Blog 26. Return from Australia. Lisbon and Home

Day 115

Thursday 4 May.  Overcast, occasional feeble sunshine. 17ºC.  Wind Force 4 from NE. Position at noon: 36deg 19N. 3deg 6E.  Costa del Sol 26nm to the NW. 

Last night was a formal night and we continued the experiment with cocktails.  This time, Jane had a Cosmopolitan, which proved very enjoyable and more like a real cocktail: slightly astringent with just a touch of sweetness, served chilled in a proper cocktail glass with a twist of orange.  I had a Singapore Sling – at last.  It was quite pleasant, but proved to be a quite sweet ‘long’ drink, served with a straw, a chunk of pineapple, and a cherry.  Shades of Del Boy all over again.  I must have been thirsty, because I polished it off in no time and ordered a Cosmopolitan like Jane’s.  Glancing around the Chart Room, I noticed one bloke wearing a dinner jacket with a submariner’s dolphins badge, which seemed a bit odd with civilian rig; I suppose he wanted someone to come over and talk to him about periscopes or something.  I did think about it, but he would have sussed me out as General Service very rapidly, and dismissed me as a ‘skimmer’ of no account accordingly (submariners take the view that there are only two types of vessel: Submarines and Targets)  More startling was the sight of another chap wearing a dinner jacket, a naval cocked hat, and an earring.  We thought it really could not get worse until Jane saw a picture of loveliness in the form of a huge confection of pink candy floss, diaphanous and majestic, topped by a mountain of piled up blond curls, entering the Britannia Restaurant; she looked like an enormous fairy that had just fallen off the Christmas tree, possibly breaking several branches in the process.

We slept in today for some reason (it might have been those cocktails) and, in a rare act of daring, skipped breakfast.  Jane popped up to the launderette, that well-known site of gossip, and came back with the information that we are not the only people unhappy with the standard of dress in the evening, and with the bad manners of people entering concerts, lectures and shows late.  The people to whom she spoke were seasoned cruisers (Diamond badge holders – gosh), and they said that the standard of QM2 and Cunard had gone down significantly; Silver Seas or Seabourn were now better cruise lines in their view.  Apparently, in QUEEN VICTORIA people not properly dressed in the evening would be turned away, and Jane’s informant opined that that is the way it should be (I would have added half a dozen lashes, but I will accept just ‘turned away’ as a reasonable compromise).  They also felt that staff should shut the doors of the theatre when the show starts, and prevent further entry – just as would happen ashore.  You cannot believe how happy that makes me.  It is not easy being a martinet, you know.

Waiting for our first talk of the day, the second lecture by our ex-RAF pilot, I was able to sweep my eye idly over the rest of the audience in the theatre (those who arrived in good time) and was rewarded by the sight of a woman of comfortable middle years with dyed blond hair, wearing knee-length brown boots, bare legs, a flounced ra-ra skirt, a scooped blouse, and a baseball hat decorated with sparkles.  It just got worse.

I was just a little dubious about attending this second talk as the lecturer had already described his release and it was not clear to me what else he could say.  Indeed, this second lecture was somewhat more esoteric than his first, and it concentrated on encouraging people to realise their ambitions and give deep thought to their lives (I think).  His easy style made up for the rather complex and woolly content and he was still worth listening to, even though I was not entirely sure what he was getting at.  The bit that I liked the best was when he did touch on his rehabilitation, when he was taken to the RAF hospital in Cyprus after his release.  The nurse asked him if he would like to ring home, to which he (obviously) replied in the affirmative, whereupon she gave him a phone card, asked him to sign for it, and indicated the pay phone in the corridor.  He asked if he could have two and she looked around carefully before giving him another and saying, “But don’t tell anyone”.  This was so typical of the Armed Forces that I thought it was hilarious.  The naval author John Winton once wrote that the Navy would have welcomed Marco Polo, returning from the mysterious East, with just the Officer of the Day and the Duty Part of the Watch; here was another, genuine, example of Services underplay.

After that, our civil engineer gave a good talk on the reclamation of the Kennet & Avon Canal and, even though I knew the gist of it, I was still amazed by the state of the canal as it was in dereliction and how it is now.  He went on to talk about the on-going project of restoring the Wilts & Berks Canal and the progress that had been made.  It was good to hear of the plans for putting the canal through the middle of Swindon and making a feature of it there.

There wasn’t much in the programme for the afternoon, and the weather remained cool and hazy, so we retired to our cabin to read our books or, in Jane’s case, to catch up on zeds lost in 1979 when our son was a baby.

We entered the Straits of Gibraltar at about 1630 and it was quite busy, with ships here, there and everywhere: an Officer of the Watch’s nightmare.  We were going to toast The Rock as we steamed past at 1710 but, quite frankly, it was so hazy and cool that a cup of Bovril would have been more appropriate.  A shame as I was quite looking forward to another cocktail.  Soon we were back in the mighty Atlantic and pitching gently in the swell.

In a further break with tradition we stayed up after dinner and went into the Carinthia Lounge to hear our young guitarist play at 2200.  The Carinthia Lounge is attached to the King’s Court canteen and is the place where the people who cannot be bothered to shower and change in the evening go.  We have only been in once, I think, and that was for Lifeboat Stations.  It was actually quite nice and I suppose the only reason that we have not used it is the fact that it is rather large compared with the other more intimate lounges.  Much to my surprise, the standard of dress for the late concert was high, demonstrating that only a few people onboard fail to conform.  I felt suitably chastened.  The concert was very good, by the way.

Day 116

Friday 5 May.  Showers and sunny intervals.  19ºC.  Wind Force 5 from SE.  Low swell, 2m.  Clocks were retarded one hour to BST last night, so we are now back in synch with the UK.  We spent a bit of a lively night last night as the ship coped with the long Atlantic swell by pitching in a noticeable manner.  I didn’t think it was worth commenting on, but it disturbed Jane’s sleep so it will probably have laid low a few passengers.  

Entrance to Lisbon was quite spectacular, with a fairly long run up the River Tagus and under the 25th of April Bridge, which was completed in 1966 and modelled on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.  It was named after the date of the 1974 revolution, when democracy was restored to the country.  After the bridge, the river opened up into a huge lake that reminded me, on a larger scale, of the River Dart at Dittisham.  There the resemblance ended, for Lisbon revealed itself as beautiful, with white, yellow and pale blue buildings, all with the characteristic red roofs of Portugal.  There were some modern hotels in concrete too, but on the whole the vista was traditional.  Particular majestic was the Praça do Comercio, a large square on the river front, rather like St Mark’s Square in Venice, but topped with a huge arch.  We were followed in by a German cruise ship, MEIN SCHIFFE 3, which we thought was a bit much as we felt we should have exclusive rights to the city.  We secured port side to not far up from the Praça do Comercio and the German secured directly in front of us.  We were all secured by 0830.

An early start seemed a good idea as we wanted to pack in as much as possible, so we were across the brow as soon as the ship received clearance.  It was raining, cool, and windy so we equipped ourselves with fleeces and waterproofs, which was just as well because as soon as we got on the jetty it bucketed down.  Fortunately, I had a hood as the rain always makes my hair go frizzy and takes out the careful curl that I have engineered during my toilet, first thing in the morning.

Well, we really liked Lisbon.  It was clean and well-ordered with some delightful architecture and quaint sights.  There were trams, both modern and ancient (some of the latter set at an angle, like on a funicular railway, so that they could climb the steep streets); there were coffee shops;  there were restaurants; there were castles; there were statues.  A curious piece of Meccano turned out to be the rather Eiffelesque Elevador de Santa Justa, a lift to get you – well – from one level of a street to another level (contrary to popular belief it was not built by M. Eiffel of tower fame).  There were many more squares and fine buildings too numerous to mention (also, I have forgotten) and lots of ladies’ shoe shops, all of which we entered at some point or another.  We stopped for a coffee and custard tart (as you do) and the latter was absolutely delicious: still warm, with delicate pastry and gorgeous flavour.  We shared one as a gesture towards restraint and parsimony. 

At about lunchtime, the rain stopped and the sun came out, to the point where we felt quite uncomfortable, not to say obtrusive, in our fleeces.  So we returned to the ship to offload them and the waterproofs and to don short-sleeved tops.  This time when we went ashore we passed through the more dubious parts of the port area, which were quite restricted by reconstruction work.  On our way we found quite an attractive restaurant which seemed  popular with the locals – always a good sign.  So we dived in for a lunch of Cataplana (fish stew) and vinho verde, both of which were excellent.  The restaurant proved to be a sound choice, for it filled up rapidly and we discovered later that it was the winner of a Trip Adviser award for 2016.  But we could not afford to linger – those shoe shops don’t visit themselves – so off we continued to other parts of the city in the bright spring sunshine.

Lest you wonder about the ‘G’ word (Graffiti), yes there was some, but nothing like as bad as the other places that we have visited and virtually none on the finer buildings of the city or in the major areas.

By teatime we were exhausted and felt that we had done all that we could in one day, though there was still much to see.  Footsore, we returned to the ship for a nice sensible cup of tea in our cabin. There we saw the arrival of yet another cruise ship, MSC MAGNIFICA, which secured astern of the German.  This was beginning to look like a job lot of cruise ships, and the city was going to be well and truly inundated with tourists.

Continuing our aim of trying every cocktail in the bar menu, we repaired to the Commodore Club at 1830 and ordered two Ginger Cosmos, proper cocktails which were garnished aromatically by the smoke of an orange peel after they had been mixed.  We polished these off just as the ship was sailing, moving laterally off the berth then spinning through 180 degrees in the customary manner.  Leaving Lisbon was arguably the best departure we have experienced, as our berth was right in the centre of the city and our course took us past the aforementioned Praça do Comercio, which was packed with well-wishers.  We also passed yet another cruise ship, SEVEN SEAS EXPLORER, secured to a container berth; yes, definitely a job lot.  Steaming down river for the bridge, it was necessary to sound five short blasts on the siren no less than three times to clear yachts out of the way; it is an emergency signal that basically says ‘you are not taking sufficient action to avoid a collision’ and I have only ever heard it used once before.  Under the Rules of the Road, or COLREGS as they are known today, powered vessels have to give way to sail, but not in restricted waters where large ships have no room to manoeuvre.

Finally, we crossed the harbour bar and entered the Atlantic once more.  Last port of call before Southampton and it was excellent: a very fitting end.  Rundown on Lisbon?  Art and culture, 90%; skateboarders, NIL; dog muck, NIL; litter, 10%; graffiti, 20%.  Would we come again?  Definitely.

Day 117

Saturday 6 May.  Clear day, 22ºC.  Wind Force 3 from SSW.  Sea, Moderate.  Position at 1200A 42deg 29.7N 9deg 47.7W. Speed 16.  We are about 40 nm SW of Cape Finisterre, the bottom end of the Bay of Biscay.

It was an early start today because we had to complete a ‘face to face’ inspection with UK Immigration officials, a procedure starting at 0830.  As UK nationals, we were a bit surprised that we had to do this, but we were impressed that someone had had the gumption to embark the team in Lisbon, so that we could be processed on passage (as happened with Australian immigration at Mauritius).

The penultimate talk by our civil engineer was, this morning, on the subject of the first Cunard liner, the BRITANNIA, and about early passenger steamers generally, including the GREAT WESTERN the GREAT BRITAIN, and the WAVERLEY.  Our lecturer had to give the talk sitting down, because he had injured his knee when he was hit by a horse-drawn cart in Petra.  Unfortunately, we had to bail out of the talk early in order to hear another talk on designing the QUEEN MARY2, given by her naval architect and designer.  He gave an interesting talk, not just about the design of the ship and the significant difference between a cruise ship and an ocean liner, but also about his ambition as a schoolboy to design a successor to RMS QUEEN ELIZABETH which, of course, he eventually realised.  He wrote of this goal to Blue Peter in the 1960s and received a nice reply that enclosed a Blue Peter Blue Badge and told him not to be too disappointed if his ambition was not achieved.  Years later, when the programme did a show onboard QUEEN MARY 2, they ran a piece on him and presented him with the prestigious Blue Peter Gold Badge for his achievement.

People were still out sunbathing at lunchtime, trying to extract that last bit of UV before the UK and, indeed, we stood in the sunshine on the high after deck ourselves, listening to the calypso band and looking at the slabs of meat: some burnt, some well-done, some medium, and some rare; a lot of mutton, not much lamb.

There was an afternoon concert in the Queen’s Room (the ballroom) at 1415, featuring Jane’s favourite guitarist from the other evening.  Other than Captain’s cocktail parties, we have only been in this room once before for an extended period; my dancing does not bear public scrutiny.  It was, of course, excellent, but I think that, unknown to him, that guitarist is about to join penguins, wombats, dolphins and ice cream as Jane’s favourite things – purely in a maternal way, of course (note the absence of Horatio from that list).

Well, here we are about to enter the Bay of Biscay and, if we were in a steam warship 20 years ago, the marine engineering watch below would be adding just a few extra rpm to the ordered revolutions to ensure that we hit the Nab Tower several hours before the intended time: “homeward bounders”.  As it is, our minds are now on packing, getting home, and planning the mega-shop for victuals.  All our freezers are ’empty and open’, and the house has been in stasis for four months.  Heaven knows how we are going to get all our stuff in the cases, what with all the huge presents we have bought for our friends.  I think the didgeridoo will be the trickiest, but that stuffed kangaroo could be a problem too.  We have been told that our deck will be released for disembarkation at 0930, though we have to vacate our cabin at 0830 and sit in the Carinthia Lounge between times.  After that it will be ‘Goodbye QM2’ and ‘Hello home’.  At least we will be returning at the beginnings of summer so, if all goes well, we will have sunshine all over again.

Surprisingly, we managed to get everything packed OK and there will only be a few minor items from tomorrow night to add.

We had the final ‘black tie’ evening tonight and enjoyed Broiled Lobster Tail followed by Baked Alaska and flambéed cherries.  No cocktails as an aperitif, but we did have brandy after dinner in the Chart Room, then sauntered along to the atrium to watch the world go by (i.e. pick out those who cannot dress properly) .  Drifting back towards the Britannia Restaurant at about 2200, we heard a bit of a razzmatazz going on and peeped in.  There was some sort of ceremony, which involved parading the chefs and head waiters, that we were totally unaware of.  Glancing in, we also noticed that there was a Captain’s Table, which we knew nothing about.  It seemed a bit of an inverse protocol thing really: the Grills – those who pay the most – never see the Captain or his officers, but hoi polloi get a Captain’s Table and all manner of ceremony.  Most odd.

It is the Captain’s last voyage, by the way, as he is retiring after 48 years at sea.  So he must have started when I did in 1969, only he has worked harder and longer.  Nice bloke, good ship-handler, dry sense of humour.

Day 118

Sunday 7 May.  Clear sunny day, turning to sunny intervals.  15ºC.  Wind Force 3 from N.  Sea, Calm.  Position at noon: 48deg 15.8N  5deg 59.9W.  We are just off Ushant, the position where we were on Day 2 of our voyage when the temperature was 12ºC.  So the place has warmed up just three degrees in four months.  Hmmm.  Must go online and turn on the central heating to get that house warmed up for Mrs Shacklepin.

Our last day at sea of The Grand Adventure, that has lasted three months and twenty nine days.  Oh my poor head.  Shouldn’t have had that brandy,  I believe the memsahib was feeling the effects too, groaning about firewater and having packed away the Paracetemol.  There will be no more of that nonsense in Melbury, where we will, hereinafter, lead a sober, restrained and chaste life.

The day dawned with the early morning sun pouring through our cabin window and glistening on a calm sea.  It is one of the many things we will miss.  The walk across the upper deck on the way to breakfast was somewhat more bracing than it had been off Muscat, and Jane was seen to clutch her bosoms and heard to mutter about a cardigan again.  Truly, we are coming home.

We attended our last onboard church service in the Royal Court Theatre, which was conducted by the Deputy Captain and included the usual hearty hymns.  Of a previous church service I remarked on a ‘first’ being the applause for the choir; this time we had another ‘first’ in the form of a woman who came in and barged along our row three quarters of the way through the service.  Everyone was astonished (the theatre was far from full) and I would like to think, in Christian charity, that she was just a poor tardy sheep who was returning to the flock.  It turned out, however, that she was a passenger who wanted to get a plumb seat in good time for the next serial in the theatre, in 40 minutes’ time.  She certainly didn’t join in with what was left of the service, and she remained when it all ended.  “…as we forgive those who trespass against us…’. God, give me strength.

My last lecture of the voyage was by our civil engineer, this time on the subject of floating structures.  Jane declined to attend.  He started with a description of the construction and principles of Mulberry Harbour which was, of course, used for the D Day landings, then he moved on to explain how the same principles were used to construct a new jetty at Weston Mill Lake at HM Naval Base, Devonport.  This last was a bit of a revelation as, with typical naval officer’s ignorance, I had not cottoned on that the jetty was new (a jetty is a jetty is a jetty) despite the fact that it opened in 1989, when I re-entered the Service.  The pier was prefabricated ashore in sections at Weston Mill then floated off and sunk in a pre-dredged channel in the lake.  The sections were then joined together and a services tunnel added to the top, with a roadway on top of that, to form the jetty.  The section of Weston Mill Lake north of the new jetty was then reclaimed using dredged material from Plymouth Sound.  A similar approach was used to build a floating concrete jetty – a pontoon – for submarines at Faslane, and a tethered floating dock for submarines in the same area.

Well, I suppose you would like to know if we enjoyed the sea trip and was it all worthwhile?  A resounding ‘yes’ to both.  It has been an absolute treat from beginning to end.  True, there have been a few niggles and frustrations, and I have been tempted to give several fellow passengers a Jonah’s lift in the course of the two voyages, but we wouldn’t have missed this for the world.  We were made to feel really special from the moment we stepped onboard in Southampton, and the treatment continued throughout.  We now return fatter, slightly browner, and better educated than when we left.  Also, my cynicism regarding my fellow man now knows no bounds.  Would we go on another cruise?  Again, ‘yes’ we would, though we would stick with Princess Grill in future in order to get just that little bit of extra service, exclusivity and space.  There are so many things we would do differently if we went again, based on the lessons we have learnt.  The main one would be to bring clothes for onboard air conditioning, not for on shore, and to not bring so many.  We would also not go for such a long time if we had the chance in future: two weeks maximum.  Of course, on this occasion we had no choice regarding the duration, as our aim was not to take a cruise, but to take a sea passage to and from Australia.  I think we would still stick with Cunard for the present, as we like the formality and the crucial fact that their cruises can be taken from and to Southampton.  It would be interesting to try the other ships, QUEEN VICTORIA and QUEEN ELIZABETH, which some people say are better laid out.  But if we ever decide to cross the Atlantic then QUEEN MARY 2 will be the one for us; she is solid and as steady as a rock, and she will always be remembered as our First Liner.

As to Australia, it was magnificent: universally friendly people, beautiful country, delicious wine, beer and cider, quaint lovers of skateboards and flip flops, and with novel places to eat!  I hope the Australians appreciated the relief from the hot weather that we brought wherever we went.  Of course, the stay would not have been anything like as enjoyable without the services of the Laura & Derek Travel Agency, which provided food, wine, lodging, transport and convivial company throughout the whole seven weeks, and we are so grateful to them for making the whole thing worthwhile.  I hope that they and their car have recovered from the experience by now, and that they are now weaning off the Valium.

And so, dear reader, with sorrow in my heart that concludes my account of the Grand Adventure with its foreign places and strange people, most of the latter from Yorkshire and Lancashire.  I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.  And if you just deleted it, unread, as it came in then don’t worry: as I said in Blog 9, you will not be tested on the content; rather you will hear the same stories over and over again when next we meet.

That’s all folks……..