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Dawn at Sea
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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
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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.