amusingly refer to
as I95 which is a corridor, strictly for the crew, with their staterooms, restaurant,
rest areas which runs the complete length of the ship on deck 2. Unfortunately, photographs were strictly
prohibited (particularly in the engineering room and bridge), but I managed to
sneak one of the liquor storage room, nearly depleted towards the end of the
cruise, as were the food provisions. The
quartermaster logistics for these functions must be mind boggling.
By the time we arrived at the engineering control room we had walked miles, including stairs, and then standing around, but that destination and the bridge were worth the fatigue. The engineering officer gave a presentation including flow charts of how the five engines are coordinated (usually the ship cruises with only two), and how redundancies are built into the propulsion system, including two additional engines on deck 15 in case the engine room is flooded.
Crew are in the engineering room watching television monitors of all the engines and gauges for the equipment, the seawater reverse osmosis water maker systems (which makes delicious water in my opinion), the bow and stern thrusters, and the highly effective stabilizers. In fact, for my taste, they were too effective as most of the time one hardly knew of any movement underway.
This is in stark contrast to the first ocean crossing we made in 1977 on the QE2. Ships in those days were built for speed with 29 knots a typical cruising speed, with a top cruising speed of 32.5 knots. The trade off was a less beamy ship without stabilizers and the ship rocked and rolled, sometimes quite violently in a storm. These new ships can hardly do two thirds the speed but you wouldn’t know you are moving.
The high point for me was a visit to the bridge which runs the full beam of the Apex with two helm chairs one might imagine Capt. Kirk and Spock sitting in, facing controls at the centerline. Operationally, there are three different navigation stations, everything completely redundant so the ship can be controlled from the main station or stations on the port and starboard sides.
What impressed me was the clean minimalism with features such as its integrated radar/GPS so powerful it can detect anything in a wide swath and its computer system able to indicate bearing, speed of any other ship and if documented its name, port, tonnage, etc., by simply putting the trackball pointer on it. Collision avoidance features are built in.
Everything one needs to run the ship are at these three compact stations. Parts of the floor deck at the port and starboard sides are windows so one can visually watch docking while cameras show stern and the full length of port and starboard sides for tender activities, boarding pilot boat captains, etc. But given the full expanse of the beam of the ship, there is the sense of being able to easily control the essential ship functions. Joysticks now prevail over a ship’s wheel.
Although one would hardly know it, the seven day cruise covered 2,000 nautical miles. Rarely did the ship’s speed exceed 18 knots. Its top speed is only about 22 knots with all engines engaged. These ships are indeed floating hotels and are not built for fast ocean crossings.
So we shared one last night with our kids and we disembarked for our separate destinations. Bittersweet. It is rare we can all be together like that for an extended time and it is a reminder that living in the moment and sharing family stories and laughter are life’s most precious gifts.
