Blog 30. Passage to New York

Day 4 – Wednesday 1 May 2019

“You’re determined to wake me up, aren’t you?”, said a a cold disembodied voice.

So dawned the First of May in this bit of the Atlantic at 0550 ship’s time.  Clocks were retarded yet again last night and we are now at GMT – 2, or three hours behind those of you in the UK.  Or rather, the ship is on that time; our body clocks are still in Melbury.  Having been told to “stop fiddling and make the tea” and ejected from bed, I swept back the curtains to reveal a lead-grey sea, a sky the colour of soggy blotting paper, and a salt-sprayed balcony.  The wind howled, the woodwork creaked, and I was reminded of doing Workup, or Operational Sea Training to give it its proper name, in HMS CASSANDRA off Portland.  I cannot imagine why that island on the Dorset coast features so often in my nightmares and memories.  At 0620 ship’s time we were approaching the Grand Banks of Newfoundland at 44deg 58.1N, 30deg 46.2W.  Wind Force 7 from SSW, 15C, sea Moderate, course 253, speed 22.5 knots.  We crossed the Maxwell Fracture Zone yesterday, a huge undersea mountain range that is part of the Mid Atlantic Ridge stretching from Africa to Iceland, with mountain peaks that make up the Azores and Iceland itself.  The depth of water shallows to a mere 1,000 metres on the ridge before plunging back to nearly two miles deep on the other side.  No ‘hands to bathe’ here, then, and if we do go down then our son will never inherit my iPad.

The Dover Sole was declared excellent by the memsahib last night and we had a very good chat with our American neighbours at dinner.  I asked the inevitable question, and the grimace in reply suggested that Donald Trump had not, perhaps, been their first choice in the US presidential elections.  The topic of cruise lines came up and they, like several of our friends, favoured Celebrity or Regent Seven Seas above Cunard.  It would be nice to try these alternatives (all crowd-funding contributions welcome) and we continue to participate in the National Lottery on an ad hoc basis; but, of course, the selection of an optimal cruise line is very much “horses for courses” and most companies are very particular about who they will allow on their ships, being quite fussy about allowing misanthropic grumpy old men onboard.

We watched an Irish comedian in the theatre after dinner last night and he was surprisingly good (we are not normally ones for stand-up comedians).  Inspired, we followed this up with an improving harp recital in the Grills Lounge by a talented young Hungarian who explained the history of the harp as she went along.  Not much sense of humour though, and some of the pieces were a bit heavy-going for me, though Jane liked them. It is important that one tries these things, lest one be regarded as a philistine. 

We spent most of the forenoon today looking for a cosy spot to sit and read while the crew practised an emergency drill, eventually settling in the Grills Lounge.  It is another example of the difference between this voyage and the Australian trip,  alluded to earlier, that as no one is sunbathing then they must be inside.  Our first chosen lecture of the day, about Jack the Ripper, exemplified this: we were hard-put to get a seat because the cinema was packed from the previous lecture.  At least we managed to get a good seat for the afternoon play, Much Ado About Nothing, performed by RADA in the theatre.  It was an avant-garde production involving just six players, set after WW2, and incorporating dancing to Glen Miller.  Anything avant-garde rarely meets with my approval, but in this instance it wasn’t too bad:  the minuscule cast did a good job fulfilling double roles and acted well, though the dance routines added nothing to the production and seemed totally superfluous.

The weather has been all over the place today.  It started with wind Force 7 and a Moderate sea, passed through Light Airs and a Slight sea, and is currently (at tea time) back to Force 7 again, from the south, with white horses on a Moderate blue sea.  We went for a bracing walk round the upper deck (three times round equals about 1 mile) and were blasted by wind and salt spray the whole way.  However, the sun was shining and it was 15C, so it wasn’t all bad.

We have been invited to an ‘Exclusive Gala Cocktail Party for Gold, Platinum and Diamond Badge Holders’ tonight with the Captain.  We shall certainly attend (anything for a free drink), but we are not fooled by the term ‘exclusive’.  We have learned from previous experience that all those badge holders usually comprise a significant hunk of the passengers borne, and the line-up queue usually snakes along several corridors.  Ho hum.  We have more hopes for our free wine-tasting session (Platinum members) on Saturday and the private Senior Officers’ Party (Platinum Members) on Friday:  I hope to ask the Chief Engineer about lubricating oil and that Viking cruise ship disaster off Norway.

Day 5 – Thursday 2 May

We slept well last night, though that did not stop us from waking at 0630.  We did not retard our watches last night, but I understand the practice will continue tonight.  Logic dictates that if you are to lose five hours in time zones in six days then the process will be about one hour a night.  We had decided to have breakfast in our cabin this morning, just for a change, and maybe that is why subconsciously we woke when we did.

Throwing back the curtains revealed a cloudy sky with the occasional patch of blue, a grey sea flecked with catspaws, and a bit of a swell.  Position at 0700 ship’s time was 42deg 37.5N, 41deg 58.8W, course 254, speed 21, wind Force 4.  We are about 400 miles east of where TITANIC sank and Newfoundland is just starting to appear to the north west on the digital chart that shows our position (you didn’t really believe that I was working out our daily position with a sextant and chronometer did you?).  We are about 600 miles south east of Cape Race.  It was a bit of a rough night last night, with wind reaching Force 8 – Full Gale – white horses on the sea, and creaking woodwork.  Jane in her high heels was hanging on to me like a drowning woman as we attended the cocktail party but, as I have reported before, the movement was not really too bad – perhaps three degrees.  But, then, I don’t wear high heels (except on High Days and Jane’s birthday).

So to that ’exclusive’ cocktail party for Gold, Platinum and Diamond Club members.  As predicted, when we arrived outside the Queen’s Ballroom on 2 Deck at D – 15 a substantial queue had already formed, each couple jealously guarding their position and glaring at interlopers appearing from tributary access routes and trying to muscle in.  Matrons in bell tents and comfortable, but hideous, sandals mixed with willowy beauties in black cocktail dresses and stilettos; the flat vowels of Yorkshire merged with loud Texan drawls and guttural Deutsch.  The men were largely uniform in appearance if you didn’t count the dirty black shoes that appeared to have been worn in the stokehold, and the inevitable badges.  Jane and I had a game to see who would spot the first badge, and I won.  Gold Badges, Platinum, RNLI Bronze Lifesaving, Blood Donor, Boy Scout Cookery….some men appeared to have them all…pinned in columns to the lapels of their dinner jackets.  I don’t know who once said that all men never grow up, but it was probably a woman and she was right.  I, of course, am the exception that proves the rule to this little homily, for I have now sold my Meccano set and have removed my Platinum Badge from my sweater. 

Under starter’s orders…and they’re off.  At 1945 the ballroom doors were flung open and there was an immediate Gadarene Swine movement as the hot sweaty column surged forward.  Watch those Germans pushing in… a rogue wheelchair from the left… deflect that sly elbow from the big American woman…but then we were through and shaking the Captain’s hand.  He was a very amiable man, slightly brown, about my height – seemed OK, but no time to chat.  Where’s the champagne?  I gazed around looking for someone to talk to…and was promptly astonished.  Just about everyone was sitting down at tables, with hardly anyone on the dance floor doing the cocktail party thing.  What is it with these people?  How on earth can you mix with, and talk to, a wide range of people if you are sitting down?  I have, of course, come across this phenomenon before in a wide range of social settings, so I shouldn’t have been astonished.  I have never been able to explain it properly.  I cannot say if it is just a British thing; I cannot say if it is an age thing confined to the over 50s, though that is possible; I cannot say if it is a social class thing; I cannot say if it is a size of venue thing, for I have seen it at parties in people’s living rooms.  The only theory I can put forward is that a large number of folk lack self confidence in a social setting, so they just sit down with their existing friends.  The concepts of circulating, curiosity and making polite conversation are foreign to them.  Why come to the ship’s cocktail party?  Well, the single glass of champagne is free and they can tell their friends that they met the Captain, I suppose.  Of course, they might all just be old and tired and want to take the weight off their poor bunion-afflicted feet as – in this case – the ship corkscrews in the Atlantic swell.

We met a very nice Canadian chap, who was also a Count in Sicily, and who was returning from the world cruise undertaken in VICTORIA.  He was branching into authorship and gave me his card for the future.  Through him we met a pleasant American widow from Florida (twenty cruise scalps on her belt), also a VICTORIAN.  North Americans are so friendly and easy to talk to – I’ll swear they would tell you their life story while standing at a bus stop.  Unlike my fellow countrymen who, unlike the Good Samaritan, try to pass by on the other side and begrudge even offering you a ‘Good Morning’ before breakfast.  I always embarrass them by booming out this greeting with a beaming smile as we pass, and some actually jump as they force out a reply.  Jane always hisses at me for this, especially when I mutter sotto voce afterwards in true Basil Fawlty fashion, 
“There. Didn’t hurt did it?” 
“He might have had a bad night, Horatio”
“He only had to say good morning, dear.  It’s not the Gettysburg Address”.  
But I digress.

We did not get much further with our new acquaintances for there were then speeches by the Captain and others and, before we knew it, we had to scuttle off for a late dinner.  The plan had been to move on to a show, but Jane’s feet gave out (all that standing and bracing in high heels, some sort of plantar whatsit ) and so we had to limp home to our cabin.  Should have sat down at the cocktail party with those other old people.

And so to today, with the first serial being ‘Superpowers and Spies’ by the terrorist expert.  We learned long ago that you have to get into a venue early if you want a seat for a popular lecture or show, so we were in the theatre by D – 30 after gulping down two hot chocolates in the lift on the way there (took 20 minutes to make them in the Commodore Lounge and cost us $10, Jane not happy).  The early arrival gives ample opportunity, not only to bag the best seats, but also to people-watch and grumble: my favourite pastime after boating.  We had the usual contenders: the Frozen Statue (in the main entrance this time), the Tubby Trundler on the stairs (rate of descent 5”/minute), the Fidget (three seat moves in 20 seconds).  One bloke decided to get from one side of the theatre to the other by crossing the stage, watched by an incredulous audience (a new one on me), and this invoked a booming announcement asking people not to cross the stage unless invited (translation, “We’re talking to you, bozo”), which brought him up with a round turn and put a stopper on any of that rogue behaviour.  Think he was an American – no wimpy retiring Brit would have had the neck to do it.

We had heard much of the talk by the lecturer before (I refer the Honourable Reader to the Australian Blog I wrote two years earlier),  but it had been updated to include the Skipol attempted murder and its aftermath, so it was still very well done and informative.

By golly, I had forgotten just how long this ship is.  Our cabin is fairly far forward on the starboard side, perhaps three quarters of the way along the superstructure on 10 Deck.  We are between Staircase/lift shaft ‘A’ (under the bridge) and Staircase/lift shaft ‘B’.  To get to our restaurant in the Princess Grill on 7 Deck we have to walk aft along our corridor all the way to Staircase/lift shaft ‘D’ (below the after funnels) (230 paces), performing a continuous sine wave on the carpet in the process as we bounce off the bulkheads, then down three decks (54 steps).  I know all this because I have just counted them.  The corridor goes on forever.  And that is just the bit in the superstructure:  there is obviously more of the ship stuck out for’ard and aft.  As Jane says, we don’t need to go on a treadmill or do circuits of the Promenade Deck: we burn calories just trying to get from A to B.

The plan had been to skip lunches or, at best, to have something light – perhaps nibble on a water biscuit or take a little clear soup – this to inhibit my expanding waistline and to keep Jane at her enviable Size 8.  This has not worked, as skipping lunch has usually meant us tucking into sandwiches, muffins or afternoon tea as fill-ins.  So we have returned to lunch in the Grill, but only having one course.  Today Jane had bread rolls and cock-a-leekie soup (which she later defined as consommé with bits of chicken tossed in and the leeks tossed out) and I had braised oxtails on chive mash, which was superb.  I gazed out at a fairly angry-looking sea: deep troughs, white horses, sunlit areas of gunmetal blue sea interspaced with vicious squalls. Through the stern windows of the restaurant I could see the Grill Terrace taffrail rising and falling as we pitched, juddering, into the Atlantic swell.  We really have had quite a range of weather so far, and I don’t see Kate and Leonardo standing on the prow in this lot.  We are currently back to Force 7 (Near Gale) from the NW, though the sea temperature has risen to 17C and the air temperature dropped to 9C.  Maybe it is those icebergs (this is the worst time of the year for them and we are on a southerly track to avoid them accordingly).  Sea state is recorded as ‘Moderate’ though I reckon it is close to ‘Rough’. We spent most of the afternoon in our cabin, Jane to count the rivets in the deckhead as I to write this.  She lost count very early on – never knew anyone who could clock up the zeds like my wife.

Is this the real thing?  Is it just fantasy? We are off to see Bohemian Rhapsody this early evening before dinner.  Jane has seen it before, but wants to see it again; I was not allowed to accompany her the first time for reasons not stated, but would now like to see it to prove that I am cool and not square. 

Do you know, I think I will send this off now as another instalment in the happy saga of Janet and John Go to America.  I feel like being daring, and it should hit those of you in the UK just before 1900  as you are sitting down to your pre-dinner glass of sherry or gin and tonic.

More later, after we have been caught in the landslide (see, I even know the words).

Blog 29. Passage to New York

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

Day 1 – Sunday 28 April 2019

Aha!  I bet that surprised you.  We’re back.  Here we are again on QUEEN MARY 2, this time heading for New York and back on a two week round trip, that takes in seven hours of the Big Apple on an intensive excursion.  I know: not long enough to appreciate that huge city, but it was all we could afford as the alternative would have been two weeks’ stay before QM2 returned.  No, we would not travel back by air.

Amazingly (in a pessimistic world in which everything that can go wrong usually seems to) we travelled down to Southampton without a hitch.  We drove straight up to the terminal, off-loaded the luggage that was whisked away immediately by a porter, handed the car keys to the valet, and swept into the terminal building.  I did not have my cashmere overcoat hung carelessly around my shoulders, but the sentiment was there.

 “Princess Grill?  Of course, sir, check in here.  You are priority boarding”.  
We immediately joined a very short queue for the check in desks, watched by a large audience who were waiting, seated and sullen, for checking in for accommodation in the Fore Peak, the Stokehold or Steerage. Our boarding cards were different enough for the check in staff to comment on them and we scrutinised them accordingly.  Of course, that was it: Platinum Club members, because of the many days clocked up previously.  Gosh.  There is only Diamond Membership and God above this.  Thank heavens I am unmoved by these trivia, that’s what I say, or it would go to my head.  We were through airport-type security without delay and, in the drop of a marlin spike, we were onboard.

Dear reader, I struggle to describe the feeling of being back onboard QM2.  Perhaps putting on a well-worn pair of comfortable (but monogrammed calf leather) slippers sums it up.  It was absolutely fabulous to gaze around at the familiar decor, the bulkheads, the layout again. It was like coming home.  Brushing politely aside the guidance of the welcoming staff in their red uniforms and pillbox hats, we immediately dived down a familiar obscure route and headed straight for our cabin, number 10021 on the starboard side of 10 Deck.  And there it was: larger than our last cabin (we thought), brightly lit, immaculate, and decorated with two bottles of bubbly in an ice bucket.  As if to say “Welcome”, our iPads and iPhones automatically logged into the ship’s WiFi system after doing some handshaking of their own. Ah, this is it.

After the last voyage we reckoned that we could not afford any more cruises and, indeed, that was the prudent course.  But with a bit of shuffling around the assets, selling the shares in RTZ, ICI and Virgin (I wish), remortgaging the house (that’s an idea!), creative accounting and putting Jane back to scrubbing steps and taking in laundry, we somehow have managed to do it.  We were, as you know, slightly disappointed by QUEEN VICTORIA and the Dogger Bank, but QM2 has become very special after our epic voyage to Australia and back, and I have to say our return has not disappointed.

First stop, after cracking the bubbly and tucking in to the chocolates, was lunch in Princess Grill on 7 Deck.  To my further amazement, we were ushered to a special table right next to a window overlooking the Promenade Deck, there for us to watch – in due course – the healthier passengers taking their exercise as they march round the deck and they – in due course – to watch us demi gods eating our food and demonstrating how to use knives and forks properly.  For the moment, in Southampton, our view comprised a rusty bucket dredger and a concrete multi-storey carpark, but never mind.  I lunched on Broccoli and Stilton soup followed by Breaded Plaice, new potatoes and spinach; Jane had the healthy option of Baked Salmon and Coconut Rice (without the coconut, she said).  What was particularly nice was to mention to the staff our previous waiters and waitresses, and to discover that many were still onboard – we made a bee-line to find them after lunch and they actually remembered us very well.  Astonishing, and very heart-warming, that they should recognise and remember Olive Oil and Popeye after so long.

I would like to say that we spent the afternoon touring the ship and examining the scuppers, stays, davits, radar aerials and halyards, but the fact is that [a] we were already very familiar with the ship, [b] Jane refused to go outside without a thick coat, scarf, sheepskin boots and [c] there was half a bottle of bubbly still on ice in the cabin.  So we repaired to the latter, there to imbibe and unpack, not in that order. And, outside our cabin as we returned, we found two little purses containing those hallowed emblems of privilege, affluence and staying-power, our Platinum Badges.  I immediately pinned mine to my oiled Guernsey seaman’s sweater (as issued to all Naval Cadets circa 1969), and was promptly ordered to remove it again by the memsahib. ”Get that off.  Don’t be ridiculous”.  She can be so cruel sometimes.  She wouldn’t let me keep that miniature submarine from the cornflakes packet either.

I was bracing myself for the all-important safety brief at 1630 and wondering if Jane would bag, yet again, the un-oil-stained lifejacket as she did in Singapore.  However, the briefing (and sailing) was postponed owing to the non arrival of some passengers.  Very poor.  I would have sailed without them.  It was ingrained in me at Dartmouth: The Ship Sails On Time.  Be There Or It Is An Aggravated Offence Of Absence Without Leave.  These civilians, honestly.  They will be saying next that the dog ate their e-ticket. 

Speaking of which, QM2 is one of the few (might be the only) cruise ships that takes dogs, though – thankfully – they are kept in onboard kennels.  One of them was making a heck of a racket in the terminal building, reinforcing Shacklepin’s Theorem that there is simply no escape from dogs and children.  I haven’t seen any of the latter yet, but they’ll be there somewhere – trust me – they’ll be lurking in a lifeboat or ballast tank or wherever.  They follow me around you know.  It’s a conspiracy.  Oh, I have just seen five of them, including a toddler as I write (I am finally at the safety briefing, postponed yet again to 1715) – excellent to have one’s forebodings verified.

We finally sailed at 1800, which was in daylight: a rare treat for us.  A mild sun shone as we steamed down Southampton Water and round the Isle of Wight.  We, for our part, took an early dinner of Steak Au Poivre washed down by an Argentine Malbec, both of which were excellent.  Portsmouth was on the port beam as we tucked into this feast and it gave me much pleasure to watch it as we passed by.  We watched a film, Can You Ever Forgive Me after dinner, which was the reason for our early meal.  Let us just say that it was beautifully acted and was so interesting that I fell asleep.  Afterwards, we retired to bed early, utterly shattered.  Clocks retarded one hour tonight despite being just south of Portland Bill at about 2200BST.

Day 2 Monday 29 April

Dong… ding… dong…”This is the Captain speaking.  This is not an alarm, I repeat this is not an alarm.  The time is 2.40 in the morning….”.  

So began the 29th April.   For a moment I thought I was twelve years old again and staying at Butlin’s holiday camp in Filey:  “This is Radio Butlin calling all First Sitting Campers.  The time is 7 o’clock and breakfast is now being served…”.  No, it was the QM2 and it was in the middle of the night.  It turns out that some poor soul was seriously ill and was going to have to be evacuated by helicopter.  We were steaming towards Falmouth for the rendezvous and we had been woken up to tell us not to go on our balconies or take flash photography of the helicopter when it arrived.  Curiously, we were not told not to go onto the helicopter deck itself, but I suppose that was axiomatic.  I looked out of the window but there was nothing in sight except the loom of a lighthouse; I returned to the grumbling Mrs Shacklepin and tried to get back to sleep.  Just like turning in after the Middle Watch, it took me ages.  Vaguely I heard the beat of rotors, but then finally drifted off into a twilight world.  It is, of course, ironic that if we had not been woken up and told about it virtually everyone would have remained ignorant of the event; now, some fool would have been bound to go out there and take a picture.  But the Captain did have to formally warn us.  No doubt we will be meeting him at one of the cocktail parties scheduled.

The real day dawned on an overcast sky with a little haze, wind Force 3 from NW, sea Slight, speed 23 knots, course 254, temperature 12C at noon.  We were pitching gently in the Western Approaches and had just cleared Bishop Rock and the Scilly Isles.  Breakfast in the Princess Grill was interrupted by yet another announcement from the Captain:  another CASEVAC, and please clear the upper deck and balconies. These people are dropping like flies and we have only just cleared the English Channel.  We caught a quick glimpse of the HMCG helicopter over the bacon and coffee, then that was gone – hope the patient is OK.

Two lectures in the forenoon, one on Ruses and Deceptions in WW2 and the other on the History of Coroners and Forensic Science.  Both were good, but the last was the most interesting.  Apparently the concept of inquests and coroners in England  started about the time of William the Conqueror, when serious penalties were imposed on a village if a dead Norman was found (nothing for an Anglo Saxon).  Consequently there was an incentive to hide bodies found overnight, dispose of them at sea, or dump them in the next village before day dawned.  This was not entirely satisfactory, so a system was derived and refined in the 12th century at the time of Richard I.  It did not start out terribly accurately because it used a system of old crones to count the bodies found daily and record their causes of death; there was a certain amount of double accounting as well as somewhat speculative and ill informed causes of death recorded.  Eventually, the system of juries came in and they were required to view the actual body before coming to a verdict.  Inquests and post mortems were often held in pubs, which must have done wonders for the steak and kidney pie on offer for the pub lunch.  It was only in the 19th century that it was decreed that coroners must be doctors or lawyers, and later still when inquests were banned from being held in licensed premises.  The Chinese had been conducting forensic investigations as long ago as 200 BC but, of course, it came much later to the Western world.  It was interesting, as well, to be reminded that fingerprinting only came in in the 1890s, and DNA in 1986.

The cinema was packed for these lectures, which was impressive, though the cynical Jane pointed out that this was probably because there was no one sunbathing.  People at these events never cease to amaze me.  They trundle in, late, then just stand there in the middle of the aisle, frozen, like a robot that has suffered a power cut.  A variation of this is the bloke (and it usually is a bloke) who does the frozen statue act right in front of the projector, so we get the shadow of half his head on the screen – yet he never seems to cotton on that it is he who his spoiling the presentation.  We met another example of irritation personified this morning, and that is what I shall call The Sentry.  This was a woman who came in late, could not get a seat, so walked right down to the bottom of the cinema to where the emergency exit was.  She then spent the entire hour pacing to and fro across the exit lobby: three paces this way, three paces back.  Even when someone vacated their seat later, she stayed where she was on sentry duty.  This may sound trivial, but her constant pacing back and forth in the corner of one’s eye was quite distracting.  I have added her name to The List.

A general early impression of one’s fellow passengers is, perhaps due.  These people are slightly different, again, from the clientele on the Australian trip and the Hamburg trip.  They are mostly, how shall I put it, ‘of a certain age’, but perhaps with not quite so many of the halt and the lame as on the Australian trip:  slightly fewer wheelchairs, though plenty of walking sticks.    For obvious reasons there are quite a few more Americans, some returning from a tour of Europe but also some doing the round trip, like us, but in reverse (I think about 450 of those).  Overall, I would say the mix is much more international.  Reassuringly, some behaviour remains common from the previous trips – I refer especially to the men who wear baseball hats indoors (is it raining?) and those carrying full rucksacks around the ship (what on earth do they keep in there?).  We met a nice American couple in the check-in queue, both from St Louis, he a navy veteran (said so on his hat) but we have not seen them since.  Of course, they might have baled out and gone Celebrity after meeting us.  The rich tapestry of cultures makes for entertaining people watching though, of course, what appears eccentric to our eyes is almost certainly normal to theirs.  I was particularly impressed by the lady who came in to dinner last night wearing a broad brimmed Spanish hat and cape, and hence looked like a label from a bottle of Sandeman’s port.  More of this scurrilous gossip later, though I have been banned from comment on a large range of social groups by my sponsor, who intends to edit the script before dispatch this time.

We skipped lunch and took a couple of turns round the deck in the afternoon (after a little snooze in our cabin).  This blew away many of the cobwebs and nearly took Jane as well.  Amazingly, a hearty soul was swimming in one of the outdoor pools.  We weakened mid afternoon, and took afternoon tea in the Grills Lounge.  Most satisfactory and almost guilt-free in the absence of lunch.  We finished the afternoon with a game of Scrabble in the games area, low down in the ship adjacent to the theatre, with the sea rolling by just a few feet away outside the large picture window.

I reckon the sea state deteriorated as the day progressed and certainly the Captain confirmed that we we diverting south slightly, on a rhumb line, to avoid some dirty weather.  The highest deck was out of bounds owing to the wind, which had increased to Force 6 by late evening, with catspaws forming on the sea.  Jane commented on a few green faces, but I reckon the ship is still pretty steady, with a little motion, but no serious rolling or pitching.

Black and White Ball tonight and we have ordered lobster, in advance, from the à la carte menu.  Jane has threatened dancing after dinner, so best I hit the wine.  Perhaps a little dry  Riesling?  Clocks are retarded yet again tonight, bringing the time to GMT – 1.  

Day 3 – Tuesday 30 April

The day dawned with high cloud, sunny intervals, sea moderate, 11C, wind Force 5 from W.  Course 254, speed 21 knots.  Position at 0700: 41deg 27.3 N, 18deg 22.1 W.  We were lurching.  I am hard-put to describe it better.  QM2 does not have the slow roll of most ships, but rather moves a few degrees, then stops jerkily and moves back.  I put it down to the stabilisers in action.  It felt like a bit of a rough night, with creaking woodwork and the howl of wind, but this was not reflected by the sea, which had lost its catspaws and appeared relatively calm, though there was some swell.  It calmed down significantly later.  We woke early because of the daily retarding clock and even Jane could not squeeze any more zeds out of the bunk.

Last night went well, though quietly.  The lobster was a nice treat but not brilliant, and we had a good chat with our neighbours, who were from Tampa.  There was a USN Captain in uniform with lots of medals at dinner and I wondered briefly if I should have brought my own Mess Undress for black tie nights.  But no, I  am getting far too long in the tooth for wearing uniform now; I would look like something out of Dad’s Army.  Besides, I have no medals: 33 years of selfless sacrifice and privation, which I seldom mention, without earning a single one.  We did go down to the ballroom, but the four couples on the dance floor were far too professional for us (the smooth flowing movement, the female head thrown back and looking sideways in pure rapture).  One man was dressed in a white dinner jacket, but wore a pork pie hat, which I thought a trifle eccentric.  No way were we parading our clumsy footwork in front of an audience down there.  So we strolled to the atrium to do a little people watching.  To our surprise, there was hardly anyone there – I would guess that most people were in the theatre, where some woman was belting out a song with great gusto.  In fact pretty much all there was in the atrium area was an older man wearing a polo shirt, jeans, sand shoes and no socks, and a younger man, about 30, wearing calf-length builders boots with reinforced toe cap, jeans, thick sweater, no shirt, and a beanie hat.  Has the world gone mad?  Were they left over after the last refit?  The older bloke looked somewhat introspective as he sat there and I suspect he may have been seasick.  The younger man, however, just had attitude.  He was blowed if he was going to change for the evening or keep to the restricted public areas, which begs the question – raised so many times before – then why come on QM2?  I am sure he could have worked his passage on a Panamanian tramp steamer for no fee at all.

We took a leisurely breakfast as our first serial was not until 1100.  The sky cleared and it actually looked quite sunny out there.  The prison exercise yard that is the Promenade Deck was back in evidence and it was heartening to see those incredibly keen people battling against the wind.  One girl passed wearing full anorak, climbing kit and an enormous rucksack that the Royal Marines call a Bergen, which I thought was taking things to extremes, but Jane pointed out that she was probably carrying it in order to practise for that climb up the Rockies.  We tried walking round the deck ourselves later and it was annoying, after two years, to find that the great masses continue to walk counter clockwise round the deck when we want to walk clockwise.  Why weren’t they told?  It would have saved them from having to jink left and right to get out of our way.

Our first serial was a lecturer on the subject of terrorism, similar to the one we had received on passage to Australia.  It was a good lecture, but still a bit depressing.  Lunchtime found us in the Grills Lounge (no riffraff) drinking pre lunch cocktails: a Bellini and a Mojito. I think Jane’s tummy recovery has gone to her head – I for my part would have had a sensible glass of tepid water, but felt I should keep her company.  We toured the Kings Court – the self service canteen – after a light lunch, in search of an elusive waitress from the first voyage and I wondered, yet again, why on Earth you would eat there instead of being served in the grand splendour of the Britannia Restaurant.  Jane could not resist helping herself to an ice cream cone and I could not resist gawping at a bloke in full Scottish rig, kilt, sporran, the lot, standing at the self-service buffet.  Bet he wasn’t a Scot.  The rich tapestry of life, as I said earlier.  We were going to ‘do’ the planetarium after lunch, and procured tickets accordingly, but we found that the queue to get in (even with tickets) stretched forever and there was still 15 minutes to go.  Stuff that for a game of soldiers; even Jane wasn’t prepared to wait.  So on to the next serial, a talk on the History of Impressionism and introducing Sheree Valentine Daines in the art gallery.  Who says I am uncultured?  We liked the artist’s work, but didn’t have £50,000 to spare.  The free prosecco was good though, and the blue sea rolling past the large round windows in the gallery provided a perfect backdrop to the event.

The final lecture of the day was about Atom Bombs and the end of WW2 and it examined the reasons and effectiveness of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombers.  A cheerful topic, but worth examining.  The lecturer gave a good summary of the atomic bomb development and put forward some very even-handed arguments.  In summary, though, he explained that the USA intended to blockade Japan into surrender and not invade it; the effect of the atomic bombs left the maniacal Japanese leadership completely unmoved; and that it was the USSR’s decision to break its five-year non-aggression pact with Japan and invade Japanese-held Manchuria that tipped the balance in favour of surrender – and that only after Emperor Hirohito’s direct intervention.  Personally, I followed the arguments, which were compelling, but I still think the Japanese had it coming: a controversial view, but an honest one.

A relatively quiet night tonight, with nothing planned, ordinary smart evening rig, and Dover Sole for Jane.  A convenient time, perhaps, to fire this off before it gets too unwieldy.  As I conclude today, it is just after 1700 local time, the sea is blue and calm, the sun is shining, and we are sipping tea from our Wedgwood cups.  Things could be a lot worse.  More soon.

Blog 28. Northumbria

Northumbria 17 – 26 October 2019

The holiday is over.  Jane has put away her warm vest, for the moment, and we have returned to the warm South (2 degrees C this morning).  So that was Northumbria; been there, done that, avoided the T shirt.

We spent an excellent three nights in Sunderland (if that is not an oxymoron).  It was a lovely modern hotel which had only opened last year, and we secured the room for £65 a night: an extremely competitive rate, bearing in mind it also included breakfast.  

Our first port of call was my brother’s place in South Shields, and we had booked a table at a carvery for dinner in what used to be a relatively up-market pub in a pleasant part of South Tyneside. A carvery. See how the mighty have fallen, (though not as low as that food court in Melbourne). The reason for this choice of culinary excellence was (a) they offered a 10% discount to old sailors, (b) it gave Jane control of what she ate under her current restricted diet and (c) it allowed my brother to pile his plate high with every kind of meat and vegetable at the buffet, along with a pint of gravy. Curiously, after 66 years, I did not know that my brother had a compulsive disorder. Perhaps he has only just developed it. The disorder manifests itself by a requirement that he must have a fixed routine every day. In this instance, he had to eat at 1830. Not 1845, not 1930. No, it had to be 1830. That was his supper time, and it was inviolable. I tried to persuade him to eat later because of the likelihood of children at the venue (he has the same aversion as I have), but no, he had to eat at 1830. We duly turned up at the carvery (which charged to use its car park – I have never come across that before) and I entered with some trepidation.

Have you ever dreaded an event and then, when it happens, it turns out not to be as bad as you thought?  It is quite common.  This was not one of those events.  This was worse than I thought.  The pub had deteriorated since I last visited it in 1979 and was now quite shabby, with frayed carpets and scuffed upholstery, a squalling baby, feral North Eastern children in leisure suits swilling free Coca Cola, piped awful music, and a huge queue for the buffet carvery.  A table was hastily set for us (what happened to the reservation?) next to the Disabled Lavatory and Baby Changing Room, and there we set up base camp.  Would we like a drink?  I ordered a bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from the very short Carte des Vins and we duly joined the queue for the soup kitchen.  Time passed by as we shuffled along the queue, occasionally landing on the snake and sliding three paces back as someone up ahead decided, hmm, on second thoughts they would have another five roast potatoes and some more turkey.  As the baby squalled in my right ear, I dreamt of that meal we once had at The Ritz, where flunkeys held open doors for us and spoke in hushed tones….My reverie was disturbed by a nudge at my elbow.  It was our waitress telling me that they were out of Marlborough Sauvignon and would I like to choose something else?  I glanced hastily at the proffered bar menu and saw the words ‘Jacob’s Creek’.  “That’ll do”, I said.  It was not to prove a wise oenological choice.

Actually, and in all fairness, the food at the carvery was very good: there was a good choice of carved meat or turkey and the quality was high; the vegetables were fine, and not over-cooked.  The staff were very friendly and quite efficient, though I could only interpret one word in three, and had to smile and nod benignly in reply to all questions.  It was the setting and ambience that were lacking.  

Quite some time later, we returned to our table where our bottle of chilled wine awaited us, my brother managing – with well practised hand – to counteract the free-surface effect of all that gravy that was pouring down the Gaussian distribution of heaped meats and vegetables on his plate, like lava from Vesuvius.  I poured the wine.  “Cheers!”, I said. ‘Clink’.

Oh Lord!  What the heck was this?  It was like Lucozade without the fizz.  We all pulled a face.  I scrutinised the bottle.  Oh dear.  I had chosen a cheeky blend of Jacob’s Creek Sauvignon mixed with Moscato, powerful at 8% proof.  It was foul, but what could we do?  It was what we (I) had ordered.  It wasn’t corked, and – even if it were – I doubt if the staff would know what I meant.  I swear I left that place more sober than when I went in.  Thankfully, we did not stay for pudding:  that option was not on my brother’s timetable and, in any case, after all that Coke the children were just entering the super nova phase and were bouncing off the walls as a precursor to turning into the black dwarf later in the evening.  And so to bed in sleepy Sunderland.

Wednesday dawned bright and sunny and we were faced with a range of exciting possibilities to entertain us.  I was anxious to get a bid in before Jane discovered a botanic garden somewhere, so I suggested Beamish: the Victorian ‘frozen in time’ North Eastern pit village cum museum.  We looked it up on the internet and apparently it comprised coal mines, terraced houses, tiny rooms with tin baths and coal-fired ranges, cobbled streets, outside lavatories and trams.  With the exception of the last, it summarised my childhood and I could not entirely see the attraction or novelty.  The entrance fee of £20 each finally sealed its fate: ‘pass’ on that one.  

The next option looked promising: Hartlepool Maritime Museum.  Hartlepool (West Hartlepool merged into the main town long ago, but it still brings back memories) has something of a reputation in the North East as the town where they hanged the monkey.  Rumour has it that during the Napoleonic Wars a ship was wrecked off Hartlepool and the only survivor was a monkey.  The good burghers of the town, being either very drunk or very stupid, thought that it was a French spy and promptly hanged it, thus gaining a reputation for low sobriety and minimal intellect with North Easterners for all time.  The town is said to have come on considerably since then, though when I last visited it, in 1997, it was still a bit of a dump.  I thought we should give it a chance, particularly as the maritime museum called itself, “The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Hartlepool” and incorporated the “oldest warship still afloat”, HMS TRINCOMALEE.  I was very curious, as I was not aware of any association between the Royal Navy and Hartlepool other than the town being shelled by the German High Fleet during WW1.  So Hartlepool went on the list.

First, however, we decided to call in to Seaham Harbour (now simply called Seaham) where I had spent many a happy day onboard my father’s ships while they were loading coal.  Seaham is famous in our family for the port where we nearly lost our father.  Sailing out into a heavy storm with my father on the foc’sle, his ship immediately ploughed into a heavy swell that swept green across the deck.  With that in-built sense of preservation that seamen have, he threw his arms around the windlass control pedestal and was immediately submerged.  The Captain on the bridge saw my father’s cap swept overboard and thought, “Oh my God, we’ve lost the Mate”.  However, the cap was swept onboard again by the next wave and recovered by my father, who emerged spluttering and soaked from his immersion, none the worse, if a little damp and cold.

An artificial harbour created by the Marquesses of Londonderry as an outlet for the local coal mines, Seaham Harbour used to be called ‘the hole in the wall’ by local seamen and I was pleased to see that the enclosed harbour, piers and locks were still there.  There was even a ship in there, though it was loading scrap metal instead of coal.  Apparently Lord Byron was married at Seaham (it takes all sorts) and wrote of it:

“Upon this dreary coast we have nothing but county meetings and shipwrecks; and I have this day dined upon fish, which probably dined upon the crews of several colliers lost in the late gales. But I saw the sea once more in all the glories of surf and foam”.

Seaham had improved since I was last there in 1967 or thereabouts.  The coal industry had gone and the sea front, such as it was, wasn’t too bad.  We took a hearty walk on what passed as a promenade in the sunshine and brisk westerly wind, gazing at the glories of the surf and foam, while we charged our car at a convenient electric charging point (the North East have lots of these, almost all free; a point in the region’s favour).  Nice to see it again.  Much improved.  No, wouldn’t like to live there, however.  So onward to British West Hartlepool.

If we have gained a reputation in our travels for never quite finding a suitable drinking hole despite exhaustive and convoluted searches, then this could be complemented by our inability to find an electric car charging point.  Seaham excepted, we often scour obscure places for somewhere to charge the car, even though we don’t really need to.  And so it was in Hartlepool.  We drove hither and thither, up streets and down lanes, through car parks and round one-way systems, past tattoo parlours and dockside pubs containing rough sailors, burning up precious Joules in the process, in search of elusive charging points that my iPhone said should be there.  Eventually, we had to give up and so we headed for the maritime museum, identifiable in the distance by the tall masts of HMS TRINCOMALEE.  At least that was easy to find.

Well the museum was very impressive: a huge carpark (virtually empty) containing a 4.5” HA/LA gun mounting, some nice looking buildings, and HMS TRINCOMALEE towering over all, a bit like HMS VICTORY.   I swept in with enthusiasm, metaphorically rubbing my hands with glee at the thought of the smells of tar, manilla, and Brasso, and clambering up and down companionways once again.  And was promptly brought up with a round turn.  Inside was a large notice stating that the museum, dockside, and HMS TRINCOMALEE were closed for a private function all day.  One could, however, visit the museum of Hartlepool free of charge…Tempting though this offer was (they may still have had the corpse of the monkey), I opted out.   What a waste of a trip.

So we headed for South Shields, that well-known seaside town famous as the home of the first lifeboat and the birthplace of your correspondent, Horatio Shacklepin, Commander Royal Navy (Failed).  What a shabby town it has become since I let go the helm and left in 1969.  Litter blew to and fro in King Street, Marks and Spencer’s had closed, and Woolworths died long ago.  Grubby inhabitants in Sports Direct designer clothes loitered furtively in shop doorways.  Yet, the river front was much improved and we enjoyed a pleasant lunch in the Customs House, a building converted from the Merchant Navy Pool, where my father had been allocated his first tramp streamer back in 1936.  The vista that was once alive with shipping was completely changed.  Gone were the dirty coal staithes, ship repair yards, the fine cargo ships, the whalers, the tankers and the colliers.  In were slab-sided container ships, box-like car transporters and wedding-cake cruise ships.  Ah, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.  Of course, there is only so much excitement you extract from one town and, after dragging Jane away from Minchella’s Ice Cream Parlour (banned under the current diet) we headed back to the hotel.  That evening we dined with old friends in Durham at an excellent restaurant, demonstrating that fine cuisine in perfect ambience can still be had Up North.  And not a shell suit or toddler in sight.

Next day, Thursday, found us back with my brother and his wife so that I could literally take a walk down memory lane with my sibling.  Marion, his wife, cannot walk very far so Jane sister-in-law-sat and showed her our slides of The Grand Tour, an experience which, I dare say, had such a Lazarus-like effect on her constitution that she will be running in The Great North Run next year.  Colin and I had a good walk along the cliff tops and beach, and I was reminded, not for the first time, what a first class coastline my home town has, and what a wonderful playground it had been.  The town may have gone downhill, but the coast and river are as good as ever.

It was our last day in South Shields and so we thought we should dine with Colin and Marion again before leaving.  This time, the venue was to be a Greek/Italian/Croatian/Macedonian amalgam of a restaurant favoured by my brother because – you guessed it – it is part of his routine and he will not dine anywhere else (other than the carvery mentioned earlier).  He likes this restaurant because he can talk Serbo Croat with the waiters and, thus, obtain extra large portions of food (he really can speak Serbo Croat – it is a long story).  We have eaten there before and it is actually not at all bad.  This time they were in new, larger, premises and I was quite impressed by the decor, which was bright and airy and quite grand in a ‘Colosseum meets the Acropolis in the Adriatic’ ostentatious sort of way.  Here was a proper restaurant, where they served proper food and the clientele would be reasonably discerning (for South Shields).  Or so I thought.  

It was the balloons that set the alarm bells ringing, that and the screaming baby.  Yep, you’ve guessed it, we had walked right into a family birthday party.  Right next to where we were sitting was a long table set out like The Last Supper and sitting at it were several families with children of various ages, including a babe in arms.  I observed all this with a stoical air: few things surprise me any more when it comes to the restaurants that I frequent and children.  As it happens the little monkeys, occupied by large slices of pizza, were relatively subdued, but I was not fooled: they would soon get restless and I calculated that they would erupt at about the time we were served our main course.  Sure enough, it kicked off as I tucked into my sea bass: off their chairs, shrieking, chasing each other round the table, beating each other with balloons.  Bless their little hearts.  Amazingly, as our coffee came, the grown ups decisively paid their bill and the party dispersed, something that I observed with rising hope.  But the calm was short-lived: it turned out that there was a second children’s party going on in another part of the restaurant.  We left as the aftermath of that particular hurricane was blowing itself out. Oh Lord, why dost thou test me so?

And so onward to Bamburgh, our penultimate destination.  Up, up into deepest Northumberland – North of The River where, ‘tis said, they eat babies on Walpurgis Night.  But first, we were calling at Alnwick Castle, home of the Duke of Northumberland.   The entrance fee of £19 each seemed a bit steep, but we felt we should give it a go as it covered the gardens and the castle, and it was somewhere we had never been before.

Alnwick Castle Gardens were very well laid out, though perhaps late autumn was not the best time to visit.  The biggest drawback, however, was that the whole area had been given over to Halloween.   There were skulls in the shrubbery, witches hanging from the trees, demons peering out from battlements, and monsters lurking in the undergrowth; a scary dank cavern gave out hollow screams as we passed.  And everywhere were the nemesis.  It was half term in Northumberland, you see.  Bit of a miscalculation on our part.

The castle, famous for Black Adder and Harry Potter, inter alia, was very impressive.  Dark, asymmetric and rather forbidding, it sprawled across quite a large area on the outskirts of Alnwick.  It was your British Standard castle, in a way, with an outer bailey, inner bailey, ramparts, and keep – all structurally sound.  Entering the inner courtyard was a sobering experience: it was quite dark and forbidding; even slightly scary and oppressive.  I have never before been so conscious of a building’s gory history.  The interior was quite a contrast: it felt welcoming and warm and very much a family home (the Duke still lives there).  Taken overall, we were very impressed by Alnwick Castle and judged it good value for money.  We exited the fortifications straight into the town of Alnwick.

I had been to Alnwick before, but it was not quite as nice as I remembered it.  It was fine, but not quite as up-market as one might expect for the town linked to such a famous castle.  I was keen to visit the White Swan, an inn that was decorated with parts of the ornate staircase of RMS OLYMPIC, sister ship to the TITANIC, but we couldn’t find it (we did eventually see it as we left the town – too late).  Indeed, we had difficulty in finding anywhere that seemed decent to eat – Ye Olde English Tea Shoppe, that kind of thing.  Eventually we did find a pleasant enough café for lunch, though it was a bit cramped.  It was almost the only decent eatery in town.  Such a shame.  Thence to Bamburgh.

Our hotel proved to be a lovely old house set at the end of a long drive in extensive grounds about two miles from Bamburgh.  Budle Bay, an ‘area of natural beauty’, lay nearby and all around was farm land.  The public rooms comprised a large warm hall with a wood-burning stove, the dining room, and a combined drawing room with library annexe.  With the curious exception of the last room, it was all warm and very comfortable in the ‘country house’ style and blessedly quiet: all that could be heard was the ticking of the grandfather clock.  Excellent.  We had chosen the place on the basis of its reports and the fact that it took no children under 14 or dogs, and it was measuring up well.  W C Fields would have approved.  Our room was outside the main building, accessed from a courtyard: not normally our choice, but one of the few rooms that had a dedicated shower as opposed to a bath.  One advantage, apart from the shower, was that we did not have the baby elephant in the room above (such as we usually get in hotels); of course one disadvantage was that the memsahib had to scuttle across for meals, clutching onto her hair and skirt, lest her carefully prepared coiffure and modesty be disarranged by the brisk northerly wind and rain.  The room proved wonderfully warm and quiet, and we slept like tops every night, even almost over-sleeping and one occasion.

Of course, the hotel was not perfect.  Few places are for les Shacklepin, as we are very picky.  For example, you could not order a nice tea when you came back from a walk: you could order a cup of tea, or you could even (daringly) supplement that with a biscuit (for an additional fee);  but there was no option of a scone or sandwich or cake.  Another odd thing was that we had been allocated a dining time (1915) and were “required to be in the drawing room fifteen minutes before the allocated time for aperitifs and canapés”.  I was not comfortable with the word, “required”.  The only authorities that are allowed to “require” me to do anything are the Admiralty Board, my Commanding Officer (where applicable) and the memsahib (peace be upon her).  Still, an establishment that has rules cannot be all bad, as long as they are enforced.  We duly turned up in the drawing room at precisely 1900 and were served our ‘canapés’, which comprised four savoury biscuits.  Hmmm.  Drinks were quite expensive, with G+T or glasses of wine about £6, but the food proved to be very good: five courses of Michelin standard, including the amuse bouche and cleanse-the-palate sorbet.  Service was efficient and very friendly, if the (local) staff  were somewhat homespun.  But our fellow clientele! Oh, my dear.  The dress code for dining stated ‘smart casual’ and I debated, as one does these days, whether to define that as ‘with tie’ or ‘without tie’.  In the end I opted for smart open-necked shirt, sports jacket, slacks and casual shoes.  Clearly the rest of the diners had different interpretations.  The guests at one large table looked as if they had just come in from gardening as the men were wearing checked shirts with the sleeves rolled up, corduroy trousers, and scruffy trainers.  At another table sat a bricklayer, or perhaps a hod carrier who, resplendent with serpentine tattoo on his bare arms, was presumably taking a break from building a wall: he wore a rough denim work shirt, scuffed and faded jeans, and work boots.  And the wives were dressed just as badly, with not a skirt, dress or string of pearls in sight.  If this were not bad enough, it got worse as the days progressed: one bloke (he could have been a ‘blighter’) wore a white T shirt with a cardigan over it, jeans, and trainers, while another wore a ‘hoody’ with jeans, trainers and no socks.  Only on one table were an older gentleman and his wife dressed appropriately (no, it wasn’t me); he wore a tie on one night and a cravat the next.  Definitely a chap not a bloke.  I wore a tie on one night just to annoy the Gardening Club and we spent the best part of the evening staring at each other, like mutually exclusive visitors to a zoo.  Standards, standards, and such an insult (in my view) to the food, chef, staff and fellow guests.  Don’t these people ever change for the evening or dress up for special occasions?  What they wore (which was clearly no different from what they had worn during the day) would have been fine in the Dog and Duck, but it did not go with a fairly expensive country house hotel serving Michelin quality food at £33 a head.  It all seemed very odd: why hadn’t they booked in at the Dog and Duck?

The area proved excellent for walks that could be taken direct from the hotel and, on the first day, we took a circular route that took us across the fields, along Bamburgh beach, past the castle and back.  Bamburgh Castle, standing on its headland beside the beach, was as impressive as ever though it seemed quite benign compared to Alnwick.  It was younger, of course, having been built in its present form in the 19th century, though on the site of previous castles dating back to Viking times.  Estimated at eight miles, our first walk worked out as 12 miles in the final analysis and this brought forth a certain amount of disapprobation upon my head (“Is it a long walk?”. “Nay, surely not my dear, a mere eight miles if that”).  Jane thought that we had picked up a nice suntan, judging by our glowing faces, but I pointed out that it was more likely the fact that we had been finely abraded by the sand that had been blasting into us at 20 mph as we struggled along the beach at an angle of ten degrees to the vertical.  As ever, none of our walks proved uneventful.  One walk, through the marshes of the foreshore of Budle Bay, terminated in a ‘no public footpath’ sign and barbed wire at a time when the tide was flooding over our footsteps; trespass over several field, through two hedgerows and a detour to avoid woman-eating cows saved the day.  We also managed a hike to yet another castle: Dunstanburgh, high on the cliffs on a wind-swept headland south of Bamburgh.  It had been derelict for many centuries, and was approachable only by foot by way of a two-mile hike along the cliff tops; yet, bizarrely, it had a warm ticket office and shop, powered by a generator, with two staff huddling in it (the shop, not the generator).  There was an admission fee to the ruin, but this was not enforced as the ticket office was located, not at the entrance, but at the centre of the castle.  Most peculiar.  Despite its remoteness and dereliction, the castle and paths to it were packed with families, all heartily battling against the brisk easterly wind to read the admission price sign, grumble as only the British can do, then battle back again.  Tough nuts these Northumbrians.

A final walk, to nearby Belford across the main north/south railway line and busy A1, uncovered an interesting museum dedicated to prisoners of war held by the Japanese.  Among the wealth of information therein was the revelation that Singapore fell because of desertions and indiscipline of the Australian contingent among the defenders.  In the final hours they allegedly left their posts en masse, raped, murdered and pillaged through the city, and even shot a naval captain as he tried to stop them boarding one of the ships leaving the harbour,  Even their General, Gordon Bennett, legged it before the surrender.  I found this horrific a story a bit hard to believe and looked it up on the internet when we got back to the hotel.  Shockingly, it has an element of truth.  Previously secret papers have now been published revealing the full story, after being suppressed for obvious reasons, and it remains a very sensitive subject among Australians (who, it has to be said, suffered proportionally more casualties among Singapore’s defenders than the British).  I still think the loss of the island was predominantly down to British military incompetence, arrogance, and lack of preparedness, but this new information is very disturbing.  And General Bennett really did leg it and leave his men to it.

Those five days in Bamburgh simply whizzed by and, all-too-soon, it was time to leave the hotel and head south again.  Verdict on the hotel?  Mixed really, but generally very favourable.  In some ways it was a little bit of a paradox, with top cuisine for dinner on the one hand yet a very limited and mundane breakfast and no lunch or tea available; the look of a country house hotel, yet favoured by clientele who clearly saw it as a Guest House; warm bedrooms, yet an unheated drawing room that inhibited staying for after-dinner coffee.  And despite a month’s notice, the hotel made no special effort to cater for Jane’s food problems other than providing almond milk, and fruit salad for pudding.  But these are mere quibbles and curiosities.  Very much in the hotel’s favour was its peace and quiet, lovely friendly staff, and good food.  We would certainly stay again but, perhaps, next time would bring a pair of dungarees for wear at dinner.

It is amazing that one of the main arterial roads from England to Scotland, the A1, withers away to an ordinary two carriageway road north of Alnwick.  The initial part of our southward journey was like a trip down memory lane as we crawled at 40 mph in a long queue of traffic behind caravans, horse boxes and lorries.  Eventually, however, we entered the sprawl of Tyneside and the road opened out.  Soon we were bowling on to our interim stop near Chesterfield, where we were to take rest and change the horses.

We had stayed at our Derbyshire hotel before and we had been impressed then: it is a modern hotel in the Derbyshire Dales, attached to a traditional pub, where the meals are served.  This time it did not disappoint either.  We had a large splendid room with a dressing room and walk-in shower and – for the first time ever – I was able to charge the car overnight using the hotel facilities.  This last revelation surprised the hotel Reception staff too, as they didn’t know the hotel had the relevant power points; I only knew by way of an App on my iPhone.  Dinner and breakfast were excellent and we wished we could have stayed longer.  Perhaps another time, when we will do some walking in the Dales.  And I didn’t mention that squalling baby and those hyperactive toddlers once.

And so to home via the Fosse Way: normally an excellent route that avoids motorway jams and frustrations, but this time severely congested at Stow on the Wold (that Half Term problem again).  It was so congested, in fact, that we took a mammoth detour via Burford and Bibury to avoid the traffic.  Still, we saw a bit of the Cotswolds, even if we did arrive home an hour later than expected.  All in all it had been a very pleasant nine days, but it had passed in the blink of an eye, like all holidays.  Where next, I wonder?

Finis

Blog 27. Hamburg in QUEEN VICTORIA.

HAMBURG

Day 1 – Wednesday 3 January

Well here we are again, gluttons for punishment, off on a mini cruise to Hamburg.  This time we are sailing in the good ship QUEEN VICTORIA as part of a plan to try out other Cunard ships.   Heaven knows why, as it is not as if we can afford any more huge expenditure for holidays.  

With typical Shacklepin planning and luck, we managed to pick a voyage that coincided with the tail end of Storm Eleanor and, not for the first time, I wondered why we had arranged a holiday to a cold place across the North Sea in January.  Of course, the answer was that it gave Jane a break, and me a further opportunity to integrate with my fellow man once more, and practise one of those New Year Resolutions of being less misanthropic.  Well, we can all try.

Embarkation was a little more long-winded than we were used to, with long queues and delays.  Certainly the ‘priority boarding’ advertised for us privileged Princess Grill World Club Gold Card passengers did not seem much in evidence; maybe everyone else in the queue carried the same badge, with the steerage passengers loaded by a coaling chute somewhere else, lower down, on the opposite side.  Glancing around at my future shipmates (surely not also Princess Grill?), I could not resist a raised eyebrow at the gentleman with the football scarf and what appeared to be the Scunthorpe and District Trans Shot-Putting Team.  There were quite a few single-sex couples too – well, more than you get on Melbury High Street – and we wondered idly what attracted them to this particular voyage.  I also noted, with some disquiet, several toddlers.  It dawned on me, rather too late, that short cruises were probably popular with the more (how can I put it) salt-of-the-earth flat-voweled members of the British population because they were relatively cheap.  This was a lesson I should have learned from Australia, where people embarked for short trips around the coast, occupied the (normally) more expensive cabins, and lowered the average IQ.  Hey ho, can’t have everything.

Our cabin, 6102 on the port side, was good, but somewhat more cramped than in QUEEN MARY 2, being long and narrow.  The bathroom was quite small and really could only accommodate one person unless the other one sat in the bath.  There was, however, a dressing room, and a pleasant sitting area with sofa and bar at the far end.  Bizarrely, there were two televisions (one for bed and one for sitting), though this was a dubious advantage as nothing of note was being shown.  No change there then.  Pleasingly, a bottle of sparkling wine on ice awaited us, together with chocolates and strawberries: a nice touch befitting Gold Card (soon to be Platinum) Demi Gods such as we.  Unlike last year, Jane could enjoy both, but she was remarkably restrained.  

After a brief luncheon, we explored the ship.  The first thing we noticed about QUEEN VICTORIA was how much more compact she was compared to QUEEN MARY2: she was definitely much easier to explore as, quite simply, there were fewer places to visit and less distance to cover.  The decor was (as you might expect) Victorian, but every bit as good as QM2 though, inevitably, the ship lacked the grand scale and majesty of her larger sister.  The theatre, occupying three decks and incorporating traditional boxes, looked grander and more conventional, and we preferred it.  The bars, on the other hand, seemed cramped as if stuffed into thoroughfares against the ship’s side as an afterthought.  Mrs Shacklepin declined to walk around the upper deck, so more on the ship’s fittings, davits and general deck maintenance later.

The safety brief was better than the one on QM2, as they checked everyone off as they arrived in the assembly area – something they did not do in QM2.  I always wondered, on the previous voyage, how they knew that everyone had been evacuated from their cabins.  We sailed at 1650: an odd time to one used to sailing on the hour precisely, and gently made our way down the channel in the dark.  We were warned that it would get stormy at about 1800 as we exited the Solent but, in fact, the movement was not marked (or didn’t seem that way to me).  I am delighted to report that dining in the Princess Grill restaurant, high on Deck 11, was an absolute delight:  exclusive access via a special lift key, huge picture windows looking out over the sea, people properly dressed (some men even wearing ties), and excellent cuisine.  I actually felt a little under-dressed in Naval Dog Robbers, as most other men wore suits.  Oh dear.  Food-wise, I started with crab and crayfish cocktail and Jane had crab cannelloni; we both followed this with turbot.  What started as the intention of a sensibly cautious glass of white wine became an entire and excellent bottle of chilled hock.  See how one of our News Year’s Resolutions fell at the first post.  The show that evening was the ‘New Amen Corner’, a pop group playing a confection of 1960s pop music that I rather enjoyed, but which Jane declared merely as ‘all right’ (damned by faint praise).  We almost went dancing, as our route aft from the theatre took us through the ballroom, but we were fairly zonked by that time and the clocks were going forward that night, so we retired to bed.  There then followed the best night’s sleep both of us had had for months.

Day 2 – Thursday 4 January 2018.

Thursday dawned late on a flat grey North Sea, position roughly between Norfolk and Holland, sea state calm to moderate, 9C, drizzle.  Having almost over-slept, we took a leisurely breakfast in our greenhouse on the top deck then tried out a few lounges where we could relax and read The Times.  We are, after all, on holiday.

Now here’s a funny thing.  What is it with these men sitting in a restaurant and wearing a hat?  We first noticed in The Gainsborough back home, but here they are onboard doing it again.  It looks bizarre and uncouth.  Didn’t their mummies ever tell them that ladies wear hats indoors and gentlemen take them off?  Definitely not PLU.  Of course, it occurs to me later, they may carry that Excuse Card that explains everything: a badge that says ‘Foreign’.  American, perhaps, or German.  That’s all right then.

Jane has the cruise bug again.  Not the tummy-ache one, but the expensive one.  She has decided that she likes this life of good sleeps, top cuisine, doing nothing but people watching and generally chilling out.  So part of the morning was spent looking at trips to New York and back in the QUEEN MARY 2.  We looked at the prices.  Ouch.  Far cheaper to serve as a deckhand on your husband’s yacht and visit Staines on Thames, I said, and received a sharp look in reply.  Nothing, apparently, is that bad.  What it is to be Captain Bligh, but I like to think that I bear the burden stoically:  just one of God’s little soldiers fighting the skirmishes of life and surviving most, with the optimistic hope that someone will buy me a drink.

After lunch in the eerie, we took a further stroll round the internals of the ship, rather as a tourist visits the zoo.  This time we wandered through the Lido Restaurant to eye up the decor and the customers and to try to find what the latter found so attractive about a buffet restaurant that we equated to a works canteen.  You see, I have never liked self-service restaurants since I was a Cadet in HMS SKEGNESS where the food was served onto a single stainless steel tray with little compartments for the food.  I can still remember how the soup poured into the custard and the custard into the gravy as I staggered back to the messdeck to eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in a Force 8 gale.  I shudder at the memory.  Anyway, looking at the Lido with its quite pleasant, light, and airy feel, we could – at last – see the attraction.  The food was plentiful and  was not served on stainless steel trays.  It covered a wide range of options, looked good, and could be revisited for seconds as often as one wished.  Looking at some of the clientele, the latter opportunity had been adopted several times.  And there it is.  We had eaten a very light lunch in the style of nouvelle cuisine and felt a bit guilty; others preferred something more hearty and had no conscience or control at all.

After the zoo visit I exited to the after deck where, to my amazement, people were disporting themselves in the outdoor pool in the cold and drizzle.  Judging by the steam coming off, the pool was heated but, all the same, I ask you.  You can’t beat the British for making the most of a holiday.  Mustn’t grumble.

As the mist and drizzle descended outside and the temperature dropped, Jane and I repaired to bed for an afternoon snooze, which we later revived with a glass of yesterday’s chilled sparkling wine.  What? But my dear chap, what else was there to do?  As I said earlier, we were on holiday.  Hamburg tomorrow, in the rain and sleet.  Of which more later.

Day 3 – Friday 5 January 2018

Alongside in Hamburg, port side to. 6C.  Overcast with rain showers.  Wind Force 5 from the north west.

We spent a very relaxing evening last night as there were no shows worth watching and the lecture programme is very sparse.  After our rack of lamb, which was cooked at the table, we indulged in a little Latin American dancing and then just drifted around the communal areas listening to classical music.  I am pleased to report that, after my disparaging comments on embarkation day about our fellow passengers they have – after all – come up trumps in terms of evening dress.  Paradoxically, the general sartorial standard exceeds that of QM2 and almost everyone has made a significant effort to look smart.  We only saw one tee shirt and jeans ensemble and the wearer stood out markedly.  There are no formal nights on our four-day trip, but some women still wore long dresses, and some men wore dinner jackets.  I am embarrassed to report that I looked a bit of a scruff in comparison (knew I should have brought that plum-coloured smoking jacket and the Paisley cravat), though Jane, as ever, looked chic.  Of course, some women’s ideas of what looks good do vary (‘Is that tight dress from ten years ago really the best idea, dear?  You look like a badly squeezed tube of toothpaste’; ‘Hmmm, white shoes with black tights – no dear’; ‘Blimey, look at that backside – it looks like the helicopter landing platform of an oil rig’).  On the whole, though, a very good effort.  It is not often that people take any notice of my criticisms and I am very impressed that the word has got out.  Pity it didn’t reach that fat weirdo in shorts, tee shirt and sandals whom we passed on Deck 2 by The Golden Lion pub this morning.  Wonder if he’s from Melbury?

Apropos nothing at all, by the way, we have noticed another difference from our last Cunard voyage, and this is the dearth of hand sanitisers.  In QM2 these dispensers were everywhere: at lift lobbies, at entrances to all public rooms and theatres, by all external doors, and – prominently – at entry to all restaurants.  Sanitising hands several times became second nature as we walked around the ship.  With the exception of the last location, this is not the case in QUEEN VICTORIA.  Most curious.

My smug euphoria at dining in the exclusive Princess Grill Restaurant high on Deck 11, which is accessed only by special lift key issued to Grill passengers, is severely tempered by the fact that our blasted keys don’t work.  We have therefore been forced to exit the lift on Deck 9 with the hoi polloi visiting the Lido Buffet, and complete the remaining two decks by foot.  Thus, we stagger into our discreet bijou bistro huffing and puffing like climbers on Everest needing oxygen.  This is not at all the sort of entrance that we would wish to make.  Must get those key cards re-programmed.  By the way, we tried to get our cards changed to Platinum yesterday, having now completed the requisite total 70 nights onboard a Cunarder, but the privilege does not kick in until our return to UK.  This is very poor.  I expected at least another hat.

Amazingly, last night I saw two guests sporting their World Club Gold Badges in their lapels like school prefects.  I joke about it, but they seem to take it seriously.  Not sure where our badges are, actually.  Perhaps I should have sought them out before joining the ship: we might have received more bowing and scraping as we swept our way around the ship, but somehow I doubt it.  Weird. 

Hamburg: the birthplace of Brahms, Mendelssohn and the fried mince patty in a bap; the second largest city in Germany after Berlin and the second largest port in Europe after Rotterdam;  the home of the Reeperbahn beloved of many a sailor seeking a lady’s comforts and a city with more bridges than Amsterdam and Venice combined.  The city also claims to have the most millionaires in the whole of Germany.  A tour should be interesting.

We came alongside in Hamburg at 0700 after a long transit up the River Elbe that took about eight hours.  We missed all of that, of course, but there was nothing to see in the dark anyway.  In contrast to the previous night, neither of us slept well and – exceptionally – Jane’s tummy was playing up again (as was mine).  We concluded that it was either the cheese or the rare lamb from the previous night’s dinner.  As we blearily gazed out at Hamburg from our breakfast table on Weathertop it became quite clear that this place was going to be cold.  We saw a grey sky, a grey city skyline, a grey harbour, and plumes of white water vapour streaming horizontally from various factory chimneys.  Flags cracking and whipping viciously in the wind completed the bleak picture.  For once, we had come equipped for the weather and I wore thermal underwear under several other layers but, even so, it was distinctly fresh standing in the bus queue waiting for the shuttle bus.  As per the normal pattern, our original plan was simply to walk off the ship and find the city.  However, this seemed impractical when it was revealed that even the shuttle would take 25 minutes to reach the city centre.  And so it proved:  it took a good 15 minutes to get out of the heavily industrialised dock area on the bus, let alone to penetrate the city proper.

Oddly, we had to pass through passport control when disembarking – so much for the EU all-of-one-company ethos; we never had to do that in European ports before in QM2, but here we did.  We had the reverse procedure when we returned too, but the immigration staff were very friendly both times and did not demand, ‘Your papers plis’.  I was careful not to mention The War.

Shortly after getting off the bus we were accosted by a German lady asking how to get to the Rathaus.  Doesn’t this always happen when you are a stranger in a city?  I always find it amazing.  I could, at least, reply in German that I was sorry but, unfortunately, I was an Englishman and couldn’t help.   This impressed the memsahib no end, natürlich, and I swaggered onward with a spring in my step before stepping into a large German puddle and rather spoiling the whole effect.

We quite enjoyed Hamburg.  It was clean, orderly, and well laid out, with the graffiti confined to the docks area where the ragged people go.  We trudged up streets and across canals in the driving rain; we explored shopping precincts that were mostly deserted; we contemplated the Binnen Alster, a large internal lake that looked as inviting as the Arctic; we missed out the Reeperbahn, lest Jane be too shocked by the German ladies.  It all seemed jolly nice.  But we were getting wetter and wetter and, as had been predicted long ago, a northern German city was never going to be a pleasant visit in January.  So, after an hour or so, we coincidentally found ourselves back at the bus stop with a shuttle bus just about to leave.  We looked at each other (as best one can through rain-drenched spectacles) and came to an unspoken agreement.  Onto the bus, and back to the ship.  So that was Hamburg: litter, Nil; Shacklepin graffiti factor 10%; men on skateboards, Nil; tramps, 2; jackboots, Nil.  Must come in the summer next time.

We disembarked a few Germans, and embarked a few, in Hamburg.  QUEEN VICTORIA is, apparently, proceeding on to Miami and South America after dropping us off in Southampton.  That should be quite a contrast after this trip.

We sailed at 1900, next stop good old Blighty where our friends are pining for us even as I write.   Dinner, taken as the ship made her way down the 80 miles or so of the River Elbe, was lovely as we were able to look out at the beautifully houses on the river bank close by, all illuminated by Christmas lights.  Delightful.

Must go as Jane has just seen me in that thermal underwear and has a distinct twinkle in her eye.  Never turn up an opportunity, however brief. 

Day 4 – Saturday 6 January 2018

Mainly overcast. 9C.  Wind Force 7, increasing 8,  from the north.  Speed 16, Course south west.  At noon we were roughly level with Skegness and 40 miles off the Dutch coast.

As we are still on Alpha time, one hour ahead of the UK, dawn came at about 0855.  The concept of getting up in the dark on holiday was not well received by either of us and we debated whether to skip breakfast altogether.   Unlike the last voyage, this trip has no lectures and no daily shows or films of any interest so there was not much to get up for.  However, I persuaded Jane out of bed with tea and a promise of a hearty walk around the upper deck.  The first incentive sort-of worked, the second failed miserably.  As further encouragement, some sailor had turned to with a chipping hammer and was beating hell out of a piece of rust three decks above.  Full marks for hull maintenance, none for timing.  We got up.

Dawn, viewed from our high breakfast venue, revealed a busy seascape, for the North Sea has become quite populated since I last viewed it from a ship’s bridge (circa 1968).  I never did steam up the east coast during my bridge time of General Naval Training, you see, and the remainder of my professional career was spent staring at quivering gauges in the bowels of various warships.  Since 1968 (when I sailed with my father) North Sea oil has been discovered and the increased number of ships passing on the sea on their lawful occasions has meant the institution of a lane system in the North Sea and Dover Strait.  Thus, we (and several other ships) were heading south west in one lane at various speeds and overtaking each other, with another collection of vessels doing the same thing, but heading north east, in the other lane nearest the Dutch coast.  To add excitement, other ships were cutting across the lanes in both directions.  Sprinkled in this frothing mêlée of hurrying merchant ships was a motley collection of static oil rigs, visible on all points of the compass.  Overall, quite a navigational challenge I would say, but thankfully not my problem.

The day was spent drifting around and reading iPads, pretty much bored stiff.  No lectures, no activities worth doing, no cinema.  We might as well be on a cross channel ferry.  Frustrated, I agreed to meet Jane at the cabin and took a stroll on the upper deck in the rain.  I quite enjoyed it: QUEEN VICTORIA has some good areas for sunbathing (not today) with useful sheltered spots and shaded areas.  She also has two to three exclusive terraces for the Great and the Good, high up around, and on top of, the Grills Restaurants.  As earlier, a few hardy souls were wallowing in the jacuzzis, pretending that it was not January in the North Sea.  I would have stayed up longer, but the rain became quite heavy so I repaired to the cabin.  But there was no Jane.  Where could she be?  Floating two miles astern?  Finally ended it all after 35 years of nervous exhaustion?  I shrugged and settled down to read a book.  Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door.  I opened it and Jane shot in, spitting like a scalded cat.  It seemed that her door key had ceased to work and so she had been wandering round the internals of the ship like the Flying Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas forever.  It was not clear to me why she simply had not had the card replaced by the Purser’s Office, but wisely I desisted from asking.

We skipped lunch but, by 1430, regretted the decision and agreed to take afternoon tea instead.  This proved to be most enjoyable.  Taken high in the Grills Restaurant, with lovely views of the shipping, the meal comprised the traditional sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, jam and cake, all washed down with Twinings tea.  I think I must have consumed my normal year’s quota of sugar in just one sitting.  Ho hum, it is not something we do often.

So, as the twilight closed in on our last day we took stock of our latest ship, and compared her with our last voyage.  The general view was that she was good in parts.  We liked the exclusive access to the Grills Restaurants and Lounge, and the location of the venues themselves, high up on Deck 11.  Unlike QM2, the main promenade deck did not pass by the windows so we were not subjected to the stares and glares of passers by as we ate.  The QV restaurant also had significantly better views of the sea.  The theatre in QV was preferred and the evening standard of dress of passengers was an improvement.  On the other hand, our cabin, bathroom and balcony were noticeably smaller than those in QM2, being about the same size as a Britannia Club cabin in the latter vessel.  The bars and spaces also seemed less luxurious, more cramped, and (shall we say) somewhat homespun in clientele.  The lecture and entertainment programme this time was dire, but that might simply be a function of the brevity of the voyage. Ditto the clientele.  Taken overall, we think we preferred QUEEN MARY 2.  As to whether we will take another voyage well, only time will tell.  Wonder what we did with that lottery ticket?

Back alongside in Southampton tomorrow at 0700, and we will be off shortly after, carrying our own luggage.  I expect the house is freezing but, never mind, it is home.

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……..

Blog 25. Return from Australia. Limassol, Messina and Naples

Day109

Friday 28 April.  At Limassol, Cyprus.  28ºC, Wind Force 2 from S.  Bizarrely, we put the clocks forward last night, bucking the westward trend and throwing into question why we had put them back, just for the transit of the canal, where we did not go ashore.

Cyprus hove into view on a hazy dawn at about 0600: a land of brown, low, undulating hills with Limassol a sprawling mass of modern buildings visible on the shoreline.  My first impression was of a typical Mediterranean port that could just as easily have been the Côte d’Azur as Cyprus: quite pretty, with the characteristic low stone breakwaters topped by small lighthouses.  Our destination was the container port, but it was not an unpleasant berth, though it was a very awkward one.  Imagine, if you will, an almost perfect square, of bottom side only just longer than QM2 and that is to be our berth.  Now imagine a corvette moored on the lower left hand side of the square and a container ship moored on the upper right side of the square   Our approach was from the upper left corner of the square, passing left to right, and we had to enter, turn through 180 degrees, and come alongside at the bottom facing to the left.  It was very tight indeed, and our bows towered over the corvette when we had finished.  Very nifty.

We had an early breakfast and dashed off ashore shortly after 0900.  We had high hopes for Limassol and wanted to get back into the café culture that we had not quite managed in the mysterious East.  We could possibly have walked, but the centre of the town was about two miles away, no pavements were visible, and time was short, so we decided to take the shuttle.  Well, I must say, the traffic was pretty fierce and it took us a while to get through the narrow streets – almost as bad as La Réunion – but we made it in the end and disembarked at the old fishing harbour.  Off we set at the usual Shacklepin Bracing Walk into the inner city.

First impressions were not entirely encouraging.  We knew from our map where the centre of town and the shopping district were, and our route took us through what we thought were some doubtful backstreets, but which later turned out to be main streets.  Graffiti was everywhere, and we were both reminded of Tenerife.  I wonder if the Greeks invented graffiti?  Certainly the Romans suffered from it and it is one of those things that, sadly, has endured over the centuries.  The shopping street, when we found it, was somewhat unprepossessing and we kept wondering if we had the right place.  The usual U-boat box search was implemented and we confirmed that, yes, those were the only shops; not that we wanted to buy anything: we just wanted the centre of town.  The shops weren’t bad: the usual European brands like Topshop, Mango, but no big stores.  Never mind, we decided to just wander around from there and to make our way slowly to the promenade, which was reportedly splendid.   Traffic was pretty awful and getting across roads was difficult because there were few pedestrian crossings.  But we finally found some quiet streets and meandered through them to the coast road.

The coast road was much nicer, hosting a range of modern buildings that housed cafés, bars, contemporary flats and hotels.  We set our course east, and started to walk.  It was very pleasant if you disregarded the traffic roaring by, and we finally found a large Debenhams (did not enter).   There was speculation that Jane could also sense Marks & Spencer nearby – some kind of disturbance in The Force – and there was talk of following the scent, but I managed to discourage her.  After about an hour of heading in the general direction of Israel our tongues were starting to hang out, so we decided to seek a suitable hostelry on the promenade, across the road, as we made our way back.  Now our reputation for searching for an alcoholic drink in a busy port, without quite finding the right bar, is becoming notorious, and comparisons have been made with people who could not organise a drinking party in an establishment designed specifically to brew beer.  We rejected several places because their clientele clearly included people from QM2, and others because they seemed to contain rough men in singlets sitting on plastic chairs.  Eventually, however, we did find a very nice little bistro and we sat at a table under a sunshade, watching the ships at anchor in the offing and drinking half a bottle of the local rosé as we ate a light lunch.  Jane would have had an ice cream too but, unfortunately, by that time we had become invisible – shades of Port Campbell all over again (see Blog 16) – so we moved on. The meal, by the way, was very reasonable: €19.50.  We enjoyed a very pleasant long walk along the promenade in the sunshine and decided that Limassol wasn’t so bad after all, and that the climate was just right.  We were not sure if we would want to come to Cyprus for a holiday; we really had not seen enough of the island to form an opinion.  We did note that the beach was a dirty grey colour – the colour of cement mortar – and that was a bit off-putting, but the sea did look nice and clear.  Jane tried the temperature and declared it ‘not as warm as Bondi Beach’.

Eventually, we made it back to the shuttle stop and repaired back onboard.  We had been walking for five hours or so, so I make that eight miles when you omit the lunch.  We were not inclined to take further exercise.  We put Limassol down as one of our best runs ashore, despite the graffiti and the shabby streets.

We spent the late afternoon on our balcony watching the activity in the port.  A stern-loading vehicle ferry came in and executed a Mediterranean moor on the right hand side of the basin, that is, she dropped both anchors and backed into the jetty, so that she was moored sticking out of the jetty at ninety degrees.  The corvette (which turned out to be Russian) sailed and was towed out into the centre of the basin by tugs, which even Jane thought was very poor: you would never see a Royal Navy frigate do that; she would manoeuvre out under her own steam.  Notwithstanding that, the corvette looked very smart, modern and impressive, with a medium calibre gun (possibly 80mm), a missile silo for vertically launched missiles (type unknown), and a flight deck.  I must look her up when I get back to UK.  A Russian hospital ship called IRTYSH came in to the berth that the corvette had vacated, identifiable by being white, with an orange stripe and orange crosses on the hull.  Heaven knows what she was doing in Cyprus, unless it was something to do with the fighting in Syria.

We were prevented from sailing on time, because of a delay in being granted clearance by the port authorities.  Apparently some paperwork handed over 30 minutes before the planned sailing time had been lost, which does not paint too good a picture of Cyprus as an efficient country.  However, we did sail eventually and the manoeuvres for exit were, if anything, even more difficult:  the Captain now had a large hospital ship under the bow where the corvette had been, and a large ferry sticking out of the jetty on the right with submerged anchor cable projecting beyond his bows.  But he did it beautifully as ever and we gave the customary blasts of the siren as we left Limassol.

Run-down on Limassol?  Skateboarders, NIL; Dog Muck, NIL; Dogs, NIL; Litter Factor, 5%; Graffiti Factor, 90%; Cleanliness, 40%; Irritating Motorcyclists Speeding at Full Volume, 3; Traffic Factor, 60%.  Would we come again?  Maybe.

Day 110

Saturday 29 April.  20ºC, wind Force 3 from W, sea Slight.  Course  W.  On passage to Messina.  Position at 1200C: 34deg 32N 28deg 3E,  roughly 66nm south of the Greek island of Pathos.

We woke late.  I had originally woken at 0500 but was under threat of death if I woke Jane again before her due time, so I forced myself back to sleep again.  Result: a dash to breakfast before it closed.  Never mind, it is Saturday, and we are on holiday.

Our first serial of the day was a talk by our civil engineer lecturer (he of the canals), who was giving a talk about the strategic importance of Gibraltar where he had served as the MOD Civil Engineer.  I thought I knew Gibraltar reasonably well, but our lecturer produced some additional gems that I was not aware of.  In 1951 an ammunition ship, RFA (Royal Fleet Auxiliary) BEDENHAM in the harbour, blew up after a fire, and parts of the ship were blown right over the top of the rock.  The town suffered significant damage, seven people were killed, and resulted in the MOD decreeing that ammunition ships were no longer to be allowed in the harbour; instead, a new jetty would be built on the sheer east side of The Rock, with access to it gained by tunnel.  The downside of this decision was that the new jetty was badly exposed to the seas and it suffered repeated damage, but a solution was eventually found.  A further anecdote was about the airport runway, which runs east-west between the Rock and the border with Spain, the only runway in the world that is crossed by a road, and something of a challenge to aviators because of its narrow approach caused by closed Spanish airspace to the north and the very solid Rock to the south. In the early 1980s, one of our lecturer’s staff reported to him that he had had to fill in a depression in the runway, perhaps a yard in diameter, almost on a daily basis.  It was decided that they would have to excavate below the depression to investigate the cause of the subsidence.  The cause, when it was found, was related to the Rock’s history.  Before WW2 when the airfield was built, a popular pastime was horse racing, and the racecourse was located where the airfield now is.  It was customary, when a racehorse died, to bury it on the racecourse and what the team found by excavation was the skeleton of such a horse, whose rib cage had been supporting that part of the runway for more than forty years.  A final revelation was of hidden cells in the top of the rock, only discovered in 1997. They were created secretly in WW2 with enough food and water supply to last a year, and it was intended that they be manned, in the event of Gibraltar falling to the enemy, to act as a monitoring post.

Serial two was our Islam lecturer, this time talking about the Crusades – an anachronistic term, as it was not used until many centuries later.  As ever, he was good at putting things into context and he started by railing against those in the present day who are apologists for the Crusades.  He made a point of explaining that the Crusades were not so much an attempt to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land from a peaceful people entrenched in Islam, as a response to the dangerous expansion of Islam and invasion of Christian lands throughout the whole Mediterranean, including Spain and the Balkans.  Although – ultimately – the Crusades failed, the Arabs, even today, regard the attempt as a humiliation and are very sensitive about it.  For this reason, it is a term best avoided, even in the generic non-capitalised, sense when dealing with Muslims.

We loafed all afternoon, trying to recover from the succession of early starts and the long hot day yesterday.  It was noticeable that the steamer chairs on the promenade deck were not quite so occupied as before, though there were still some diehards on the top-most deck trying to get that last tan.  It was reasonably warm if you stayed in the shelter of the superstructure, but if you stood in the wind it was freezing: 19 degrees C.

Before dinner we enjoyed cocktails with two of our fellow guests from the dining room which was, inevitably, a lively precursor to dinner.  We were offered a special deal for some sort of cocktail event tomorrow, five different cocktails and as may of them as you can manage in 45 minutes, all for $25 each.  We declined.  Who on earth can sink back five cocktails and remain standing?  Quite a few people, one assumes.

Day 111

Sunday 30 April.  18ºC.  Overcast. Wind Force 6 from W. Sea, Slight/Moderate.  Position at noon:  35 49N 20 46E.

We awoke to a grey sea, a grey sky, and distinctly cool temperatures.  There would be no difficulty getting a sun bed today if we wanted one.  As we crossed the open deck aft of our cabin on our way to breakfast we did not so much walk as skitter, and I wore a long sleeved shirt, a sweater and trousers.  I don’t think the shorts will be coming out again.

Sunday at sea, with not much to do.  We went to church, of course, and watched the last of the talks on the Crusades (head is still buzzing), but after that nothing was scheduled.  With parts of the upper deck out of bounds in an increasing wind, we certainly wouldn’t be taking a bracing walk. In the end we decided to just read our books.

Chatting to seasoned cruisers who have been onboard the other Cunard ships, we have discovered that the arrangements for Grill passengers are different in QUEEN ELIZABETH and QUEEN VICTORIA (they are sister ships with virtually identical layout).  In those ships the Queens Grill and Princess Grill restaurants are side by side on the top deck amidships, linked with the exclusive Grills Lounge, an enclosed outdoor Grills eating area, and a small pool to form an enclosed Grills complex like a sort of a fort on the top deck.  This complex is only accessible if you have the appropriate cabin key, which you fit into a slot in the lift.  Now that is more like it!  If we signed up for that we could avoid having to mix with the hewers of wood and drawers of water from Burnley to the maximum degree. I suppose we might have to see them if we went to the theatre, on a trip or ashore, but we could count that as part of the sightseeing: observing new cultures and  quaint plebeian ways, taking photographs and so on, before retreating back into our ivory tower.  I wonder if we can afford to do a trip in one of those ships?

The sea picked up again in the afternoon and evening, until it was blowing a Force 7 and the ship was pitching a little.  To my surprise, two fellow passengers from an adjacent table came down with seasickness; I didn’t think there was much motion at all.

Day 112

Monday 1 May.  Sunny, 20ºC.  Wind Force 3 from NE. Sea, Slight.  At Messina. 

Continuing our dance of the Hokey Cokey with the timezones, we put our clocks back one hour overnight.  So we are now only one hour ahead of UK.  A week to go before the end of The Grand Adventure.  Oh dear, I feel quite maudlin.

We picked up our pilot at 0630 as we steamed up the northbound channel of the Straits of Messina and, shortly afterwards, we swung sharply to port in a tight curve that took us into the southbound channel and the entrance to Messina harbour.  The island of Sicily – the largest island in the Mediterranean – was just beginning to be lit up by the rising sun, revealing the majestic green hills that surround Messina and (I am fairly sure) Mount Etna smouldering quietly in the background.  A typical Mediterranean port not unlike Limassol, Messina presented a picture from seaward of some fine architecture and prominent and impressive churches, supported by modest low-rise urban sprawl.  It has a long history, having variously been occupied by the Greeks, the Romans, the Saracens, the Normans, the Teutons, the Spaniards and the Neapolitans.  It was also the city where Richard the Lionheart is said to have married Berengaria on his way to the Third Crusade.  The town suffered from a severe earthquake in 1908 when 80,000 people – two thirds of the population – were killed and most of the present buildings, grand though they are, were rebuilt after that time.  The Strait of Messina, 22 miles long, is only 1½ miles wide at its narrowest point, and ferry traffic between Sicily and mainland Italy, via Messina and Villa San Giovanni or Reggio Calabria, is copious and busy.  It is perfectly feasible to build a road bridge across the Strait, and that has been mooted several times, but it is understood that the Mafia has a profitable interest in the ferry trade and that may explain the lack of progress on a bridge.

Our berth was a straightforward one in the sense that it was right on the harbour front in the centre of town, so getting ashore would be easy.  I wondered how the Captain would play it with regard to coming alongside, but soon found out: we entered the harbour, turned left initially, then hard right, pivoting through 180 degrees to come alongside port side to, effectively executing a Williamson Turn in the harbour (see Blog 8) .  That would make our departure much more straightforward, as all we would have to do would be to drive straight out.  

I forgot to mention, by the way, that our arrival was at 15ºC with a brisk north westerly wind blowing offshore.  Jane and I wore fleeces, sweaters and long trousers and still came in half frozen.  Meanwhile, our fellow passengers had sunk to new depths of sartorial style and behaviour: one woman was on deck wearing her pyjamas and a bathrobe, while her husband – for some bizarre reason – wore an anorak and sandals, but with a bath towel wrapped around his waist.  As Jane said, it would have been just as easy to have pulled on a pair of shorts.  Another old boy was up there wearing just a bathrobe and flip flops; sorry to have woken you.   I wondered, for a moment, if we were joining a Shipwreck Party, with everyone wearing what they had on when Abandon Ship was announced.  If I had known, I would have shown up wearing my silk dressing gown, monogrammed slippers and clutching a half-dhobied sock.

After breakfast, we dived ashore with our customary zeal and headed for the cathedral, the Doumo. It was an easy walk that took us up a steep hill and steps to give fine views of the city and the ship.  First impressions of Messina were of a nice Italian city with lovely architecture, all of it totally ruined by filthy streets, litter and yes, you’ve guessed it, graffiti everywhere.  Beautiful old buildings were covered in the stuff; even the trees had it carved into their bark.  It was such a shame.  Litter and dog mess also lay everywhere, even in the decent areas of town.  There seemed to be no escape. Jane wished a local street cleaner a ‘Bon Journo’ and he growled at her, snarling something in Italian that contained the word ‘privacy’; we can only assume that he thought she was taking a picture of him (when, in fact, she was trying to take a picture of a building without him getting in the way).  This was not a welcoming start to a new port.

We found some lovely squares or piazzas, one of which contained an amazing old astrological clock called the Campanile that performed all manner of operations at noon (irreverently, I was reminded of the Guinness Clock that used to be driven round different towns in Britain in the 1960s).  Eventually, we tracked down the main shopping district, which was quite pleasant, with wide tree-lined avenues, reasonable shops, and what appeared to be a regular and modern tram service.  Unfortunately, everywhere was shut, for it was a Public Holiday.  Shades of Tenerife all over again (Blog 1).  We explored for some time, eventually looking for a little café or bar where we could order a coffee and watch the world go by but, of the few places open, most contained fellow guests from QM2 and were full, and the remainder were right next to noisy busy roads and in the shade.  Jane wanted an Italian ice cream (it features high up there in her ambitions, along with penguins, wombats and dolphins), but nowhere seemed to be open.  So we just drifted aimlessly, taking in the local culture and lots of pictures. Finally, more by chance than by any fixed plan, we found ourselves on the harbour front some way astern of QM2.  By unspoken agreement we just drifted back onboard, I took Jane up to the Godiva Chocolate Emporium, and bought her a chocolate sundae.  It proved to be enormous: enough for four people and, of course, she couldn’t finish it.  I had to step in to uphold the family honour.  Never mind, she enjoyed it, though my shirt buttons didn’t.

It had warmed up quite a bit by the time we returned onboard provided you were in the sunshine; in the shade, it remained cool and you sensibly would wear a sweater.  Nevertheless, the sun worshippers were out in force again on the upper deck, trying desperately to make their brown skin black before we reached UK.  We sat out briefly too, but the wind became irritating and we moved off to the Commodore Club, there to read in peace and watch the ever-changing harbour-scape.  I noticed that the wind had veered from the west to the north east, blowing us on to the shore and setting up a dainty little chop on the blue waves of the harbour; perhaps the passage north to Naples will be a lively one.

Sailing from Messina was quite an event and not quite as straightforward as I had envisaged earlier in the day.  Shallow water lay immediately ahead, so we had to move sideways off the berth a fair distance, almost to the outer mole, before moving forward out of the harbour.  Then we had to contend with a three knot current funnelling down the Strait while cutting across to the far side of the channel to be in the correct lane for vessels travelling north.  After that, progress up the remaining stretch of the Strait of Messina was spectacular as we were only about a mile off the coast of Italy, so close that you could hear children’s voices and music and see people on the shore clearly.  The towns looked lovely, some in lovely little bays with fishing boats drawn up on the beach.  They were all joined by a majestic railway and road system that swept along the shore, in and out of mountain tunnels, and across wide viaducts and bridges over the valleys.  It made the Dart Valley Railway look rather tame in comparison.  Finally, off a town called Scilla (I think) we dropped the pilot and entered the Tyrrhenian Sea, setting course for Naples.

Stromboli.  Somehow, even the very name conjures up an image of a vast, powerful beast that slumbers quietly with hidden menace and is best not awakened.  We passed only a mile off the volcanic island on our port side at 1930 and thought it ominous, smouldering and quite threatening in its solitary majesty.  The most active volcano in the world, Stromboli nevertheless has 500 inhabitants on the island.  Heaven knows why they stay or what they do: fishing I imagine.  

Day 113

Tuesday 2 May.  Mostly sunny, 22ºC. Light airs.

We arrived in Naples quietly, and without fuss, at 0630 and moored port side to against the cruise ship terminal.  For once, we didn’t witness it, unless you count watching ‘the view from the bridge’ on the TV.  I have never liked Naples – a dislike dating from my first visit when I was a Midshipman, for reasons long forgotten.

We had booked an excursion to Herculaneum while in Naples, but that was not scheduled until the afternoon so we had the forenoon to see a bit of Naples.  Divesting ourselves of watches, jewellery, iPhones, wallets and purses we duly set off into the city after breakfast.  The port was extremely busy and I counted two other cruise ships and about ten ferries, the latter all Mediterranean moored in the traditional fashion.  Say what you like about the Italians, but they do design some fine looking ships.

Naples proved to be not as bad as I remembered it from 47 years ago, which is progress I suppose.  Three large forts dominated the port and the rest of the city was sprinkled with many churches and domes.  The city was busy, bustling, noisy and faintly chaotic on the roads, but it revealed some beautiful ancient architecture and delightful narrow lanes paved with cobbles.  The inner city had few cars, but instead had hundreds of scooters that weaved their way among the pedestrians in a series of mad homicide missions.  So far so good (if you disregard the near death by scooter).  The downside was that the streets were filthy with litter and dog mess, and every building – even the beautiful medieval ones and the churches – was covered in scrawl.  I realise that I am beginning to sound like a damaged record on the subject, but I promised myself when I started these writings to be as objective as possible and besides, it is only fair to those places that received a slating earlier in the voyage.  What an absolute shame to see this city, the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Cities for 700 years, defaced in such a cavalier fashion.  We never found the main shopping area as we ran out of time, but we did get to appreciate the older parts of town, ‘warts and all’.

The trip to Herculaneum only took about 20 minutes, probably the ideal time for transit to an excursion, and the tour of the ruins proved very worthwhile.  When Vesuvius erupted in AD79 the fallout had a different effect on the two towns, Pompeii and Herculaneum.  

In Pompeii, the town and its people were buried in ash, which later proved to be permeable.  As a result, the town was destroyed and the bodies decomposed inside and left their imprint in the rock, thus forming moulds.  Centuries later, archaeologists were able to fill these moulds with plaster of Paris  and so create the 3-D images of the people who died.  

In Herculaneum, 15 miles away, the situation was different.  There, the fallout was scalding mud and steam that was so hot that the inhabitants were cooked alive, their brains exploding in their skulls (hope you aren’t having a boiled egg for breakfast).  The cooled rock was not permeable, and so there were no imprints of bodies like there were at Pompeii, but the buildings were almost perfectly preserved, even including the tiled roofs.  The woodwork and beams etc were charred, but otherwise intact.  Also unique to Herculaneum is that it is still inhabited, that is to say, the modern town stands right next to the ruins, and there are buried ruins still under it.  Naturally, the old Herculaneum is at a lower level than the modern town and you descend into it, but also the old town is built on a slope that leads down to where the beach once was.  The site was excavated in the mid 1700s, which must have been no mean feat in those days as it was buried under 16 metres of volcanic rock.  Many of the buildings were amazingly preserved, complete with murals and mosaics and – yes – ancient graffiti.  The irony of the situation has not escaped me.  I mentioned that no bodies survived to the present day, but some skeletons have.  Trying to escape the advancing cloud of ash and steam, some people rushed to the beach to try to escape by sea.  Unfortunately, the wind was onshore and Roman craft did not have the ability to tack against the wind, so they were all driven back and people took shelter in the arches on the docks used to house goods.  There they were boiled to death, and their skeletons remain, the skulls broken open like burst eggs in evidence of how they died.  We actually found it a bit upsetting.

The temperature was ‘just right’ during our visit, with pleasant sunshine and a feeling like an English summer.  We were amazed, yet again, by the number of lame and unfit people who had come on the tour despite the warnings.  The going was very steep and uneven and several of them found it very difficult, with some baling out half way through.  It would be nice to say that they were plucky and determined to make the most of the trip despite their disability; however, judging by their comments I think it was rather the case that they hadn’t bothered to read the brief.  In the same vein, many people hadn’t bothered to read the brief about not bringing rucksacks and several came equipped to do the Pennine Way (see Blog 9); of course, it being Italy, no-one stopped them at the gate and they got away with it.

All in all, we enjoyed Herculaneum and got a lot out of it. We think it was probably better than Pompeii (which is much bigger) and our guide was very good.  A busy, but worthwhile day.

The ship sailed at 1900, making gentle sternway into the harbour before doing the usual 180 degree turn, blasting the siren, and heading for the open sea.  The departure drew no interest at all from the shore: cruise ships?   They are ten a penny.

Jane and I have now started a series of evening aperitif trials, purely in the interest of furthering our knowledge.  Last night Jane had a Margarita and I had a Kir Royale; tonight, Jane had a Honeysuckle Daiquiri and I had a Mai Tai.  The latter would have done credit to Del Boy and I was faintly embarrassed to be seen drinking it.  Fortunately, it did not include a parasol and a sparkler, but it came close.  We will try to be a little more conservative tomorrow night.

So that was Naples.  Onward to Lisbon.

Day 114

Wednesday 3 May. Clear skies. 18ºC.  Wind Force 3 from S.  Sea, Slight.  Sardinia 20nm on the starboard beam 0730.

A sea day to recover from all that exhausting touring and those cocktails.  There was a good range of lectures and concerts so, once again, we had to map out the day in order to be in the right place at the right time.  The first lecture was about Pompeii and Herculaneum so very topical.  Unfortunately the lecturer, a female archeologist, adopted a mumsy school-teacher style of delivery which irritated after a while; it was rather as if she was teaching a bunch of ten year olds.  As it was, we had to leave early in order to get a place at Serial 2, a talk by a Tornado pilot who was shot down in the first Iraq War.

He gave an excellent talk, entirely without script or lectern, and had a dramatic smooth delivery.  I wondered just how much he would be able to say on the subject of ‘flew on mission, got shot down, was beaten up during interrogation’, but he managed to inject a great deal of action, passion and endurance into the whole story.  Interestingly, he said that he suffered no trauma or PTSD as a result of the ordeal, but the one thing he continues to regret is that he failed in his mission (he had to jettison his bombs).  Actually, I can quite understand that as it is a matter of professional pride.  The other thing that he said he learnt from the experience was never to be afraid of anything again: after that, what else could anyone do to him?

A light lunch was followed by an excellent classical concert by a new guitarist, who played some beautiful pieces – mostly of Spanish authorship.  What better a way to spend a Wednesday afternoon.  Life in Melbury will be difficult after this.

The final lecture of the day was a talk on cruising in the 1950s and 1960s: an age when those who could afford a cruise had turn ups on their trousers, could hold their knives and forks properly, and got out of the bath to use the lavatory.  It was a pleasant light look at the history of cruising, concentrating on Cunard’s liner CARONIA in the 1950s: the first liner built specifically for the cruise market and capable of circumnavigating the world with minimum shore support.  She was also designed with air conditioning from the start – a rare treat at that time.  In those days there was very little in the way of entertainment other than the cinema once a week and the odd game of bingo.  The restaurants on CARONIA seemed quite small and narrow and the cabins seemed rather dated by today’s standards.  But then, she was built in the post war austerity period and only carried 600 passengers.

I think I will send this off now, and leave the last blog for Lisbon and the final leg home.

Blog 24. Return from Australia. Aqaba, Petra and Suez Canal

Day 106

Tuesday 25 April.  At Aqaba, Jordan. 30ºC.  Wind Force 7 from NNE.

Crikey, what a night! We were kept awake for most of the time with the noise of the wind, howling outside and battering the balcony door.  It sounded as if we were in a hurricane yet,  paradoxically, there was no ship’s motion at all.  All of the upper deck was out of bounds because of the high relative wind from dead ahead, which I would estimate at 60 knots.  Given the circumstances, we did not watch the arrival at Aqaba at 0800, but went to breakfast instead; this was our big day for Petra, and we were departing at 0900.

Aqaba is the only port in Jordan and stands right at the top of the Gulf of Aqaba, the right hand of the V-shaped fork at the top of the Red Sea, the left fork being the Gulf of Suez.  A town dating back to the time of the Phoenicians, it is famous for being, inter alia, the port taken from the Turks by Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab armies, the Turks believing that a landward attack was impossible.  When we arrived, it was a port like many of the others: not hugely attractive, no passenger terminal, and fairly busy, but the bulk of merchant shipping was in the commercial port slightly to the south east, where phosphates comprise Jordan’s main export.  Our subsequent coach drive through the city confirmed the impression of a fairly shabby Arab town, with no decent architecture to speak of and not much in its favour.  Apparently, Aqaba is popular among Jordanians as a weekend winter resort, and is becoming more popular in the tourist industry because of its fine beaches and coral reefs; I’m afraid I saw nothing in the town to make me want to go there again, but  I should emphasise that that is just an impression from the window of a transiting coach.

There was the usual jostling to get on the bus, but that is so commonplace that I make only passing reference to it now.  We had a two hour journey ahead of us to get to Petra – 80 miles, taking us across the desert and over a mountain range: food for comment in itself.  The first stage took us across the Wadi Rum, a desert of black, purple-coloured mountains that did not have the traditional sand that you might expect of a desert.  Instead, we saw vast tracts of rubble and rocks, rather like an enormous building site, with remarkable rock formations punctuating the landscape.  Here and there were Bedouin encampments – usually just one tent coloured black and white, with a few goats around it.  Heaven knows what the goats ate: there was very little, if anything, in the way of vegetation.  The desert was covered in litter.  We were quite astonished.  There were plastic bags and disused cans and bottles everywhere, with discarded tyres (literally) thrown in.  At times it was as if we were driving across a municipal rubbish tip, with the odd Gypsy camp included.  Taken with the geological mountainous backdrop, it was all a peculiar contrast.  The first road was a dual carriageway with several police and customs checkpoints along it, and the surface was not always in particularly good condition.  It had been the original trade route road from Damascus to Egypt and was still used extensively, which might explain the poor state of repair.  Service stations and rest stops occurred occasionally, the latter usually comprising a large lay-by with a corrugated steel shack, a few plastic chairs and a Coca Cola machine.  Surprisingly, the single carriageway road that we transferred to was in better condition.  It was virtually traffic-free, and wound its way around and up and up, seemingly forever.  Funnily enough, the winding undulating road and landscape reminded me of Dartmoor, but with sand instead of greenery.  We stopped at a ‘comfort’ stop, a two storey building on a high bluff rather like an old-fashioned road house in outward appearance; inside was a souvenir shop, a small cafeteria selling coffee and sweets, and a surprisingly decent lavatory. It had spectacular views of the surrounding countryside through large plate-glass windows (yes, the lavatory), and the air outside was distinctly chilly.  Such towns and villages that we bypassed came across as shabby, sprawling, single or two-storey off-white houses on the hillside, with no obvious centre or market place, and rubbish strewn all around.  A bit like The Little Town in Bethlehem, but set on a building site with disused car tyres and discarded washing machines.  

Finally, we reached the approaches to Petra, descending steeply down a narrow twisting road through suburban sprawl, with sheer drops on either side, into the town of Wadi Musa (The Valley of Moses).  We disembarked in the town outside the Petra Palace Hotel and walked to the main entrance of the ‘park’ where Petra stands.  To Mrs Shacklepin’s relief, it was warm, but not hot, now that we were off the mountains.

The origin of the hidden city of Petra is not known, but it was once the capital of the kingdom of the Nabateans, an Arab tribe that moved from Arabia in the 6th century BC.  From the city and fortress, the Nabateans commanded the trade routes from the east and Arabia and grew affluent accordingly, with the kingdom extending as far north as Damascus.  The Romans took the the fortress with difficulty in AD106, but the city continued to prosper until AD363, when it was partially destroyed by an earthquake from which it never recovered.  The Crusaders held a fortress there, but then the city fell into obscurity until it was discovered by a Swiss explorer in 1812.  Its location remained known, but the site was not really exploited until early in the 20th century. 

We entered Petra by a 1.2 km-long, narrow descending chasm (known as the Siq) that was sometimes only ten feet wide.  Pinkish purple cliffs, 30m high, towered on either side of the Siq, demonstrating how the fortress survived so many centuries (the Romans only conquered it by cutting off the water supply).  You could hire a horse and cart to take the trip to the bottom, or a donkey, or – indeed – a camel.  However, they all looked filthy and stank (and that was just the drivers), so we opted out of that.  Besides, we went with our guide, who had come on the bus with us, and he explained the key features.  The downside was that we walked at the pace of the slowest and, believe me, that was slow: several people had walking sticks and one had a three-pronged walker.  Heaven knows what they were thinking of, as we had been warned that the trek was an arduous one over rough terrain in stifling heat (and it was).  Every now and again we had to dive to one side as a cart came rattling down or up and Jane nearly got flattened by one at one point because we all dived to the left and she dived to the right.  We were also pestered the whole way down by men selling silver bracelets or boys selling information books, and it became a bit of a  nuisance.  But it was a fascinating journey, sometimes in sunshine, but mostly in shadow, with the sides of the chasm towering high above us.  The ground underfoot was mostly rubble, though there was the occasional stretch of paving.  There were shrines and carvings and caves (tombs) all the way down, remnants of a religion pre-dating Christianity and Islam, and channels in the side that once supplied the city’s water supply.

Eventually and suddenly, the chasm opened up to reveal a huge edifice of Corinthian columns and a portico, an amazing façade mounted by friezes and figures known as The Treasury.  If you are a fan of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade then this is the building that you see in the final scenes.  You could not go in to The Treasury, and it is believed to be not a treasury at all, but a tomb dating from the 1st Century BC.  This area was absolutely heaving with people, camels, donkeys, horses, carts and bric-a-brac stalls in the sunshine, but it was not the end of the journey, for the street (for want of a better name) continued onward past amphitheatres, colonnades, caves and temples.  We split off on our own at that point and explored further, but we had to be back at the top for lunch at 1430 and, basically, we ran out of time.  If we had not descended as a party, and had done our own thing (as we usually do), we might well have been able to crack the whole place; but our guide had said at the beginning that you needed at least three days to give justice to the whole site.  We found out afterwards that 6,000 people were at the site that day – rather too many for comfort.

Anyway, we set off back at the usual Shacklepin Hearty Pace and, boy, what a slog that was in the heat despite the fact that we were in shade for half the time.  Theoretically the Siq was only 1.2km long, but it felt like twice that.  We went through three bottles of water on the way and the sweat was pouring off us by by the time we reached the entrance again, with auxiliary hearts jogging on cold suction, ready to kick in at a moment’s notice.  Do you know, we passed some bloke struggling with a walking frame at The Treasury; it was hard enough to walk, never mind stagger.  He was plucky, I’ll say that, but also foolhardy.

We had lunch in the hotel where we had left the bus and it was good: a mixed buffet of salad or hot dishes, and three courses.  We would have liked to have tried something traditionally Jordanian, and the roast lamb with spiced rice came close to it, I suppose, but otherwise the dishes were European: beef stroganoff, chicken, pasta and vegetables.  Two of the puddings were Jordanian, and we tried both; they were very nice.

Then came the worst bit.  Having eaten lunch, on time as scheduled at 1430, we had to hang around until 1700 before departure.  We could have used that time usefully in Petra, but instead sat around in the hotel lobby, bored out of our skulls.  Hey ho.

As you can imagine, the two-hour return journey seemed to go on forever and we arrived at the ship, literally as the sun was setting, completely shattered and covered in dust.  What a day!  We sailed for Suez at 2100, in the dark, an event that we watched from the comfort of our dinner table.

Day 107

Wednesday 26 April.  Hazy sunshine, 22ºC, wind Force 7 from NW.  Position at 1300B: 28deg 46.8N 32deg 57.4E.  We are roughly halfway up the Gulf of Suez.  Clocks were retarded yet again overnight, making us one hour ahead of UK.

I glanced out of the window at 0630 and saw yet another lively ocean, with foam blowing in streaks from the crests of waves and some spindrift.  Yes, that ties in with ‘Near Gale’ on the Beaufort Scale and (later) my assessment was confirmed by the weather report on the television.  A glance at the Jane Thermometer on the balcony table showed a temperature of only 20ºC, and this produced a squeak from her recumbent form, exceeded only by a louder squeak, later, when she went on the Internet and discovered that Melbury was at 2ºC.  Yes, the honeymoon period is over, and I don’t mean that Jane is divorcing me after thirty five years of mental cruelty: the temperature is becoming markedly temperate, and we will never return to the heady figures of 40 degrees.  The fleeces will be coming out before long.

The first lecture of the day was Part 3 of the one about ISIS.  In contemplating a report on this lecture, I am reminded of the quote by Winston Churchill that is (or used to be) printed as a foreword in JSP101, the Joint Services Writing Manual, in the chapter on writing a brief: 

“Pray state, this day, on one side of a sheet of paper, how the Royal Navy is being adapted to meet the conditions of modern warfare”

Trying to summarise our lecturer’s extensive, knowledgeable and highly complex talk on ISIS in one paragraph is damned difficult.  However, it was very interesting and highly pertinent, though our heads were buzzing by the time we had left the theatre.  The gist was that the Middle East has loyalties on tribal, historical and religious lines, not the geographical frontiers that were created after WW1.  Iraq, for example, was created as a British protectorate and the British favoured the Sunni minority as administrators and ‘ruling class’ over the majority Shiite population.  After Saddam (secular, but broadly Sunni) was deposed there was a backlash from the majority Shiite population and the deposed Sunnis, including élite army officers, went on to form ISIS.  Conversely, Syria and Lebanon became French protectorates, and the French favoured the minority Shiite population as the ‘ruling class’ over the majority Sunni population, hence the seeds of the fighting there now.  So ISIS is Sunni, and they see themselves as fighting the heretics in the form of Shiites.  And, of course, us.  One interesting fact is that the Koran was dictated to Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel and, technically, may not be written down or translated from Arabic.  Young (non Arab) Muslims are taught the Koran (in Arabic) by rote, without understanding it; promising candidates are singled out  and the Koran interpreted for them by Imams, and it is there that the danger lies, for they give their own interpretations.  The one cheerful thing that we took away, was that these people are totally irrational and have no firm goals, unlike the IRA in its day.  It is therefore impossible to reason or negotiate with them.  Just the thing you want to hear as you enter the Suez Canal.

Jane was reprimanded by some oink for not disinfecting her hands as we entered the restaurant at lunchtime.  She didn’t do it because she had just washed her hands after using the lavatory, one minute before.  We thought at first that the bloke was joking, but he wasn’t.  Jane was most indignant and tried to explain but, as I said to her afterwards, she did not owe an explanation to anyone, let alone to some obstreperous blob of lard who could do with a few lessons on healthy eating as well as good manners. What a cheek!  

The final lecture of the day was about the history of the Spitfire.  For whatever reason, Jane did not attend, preferring, instead, to examine the deckhead of our cabin from a horizontal position.  It was a revealing lecture, not least because Supermarine had considerable production difficulties with the aircraft right up to the outbreak of war, and the government almost abandoned the project before problems were resolved.  Interestingly, despite the Spitfires’s iconic image and its success, the Hurricane shot down far more aircraft in the Battle of Britain than the Spitfire.  The Spitfire also suffered teething problems when it was introduced, for example it could only be started with ground support equipment (later resolved by introducing cartridge starting) and, as first supplied, did not have a rear view mirror (difficult when reversing).  Initially, the engine used to cut out when the aircraft dived sharply and this fault was traced to the g forces on the carburettor float.  A permanent feature was that the radiator could only cool the engine above 120 mph, so the pilot had only six seconds to get the aircraft up to flying speed before the engine overheated.  Finally, the term, ‘the full nine yards”, in common usage today, referred to the length of the cartridge belt on the aircraft:  to give something ‘the full nine yards’ meant that the pilot had emptied his entire magazine into an enemy aircraft (you knew that already didn’t you – well one of you did).  All in all, a good boys’ talk.

The good news announced by the Captain is that we are now going to stop in Messina, rather than just transiting the Straits.  I was last there as a Cadet in 1970 in HMS SKEGNESS.  I wonder if it has changed much?  I suppose those girls are grandmothers now. 

We approached the anchorage at Suez at 1800 just as the sun was setting, and let go the anchor at 1830.  There were ships everywhere, also waiting for passage through the canal and I counted about fifty.  In keeping with the rest of the day, it was distinctly cool on deck, especially with a northerly wind blowing, and Jane and I wore fleeces.  I understand that we are weighing at about 0430, but we won’t be up for that.  We may, however, open the curtains at dawn to see the beginnings of the transit and we will certainly monitor the rest.  I believe the complete passage takes about twelve hours.

Formal dinner tonight and I had escargots in garlic butter followed by grilled halibut.  We were going to watch Lawrence of Arabia at the cinema, an apposite extravaganza that would last 220 minutes and take us into the wee small hours.  However, the projector packed in before the film could start, so we went to bed instead (secretly, somewhat relieved).

Day 108

Thursday 27 April. Hazy sunshine, occasional fog. 15ºC. Wind Force 3 from NNW.  Suez Canal, heading north.

I have covered the history of the Suez Canal earlier, so there is not much to add.   It is 120 miles long and must be transited at eight knots to minimise the erosion of the canal sides.  There are three lakes in the middle, Lake Timsah and Great Bitter Lake and Small Bitter Lake, and – unlike the Panama Canal – no locks.  The canal passes through Egypt on both sides, with fertile land to the west and the Sinai Desert (and some towns) to the east.  There are several ferry crossings (think the Dartmouth Higher Ferry without the cables), a high road bridge, and a railway swing bridge.  Convoys operate on a 24-hour cycle and start from both ends in the early morning.  They are synchronised to ensure that they pass at the ‘dual carriageway’ section, roughly half way along.

We were awakened at 0300 by the vibration of the ship’s propellers and somebody’s cabin door slamming.  Just as I turned over, a few more cabin doors slammed and it became apparent that we were weighing, with some inconsiderate fools keen to watch the process in the dark.  Even in daylight there would be nothing to see.  As a dim light filtered through the curtains at about 0500, thumps, bangs and footsteps could be heard on the walkway above our cabin where other spectators were, clearly, assembling.  I peered out of the window to see desert going past a short distance away.  We were in the Suez Canal.

Sleep was impossible with the Wigan & District Clog Dancing Team practising above my head, so I got up and shaved and went onto the balcony.  And promptly dived back in again.  It was freezing out there: well, 16ºC with a brisk northerly breeze, but that was cold enough.  Jane decided to get up too and so, dressed in long trousers, sweaters and fleeces we went on the upper deck.  Quite a few people were already there (we would never have guessed) just watching the desert on both sides roll by.  As far as the eye could see there was flat land and, ahead, the canal ran arrow-straight into the distance.  We were third in a convoy of ships that stretched far behind us in the mist; I counted ten ships before poor visibility obscured the remainder.  The canal was fenced or walled off about 100m inland, and here and there were military watchtowers all the way up, all of them manned.  Barracks appeared and went on a regular basis and it soon became clear that there was a strong military presence all along the canal zone. Whether this was to protect the canal from terrorists or from a surprise attack by the Israelis was not clear: though all the watchtowers faced inwards (suggesting the former), there were also stockpiles of military equipment and the component parts of Bailey bridges (suggesting the latter).  

The landscape changed as we continued north and, of course, it did warm up to the high 20s.  In general, there were more towns on the western side, and the land was more verdant.  The eastern side mainly remained as desert in the form of high dunes, though it had a road network and the odd industrial complex was visible in the distance.  The towns seemed quite homogenous two-story blocks of flats, all of the same height and colour with only the odd mosque to break the skyline.  Occasionally we passed a poorer town, which had the standard Arab house of two levels, with a roof terrace and sometimes a walled garden, all looking a bit shabby.  Eventually, at about 1400, we reached Port Said.  We did not enter the port itself but took the bypass straight into the Mediterranean.  On went the power, and away we went for Limassol.

The cinema was showing yet another modern(ish) film, Sully with Tom Hanks, so we trotted down at 1700 to watch it.  It was a good film, perhaps padded out a bit and plodding at times, but worth watching.  As I’m sure you know it is about the airline captain who managed to land his aircraft on the Hudson River after both engines were disabled by a bird strike – the bulk of the film covered the aftermath, when the authorities tried to blaming him for losing the aircraft.  

Energised by the break in routine of watching a film, Jane declared that we should continue with the off-piste behaviour by having an aperitif in the Chart Room.  We had two gins and tonic as the dark sea rolled by, and took it as a celebration for leaving Arabia and The East.  It had been nice visiting these exotic places, but it would be nice to get back to European culture and moderate temperatures again.  The gin must have been high-octane Gordon’s, because Jane was positively effervescent afterwards as we bounced into dinner.  We entered the double doors of the Britannia Restaurant, with its huge mural of a liner on the after bulkhead, and – arm in arm – descended the majestic curved staircase into the busy well of the room like Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet.  Smiling benignly to all and sundry, we threaded our way through the tables to the small annex where we eat, I turned left into our dining room, and Jane continued straight on into the galley, much to he astonishment of the assembled waiting staff.  She did come out faster than she went in, giggling inanely and complaining about the strength of the gin.  And that was before we had the wine with the meal.

And so to bed, totally zonked after being up since 0500.  So that was Arabia.

Blog 23. Return from Australia. Muscat and the Red Sea

Day 101

Thursday 20 April.  At Muscat, Oman. Clear blue sky. 38ºC. Wind Force 2 from W.

We entered Muscat at 0600 and the temperature on our balcony was already 35ºC and climbing.  The port, Port Sultan Qaboose in the district of Muttrah, was very different from Dubai, being smaller and set in craggy hills and the shadow of the Western Al Hajar mountains.  It rather reminded us of Madeira, with its mountainous backdrop, but in this case the hills were not verdant, but bare granite-like rocks, and that gave the whole setup a dramatic volcanic or moonscape appearance.  The port had the usual container terminal but, compared to most other places that we have visited, was relatively small and there was only one small cargo ship alongside.  Two large private yachts were already in the harbour when we arrived, and I presume that at least one belonged to the local Head of State as it had two funnels, was a substantial size, and had ‘Said’ written on the side.   Another cruise ship, SEABOURNE ENCORE, followed us in and secured on the jetty opposite, so tourists would be swamping the town throughout the day.  The port area comprised very pleasant low-rise white buildings and a few hotels, a souk, and a long promenade, making it quite attractive and unassuming. The rest of the city was tucked around a corner in the adjacent valleys and we never got to see it close to.  What we could see of it from the sea looked lovely: fine buildings, forts and palaces in sandstone or white, with few structures higher than four storeys; several small craggy islands, with ancient forts on them, offshore.

Muscat is the capital of the Sultanate of Oman, the current Sultan being Qaboose bin Said.  It is an important port in the Gulf of Oman, attracting foreign traders and settlers.  Since the discovery of oil and the accession of the present Sultan in 1970 there has been rapid economic development and heavy investment in infrastructure, supported by a vibrant economy.  My impression was that it was no Dubai, but I understand that the local Omanis contribute to society at all levels rather than being the indigenous élite, and this gives the city a more inclusive down-to-earth feel: a sort of Prosecco after vintage Champagne.  The Sultan is considered to be very competent and sound.

Our intention was simply to walk ashore in the time-honoured manner, and to do that as soon as possible before the heat got worse.  However, it became immediately apparent, when we viewed the jetty from above, that it would be far too hot to try such an adventure:  it seemed far hotter than Dubai, and even a half mile walk would not be a good idea.  A shuttle bus service was being provided and we could see the bus drivers in their long Arab gowns (cannot remember what they are called) sitting on a tartan rug in the shade between two buses, having a tea (or maybe a coffee) party, complete with pots and tiny cups.  You don’t get that with Stagecoach.  

So, immediately after breakfast, we left the ship and piled onto a shuttle in air-conditioned comfort.  Shortly, we set off down the jetty, down to a roundabout, turned left, then stopped.  There was a hearty conversation between the driver and someone else for about five minutes, then we set off again.  We drove through the port entrance security gates, where a further conversation was held, then onto a roundabout, did a circuit, and went back into the port again heading back to the ship.  Being British, none of us commented.  We then turned right and drove along a pier, met water, and did a three point turn and came back off the pier and continued towards the ship.  At the next pier we turned right again and headed for the other cruise ship, but we didn’t stop there; instead we went to a large building bearing the title, ‘Passenger Terminal’.  There, the driver alighted and appeared to have yet another conversation with someone, this time coming back with a piece of paper held high, like Neville Chamberlain after Munich, which, presumably, was a map.  This, I thought, is like trying to find your way out of Pompey Dockyard on a Friday lunchtime with half the caissons out.  Round we went again and headed for the main port security gate, passed through, negotiated the roundabout outside, but this time we spun off like a space rocket leaving Earth’s gravitational pull on a mission to Mars and headed into town.  A short journey later, we were stopping at the souk, with QM2 and the rest of the port clearly visible half a mile away.  It is a mystery to me how the driver could get lost in such a straightforward journey or, for that matter, why he could not just follow the other buses (at least three passed us as we toured the jetties and wharfs).

Well we had a good walk along the promenade and briefly took in the souk (seems just like the day before yesterday that we had last visited one) and the shops on the harbour front.  The area was very clean and very picturesque, the promenade being laid with colourful and spotless ceramic tiles, rather than paving slabs.  A medieval fort stood high above the harbour, and we could have walked up to it, but the heat was intense and Jane – to my amazement – declared it far too hot to do anything, and felt that we should return to the ship.  I never thought I would see the day, though I think the comment was made once earlier in the voyage.  So we hopped on the first shuttle going back, along with a bus load of other hot and bothered passengers.  We made sure that this bus was not the same as the one that brought us out: we didn’t want to end up in some distant oasis where the Nomadic tribes would pay 20 camels for a strawberry-blonde white woman, knocked down from 25 because she was a slightly used model.

Through the port security gates we went, up the road, then turned right for the other cruise ship.  I felt that I was experiencing déja vu.  Round we went and stopped at the passenger terminal building.  “Does anyone want duty-free shop?”, says the driver in broken English, and a mob burst off the bus and shot into the building, leaving about four of us still onboard.  We then drove round the corner and waited by the other door of the building.  Jane and I were all for getting off then and walking the rest of the way, but suddenly the shop door opened and the passengers all trooped back out and onto the bus, chuntering as only the British can do.  It turns out that the duty-free shop was shut, so they had entered the building, toured both floors, then come back out again.  Finally, we made it back to the ship.  There is not much adventure that you can create with a bus, 30 people, and an Arab port, but we had managed it.

Jane had not slept well last night (sore shoulder, noisy air conditioning and vibrating ship – none of which I had experienced) so, after lunch, she took the opportunity to count camels jumping over a fence.  I gave her a bolster pillow to cuddle as a poor substitute for me.  When she woke up, she had a touch of diarrhoea and felt duty bound to report it in case it was norovirus.  So that was us for the chop then, I thought, but it turned out it was OK: only Jane would be in purdah.

A knock on the door heralded the Decontamination Team wearing disposable aprons, overshoes and masks and bearing sprays and mops  Nothing to worry about then.  They thoroughly cleaned the entire cabin, especially the surfaces and the bathroom, and changed all the sheets, towels and bedding.  Jane was given a diet sheet for 24-hour confinement and they enforced it too; when I tried to order room service for myself, they knew we had a Contaminated Person in the cabin and initially said I could only order off the slop diet.  I had to explain that the proper food was for me; the Sick Person would be having the Clear Chicken Broth with Crackers.  It was all very impressive, though slightly embarrassing.  I think the red cross painted on the cabin door was the worst bit; that and the handbell that she had to ring whenever anyone came near the cabin.  I haven’t told her yet about the hairy sailors with deck scrubbers and lime who will come and scrub her down, lest it revive old fantasies, as yet undiscovered.

The room service tray, when it came, was a sight to behold.  Out went the delicate Cunard Wedgwood china, the crystal glasses, the stainless steel cutlery and the large cotton napkins; in came paper plates and cups, light plastic bowls and cutlery, and paper serviettes.  Clearly, after we had finished, the entire tray would be incinerated, with the possible inclusion of the waiter too.  Trust me, you haven’t lived until you try to eat a Mediterranean Vegetable Enchilada with a thin plastic fork and drink a South African Merlot from a paper cup. I broke the fork at an early stage and had to eat the rest by hand.  Jane declined to comment on the sensible Clear Chicken Broth, drunk from a plastic bowl with a tiny plastic spoon, other than to say, “Where’s my crackers?”

Darken Ship from 2300 tonight, and for the next three nights, as part of the anti piracy measures:  cabin blackout curtains closed, no balcony light, and reduced upper deck lighting.  This is to prevent impairing the lookouts’ night vision rather than to reduce the ship’s visual signature.

Day 102

Friday 21 April. At sea, off the SE coast of Oman, course 214, speed 23 knots. 29ºC. Wind Force 3/4 from W. Sea, Slight.  Position at 0800C: 19deg 14N  58deg 35E.

The patient spent a comfortable night having slept from 2100 to 0700 without a murmur.  Boy, that girl can put in the zeds, I have never seen anyone else like it; she could compete with a koala any day.  Other than being ‘a bit loose’ as one could delicately describe it, Jane seems fine (must remember to tell that genie that when I said I wanted a loose woman as one of my wishes, this was not what I meant).

It is a fine sunny day with a little haze, but the relative wind across the deck is quite high and it is buffeting the superstructure quite noticeably.  The higher parts of the upper deck, including the one outside our cabin, are out of bounds and even the balcony is a bit uncomfortable because of the noise.  Part of the anti piracy plan is to transit the risk area at high speed, and this ship is well placed to do it as she has a top speed of 29.5 knots.  Currently we are doing 23 knots, but we are still relatively safely about 50nm off the Omani coast; we may pick up more speed when we pass into Yemeni waters at 0130 tomorrow morning.  It is anticipated that we may meet HMS MONMOUTH, a Type 23 frigate, on patrol at 1900 or so, so watch this space (though it will be after sunset, so maybe not much to see).

I attended a lecture on ‘Why Care About The Past’ by a Senior Lecturer in History.  Wow, she was a dainty little blonde piece: not a bit like you expect for an academic.  Thank heavens I can take a disinterested view of these lectures and soak up the content without being distracted by superficial appearances.  It was a very good talk that highlighted ignorance of history on the part of senior politicians, and gave examples of the myths that we hold about the subject.  Examples of the former included the statement by Tony Blair that, in the Blitz, the USA was the only nation that stood by us (our Dominions and the exiled conquered nations of Europe stood by us in 1940, the one notable nation that didn’t was the neutral USA); the statement by Donald Trump that relations between the USA and Russia were at an all-time low (gloss over the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis); and the comment by David Cameron that the British Isles had never been invaded since 1066 (we have been invaded thirteen times, the last – briefly – by the French in 1797, and once by the Americans).  Of the myths, a notable one was the belief that our forefathers went through the same hopes and fears as we do: not true. Our prejudices and emotions of love do seem to endure, but our concepts of science and beauty have changed enormously.  Overall, it was a very thought-provoking presentation given in a slick and knowledgeable style, and I will certainly attend her next lecture.  Maybe Mrs Shacklepin will be out on remission by then.

Lunch alone in the dining room was not a lot of fun, but then nor were the cream crackers on a paper plate that Jane had in the cabin.  We spent the rest of the day together, just reading and I skipped dinner (I could lose some weight anyway).  The sickbay called and said that if there had been no ‘reoccurrence’ by 0630 tomorrow, then Jane would be released.  The sanitation team arrived to do the evening clean (still in the masks and overshoes) and said that, if Jane got the ‘all clear’, they would need to come in tomorrow to do a deep clean that would take one and a half hours.  The rendezvous with HMS MONMOUTH did not come off, but we would not have been able to see her anyway: the upper deck was out of bounds because of the wind.

Day 103

Saturday 22 April.  Sunny, 30ºC. Sea, Slight.  Gulf of Aden, heading SW.

Joy! Jane has been released from quarantine and the decontamination team are fumigating our cabin as I write.  It is a very full lecture programme today, with four lectures almost in succession.  Quite a change from the previous two weeks, when there was little of interest worth watching.  It is going to be like being back at college today.

Nature was obviously celebrating Jane’s return too, because we were rewarded by the sight of a school of dolphins accompanying the ship as we sat down to breakfast.  We normally like to watch the blue tits feeding as we eat breakfast at home, however I think dolphins might just top that.

The first lecture was on ‘History and the Crisis of ISIS’ and the Illuminations cinema was packed out for it, with people sitting in the aisles and standing at the back.  I am surprised that it was not held in the theatre, which is slightly bigger.  I will not summarise the lecture as it was so comprehensive and complex, compressing 1,500 years of Islamic rivalry and ambition into 45 minutes.  The key bits I remember were the rivalry between ‘heretic’ Shiite (Iran, Syria, Lebanon mainly – about 10% of Muslims), and Sunni (The Rest); the mistake of destabilising the region by taking out Saddam in Iraq; the danger of repeating the mistake by doing the same with Sadat in Syria; and the naivety of believing that the Arab Spring was heralding the rise of liberalism and Western values.  The broad aims of ISIS are to return to the days of an all-embracing Sunni Caliphate that does not recognise frontiers, the defeat of Iran and Shiites, and a return to the conquests of Europe that were achieved in medieval times. 

The next lecture was about the two least known spies of WW2.  Both were very different, one being a double agent of Spanish nationality who supplied the Germans with a mountain of deceptive information; the other being a Polish woman who was very much a femme fatale, action heroine and very brave woman.  I had heard of the Spaniard, code name ‘Garbo’, who managed to get medals from both the Germans and the British, and was still alive to be fêted in the early 1980s.  The Polish girl, on the other hand, was treated rather shabbily by the British after the war and suffered a tragic aftermath to her courageous service.  She was not given preference to gain British citizenship, and worked variously as a telephonist, a shop assistant in Harrod’s, and as a ship’s stewardess, before being murdered by a lover in 1952.

Lecture three, before a late lunch, was the start of a series of talks on civil engineering matters starting with the Seven Wonders of the British Canal System.  It was a good talk and we chatted to the lecturer afterwards.  He had been doing these talks on cruise ships for seven years, apparently.

We managed about two minutes of sunshine as we transited the upper deck to our cabin after lunch, before we were off again to the next serial – this time in the Royal Court Theatre.  It was a classical concert called Piano à Dieux and comprised, funnily enough, a man and a woman playing the piano. This proved to be a light-hearted rendition of old favourites, with a few corny jokes thrown in.  It was well done and very entertaining. 

Onward to the final lecture of the day, ‘Exploration in the Arabian and Western Deserts’.  Poor delivery with boring content – it could have been so much better.  I refer the honourable reader to my comments of a few days ago regarding taking an interesting subject and making a complete dog’s breakfast of it.

Black Tie dinner in the evening was very pleasant and Jane wanted to go on to listen to a guitarist/singer, but we missed the start.  We did go along afterwards and listened at the door.  He was awful, and so was the band.  Phew!  Glad we missed that one: listening to that for 45 minutes would be a real penance.

Day 104

Sunday 23 April, St George’s Day.  Bright sunny day, 32ºC. Sea, Slight.  We are in the Red Sea, about a quarter of the way up.  Clocks were retarded yet again to Charlie time last night, so we are only two hours ahead of UK now.

We transited the Bab al Mandab at midnight last night at 24 knots and, looking at the chart, I was surprised how narrow it was: perhaps 20 nm – the same as the Straits of Dover.  We are still clipping along at 24 knots as I write, evidently trying to clear the pirate waters as quickly as possible, but there is no additional vibration or noise and the ship remains as steady as a rock.

Off to church in the morning, then to the second lecture by our visiting historian, this time on The Tudors.  Lunchtime brings a talk on ‘Why We Have a Royal Navy’ by our Royal Navy Liaison Officer (RNLO).

The church service was taken, this time, by the Deputy Captain – a painfully shy Italian who is rather difficult to talk to and never smiles, yet who must have hidden talent as he is only 28 and has reached high rank quickly.  It was, as ever, a stirring service with good hymns, lasting thirty minutes and quite a few people came along.

The talk on The Tudors was excellent and, again, it was a full house.  I will not even attempt to summarise it other than to say that our lecturer contended that the Tudor period was a significant point in our history, notable because of the break with Rome.  That break led the country to look outward, away from Europe, to develop a navy, and to discover new lands.  She drew an interesting parallel between that event and Brexit, which I hadn’t thought of, but might be true: a rejection of control by those outside our country.

Well, I suppose we had to attend the talk on the Royal Navy by the RNLO (who, by the way, joined us in Colombo and brought his wife along).  There was a good turn out, with the Illuminations cinema virtually full, so there is still an interest in the Service.  Not a bad delivery, though he was inhibited by having to read the official script.  It was certainly informative and, from what I could hear, people seemed to appreciate it.

We did the planetarium after that – ‘Life in other Universes’ – and Jane stayed awake throughout.  I think that might be all the programmes we have seen now, each one with a different narrator (this one was Tom Hanks).  We had missed lunch, what with all the excitement, and Jane was feeling thirsty.  So we headed up to the Commodore Club for a fortifying gin and tonic – though Jane had a Coke.  In the absence of solid food a good snifter or two will always satisfy.  A feeling of guilt descended at this point (it might have been the depressive effect of alcohol), because we had not been outside at all today, so we spent 20 minutes in the blazing heat on 14 Deck, scanning the horizon for icebergs.  We did see the Captain lying on a sun bed incognito, sans stripes and cap, accompanied by a mature lady in a bikini who – we presume – was his wife (mind you, you can never tell with sailors).  Clearly the Captain, who is due to retire after this trip, is starting his Run Down Period (RDP) early.  One thing we did notice as we sailed along was clumps of yellow weed of matted appearance, like a flattened sponge – presumably a characteristic of the Red Sea.  Of course, sponge is maybe what it was.

A rare ‘first’ in the dogwatches came in the form of a new(ish) film in the cinema:  Bridget Jones’ Baby.  Sequels and sequels-of-sequels are usually not as good as the original, but this one was an exception and actually quite funny.  It had Jane laughing out loud – a rare occurrence.

Something happened during dinner, but I am not sure what!   There was definitely an increase in power for about ten minutes, then a marked reduction.  The people on the next table went up to investigate and said later that we had slowed while a boat came alongside, presumably to embark or disembark person or persons.  Much mystery, as we are right in the middle of the Red Sea and I would have thought not needing a pilot yet.  We have started a rumour that we had rendezvoused with a nuclear submarine – see if it whips round the ship.

We were finally allowed out on the promenade deck in the evening, but the deck lighting was still reduced, with lookouts posted, so we are not quite out of the wood yet.

Day 105

Monday 24 April.  Misty start, 29ºC. Wind Force 8 from NW. Sea Rough.  The wind has backed or veered after yesterday, when it was from behind us.  It is now on the port bow, making walking on those decks that are not out of bounds difficult.   We are about half way up the Red Sea, according to the chart, and tripping along at 22 knots.  Position at 1400: 23deg 0.3 N, 36deg 41.8E

Another lecture day.  Like buses, the good lectures on this return trip have been scarce, but then, suddenly we get about three all at once.

First, Part Two of the talk on ISIS, describing the expansions and rivalries of the Islamic world in the Middle East up to WW1.  It was interesting to note that, before the coming of Mohammed in the 7th century, the whole Mediterranean region, including (of course) the Holy Land was Christian.  Moreover, the North African countries did not consider themselves as being Arab.  Arabs came from what is broadly now Saudi Arabia.  The Egyptians, in particular, considered themselves to be above Arabs until the rise of Nasser and his coup at Suez in 1956.  After Mohammed, the expansions began and all of Northern Africa and the Holy Land was conquered, as was all of Spain.  The Islamic expansion even got as far as the gates of Vienna before it was stopped.  Islam also spread to Persia, the hated enemy of Arabs, and to what is now modern Turkey, and the Ottoman Empire.  Just to be awkward, perhaps, the Persians adopted Shiite Islam, a religion which is regarded by the majority Sunni Muslims as being heretical.  So we have a pot mess of Sunni Muslims hating Shiites, Persians hating Arabs and vice versa, the Turks an unknown quantity that is becoming less secular, and all of them hating the Kurds. 

Our historian concluded her talk on The Tudors by addressing the paradox of Henry VIII: a monarch who, according to all reports, was handsome, agreeable, witty and accomplished as a young man, yet turned into a fat, suspicious, despotic tyrant.  Our lecturer contended that the change came after January 1536 when Henry was injured in a jousting tournament and knocked unconscious for two hours.  Notwithstanding whatever brain injury he might have sustained, Henry never jousted again and became less physically active – hence the huge increase in his weight.  The injury also opened up an old wound that never healed, so he was constantly in pain from then on.  Everything went wrong for him in 1536: the injury;  the death of Katherine of Aragon; Ann Boleyn had a miscarriage, she was accused and convicted of adultery and treason, then executed; Henry’s 45th birthday, which was classified as old age at the time; his illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond, whom he favoured as an heir, died suddenly.  All in all, 1536 was not a good year and Henry’s behaviour just got worse and worse from then on.  Good lecture.

Our WW2 spies lecturer of a few days ago, gave us a talk on the mistakes and disobeyed orders that were made in the sinking of the BISMARK.  He spoke well, and some of his facts were reasonably sound and even revealing, but he betrayed a lack of knowledge of naval matters that let him down.  For example, he said it was a mistake to send cruisers after BISMARK in the Denmark Strait because they did not have the firepower, range or armour; however they were not meant to sink her, they were sent to shadow her, which was the traditional role of a cruiser.  He also said it was a mistake to send HMS HOOD because of her limited armour, yet HOOD was the only ship we had available with the firepower and speed to do the job.  All in all, not bad, but his errors eroded his credibility.

As we went in to lunch I glanced out of the window and noticed that the white horses had come out with a vengeance and the swell had increased markedly.  It was definitely rough out there, and I learned later that the wind had increase to Force 8 (Gale).  We passed a large bulk carrier at one point and the spray was coming over her bows as she punched along. Yet our ship’s motion was unaffected: no pitching, no rolling, confirming my belief (expounded in Blog 1) that if you ever have to go across the Atlantic, then this is the girl to be in.  She is a beautiful seaboat.   Funny really, for some reason you do not expect to meet a northwesterly Force 8 gale, and angry battleship-grey seas, in the Red Sea.

Our final lecture of the day was by our civil engineer lecturer on the subject of the Suez Canal.  Again, he spoke fluently of the history of the canal, starting with the first attempt by one of the Pharos several hundreds of years BC.  Contrary to popular belief, de Lesseps was not the engineer who built the canal; de Lesseps was actually the French Consul to Egypt at the time.  He whipped up support to fund the project and most shares were bought by France and Egypt.  Britain did not support the project (‘not invented here’), but did buy up all the Egyptian shares when they came on the market after Egypt suffered financial difficulties.  The canal was opened in 1869 and, initially, operated on a one-way basis with passing places at the lakes that the canal passes through.  It has since been given a ‘dual carriageway’ in places to facilitate two-way traffic (one modification as recent as 2014), but other parts are still one way.  Passage is by convoy.  The lecturer also gave a potted history of wars that have affected the canal, starting with the Nasser take-over in 1956 and covering the Six-day War and the Yom Kippur War.  I will not rattle out statistics, as you can just as easily look them up yourself.  I will write more on the subject after we have been through it on Thursday.

We arrive in Aqaba tomorrow, where we are off for a long excursion to Petra: the ancient city where Indiana Jones saved his father by giving him a drink from the Holy Grail.  Aqaba is Jordan’s only seaport and it lies at the top of the Gulf of Aqaba, and from the anchorage four countries can be seen at once: Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  I will end this blog at this point and start the next one with our adventures in Petra.

Blog 22. Return from Australia. Dubai

BLOG 22

Day 96

Saturday 15 April. Sunny and hot.  30ºC. Sea, Slight.  Arabian Sea on passage to Dubai.  Position  15deg 56 N,  7deg  54E. Course 317, speed 18.  Wind Force 2 from NW.

Yet another relaxing day at sea.  We drifted around after breakfast before attending the port lecture on Muscat, which we visit after Dubai, then trying a little people-watching.  I don’t know who used illustrate those saucy postcards of the 40s and 50s, but if he were still alive he could find much new material on the decks of QM2.  I know that I have commented on this aspect of decorum before, but I cannot resist reiterating the points for this new batch of passengers.  It is amazing what people will wear on holiday for the sake of a tan and skin cancer.  We saw enormous women wearing bikinis, with bellies on them like badly squeezed tubes of toothpaste; older women with breasts barely decent, bursting out of their bathing costumes like something out of a Regency drama; men with skinny white legs, varicose veins, long black socks and sandals; and men with enormous stomachs as if they were pregnant.  I saw one man who wasn’t even wearing a bra.  I am not exactly Adonis myself, and budgie smugglers do not flatter me (no, no – it’s true).  For that reason, I dress with a sense of dignity and cover the frightening bits, polishing my deck shoes every other day and retaining my shirt in public at all times.  I do confess that, daringly, as a concession to the heat, I have taken to removing my tie during the daylight hours, but that is as far as the nudity has gone.  The fact is, it is so intensely hot that neither of us could last longer than twenty minutes under that sun anyway; yet some of these people are piling on sunburn on top of sunburn.

The crew were practising anti piracy measures this morning in preparation for our passage from Muscat to Aqaba, when we pass through dodgy waters.  As it is, we are steaming up the western coast of India, skirting the risk area.   I had already noticed fire hoses rigged on the upper deck and pointing over the side as an initial precaution against boarding; I believe we may also be taking onboard some additional security personnel who, I presume, might be armed contractors.  The Captain told us last night that further exercises would take place and recounted a (true) tale of when the ship was celebrating the traditional ‘Crossing the Line’ ceremony and some ship’s staff were dressed up as pirates, heading aft to the swimming pool.  Unfortunately, their passage, dressed in eye patches, tricorn hats, cutlasses and the odd parrot, took them through the central atrium just as some old dear was waking up.  She was terrified, hid behind a pillar, then – when they had gone – scuttled over to the Purser’s desk to report that pirates had boarded.

I met the Staff Chief Engineer – the deputy Chief Engineer and equivalent to my job as Senior Engineer in HMS NONSUCH – at last night’s cocktail party, and we had a good shouted conversation about fuel specific gravity, gas turbine blades and the purity of boiler feed water.  He came from Carlisle and was due to retire in two years to cultivate his allotment, and we got on very well, especially when he heard that I was born in South Shields, which earns me the sobriquet of ‘Sand Dancer’.  We would have embarked on a further conversation about condensers and strum boxes, with perhaps a diversion to discuss drop forging,  but unfortunately we had to break off to listen to the Captain.  Alas, a conversation that I will never have.  Very nice bloke.

Day 97

Easter Day. 16 April.  Entering Gulf of Oman.  30ºC.  Wind Force 6 from NW.  Clocks were retarded yet again last night to Dubai time, making us three hours ahead of UK.  Beware: we are getting closer, folks; your honeymoon period will soon be over.

I stood on the balcony at 0800 this morning and gazed at a deep blue sea, flecked only by a few catspaws.  Glancing forward at the starboard bridge wing, I was rewarded by the sight of the Captain out on the catwalk, having a quick burn.  QM2 does not have open bridge wings or any external area, so the Captain was out on a narrow maintenance catwalk, breaching the air conditioned citadel in the process. Well, if you can’t have a sneaky fag in your own ship, then what can you do?  Rank should have its privileges.

We took another blistering walk across the hot deck in the blinding sunlight at 0830 to get to breakfast.  It’s a tough life at sea, but someone has to do it for Britain and I know that you appreciate the sacrifice that we are making.

It being Easter Day, we went to the non-denominational service led by the Captain in the Royal Court Theatre at 1000 (as mentioned in Blog 21, we passed on the episcopalian service held at 0800).  The service was remarkably well attended and enjoyable; we even had a sort of a choir in the form of five of the Cunard singers, who sang one hymn.  I am not sure that those attending were familiar with church services, as the couple next to us sang no hymns and spoke no prayers or responses, despite the words being on the sheet in front of them.  Also, the rendering of the hymn by the ‘choir’ was followed by applause in some quarters – a ‘first’ for me in a church service.

I attended a very good lecture by an ex USAF Officer on the American air bases in Britain since WW2 (for some reason, Jane was not interested).  He proved to be a lively and very informative speaker, explaining the huge number of bases in England during the War (I cannot recall the exact number, but I think it was over a hundred), the number during the Cold War, and the number in the next five years (one).  He also explained how the United States Air Force (USAF) had evolved from the wartime United States Army Air Force (USAAF) because of jealousy of the RAF existing as a separate service rather than being a corps of the army, as the USAAF was.  The USAF got their new identity and uniforms in 1946, but, for some unfathomable reason, kept the army ranks.   There were, of course, lots of pictures of aircraft, which was most gratifying.  I did not realise that the ubiquitous Dakota is not called that by the Americans; Dakota is a British nomenclature.  The Americans call it a Gooney Bird (= albatross).  Our lecturer also covered the various operations that the US bases in Britain have supported, starting with the Berlin Air Lift in 1948-49 (jointly with the RAF).  I knew that it had been a huge operation, but I did not realise that it involved an average of one flight per minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  That is quite an undertaking.  The decision by de Gaulle to insist on the removal of all US bases and servicemen from France in 1966 led to the bases being moved to Britain.  Apparently, the US ambassador was summoned to the presidential palace and told of the demand that all US servicemen should be removed, and the ambassador responded, “Does that include those who are dead and buried in French soil?”.  One in the eye for the French, who remained uncooperative during the US attack on Libya in the 1980s, denying the use of French airspace.   The advent of cruise missiles and ICBMs has reduced the need for US bases in Britain today, and the latest decision is to reduce to just one, Lakenheath, by 2020.

It being a Sunday, we partook of a Pimms (Jane) and an amontillado (me) before a lunch of roast lamb.  Alas, the food was disappointing.  The lamb looked good, and was very tender despite being as thick as a steak, but the flavour was weird and Jane left half of hers.  It certainly didn’t taste like lamb.  I am not sure what they do with some of the food: they seem to take straightforward British fare and muck it about a bit.  After a week onboard I can now comment more fairly on the differences between Princess Grill (our outward journey) and Britannia Club (now): on the whole, the food is just not as good, though it can be excellent on occasions.  In some ways this could be taken as a pleasing conclusion, as it would be a bit annoying if we had paid all that extra money for Grill tickets only to find that the food was just as good for hoi polloi.  But it is not that the food now is more ordinary:  that would be acceptable; it is that it does not always match the description in terms of quality, taste and quantity, and it is inconsistent.  To give an example from the other day, I ordered beef tournedos and it was absolutely superb, possibly the best I have ever had; last Sunday we had roast beef and – again – it was perfect; yet on another occasion I ordered prawn cocktail as a starter and it came as three (yes 3) small prawns on a large plate with four drops of rose marie sauce around it and a sprig of lettuce.  You see something on the menu and you think, ‘oh that will be good’, but when it comes it turns out to be something different, something bland, or something small (or all three).  As you know, I am not one to complain or moan about things as a rule, but I must make an exception here for the sake of this factual record.  Sorry, did you say something?

We thought we would sunbathe after lunch.  Believe it or not, it is the first time we have done that as a dedicated activity since we left UK, being wary of too much sun.  But the large sun deck on Deck 13 is just outside our cabin, so we thought it was convenient to pop out and get twenty minutes each side.  Out we went, but we had not allowed for the relative wind across the deck, which was ferocious.  We tried lying on the sun beds, but first my hat blew off, then my book skidded across the deck, then my shirt went.  I chased after these items before they disappeared over the side, then heard a grating noise as the wind caught the whole sun bed and started to move that too.  So we gave up after 15 minutes, which was just as well as our faces were already beginning to feel the effects of wind burn.  As a matter of interest, we have now crossed the latitude where the sun passes directly overhead throughout the day, and it now crosses the southern segment from east to west again, as opposed to the northern segment like it did in Australia.  So we are back in the northern hemisphere.

Gazing over our balcony (in the shade) at the sea, we were rewarded by the sight of Flying Fish skittering away from the ship in considerable numbers.  They travel quite a distance through the air – perhaps a hundred yards or more – and are larger than we expected at about a foot long.  Fascinating.  There is always something to look at at sea.

For some reason, we felt the urge to break with routine and have an aperitif before dinner, the latter taken earlier so that we could attend a show called ‘The Three Tenors’ which was about – er – three men singing.  So 1830 found us in the Chart Room, a tasteful and very luxurious bar that we have rarely used before, ordering a kir and gin and tonic which we drank as we watched the dark sea roll by.  Being us, of course, we also did some people-watching as folk drifted into the bar.  It was a Black Tie evening and it was interesting to observe what some women’s idea of evening wear was, with selections ranging from lengths ‘short’ to ‘long’; from styles ‘elegant to ‘frump’; and from sizes ‘slim frigate’ to ‘stately as a galleon’.  Of course, there was not so much variation in the men, Black Tie being fairly uniform, but their choice of shoes was usually their weak point: understandably, few could afford proper patent leather shoes but, of the substitutes, most were filthy or inappropriate (we saw one pair of shoes that looked like beetle crushers from the 1950s).  It is amazing how many men today do not bother to polish their shoes, and some of the footwear would have been better employed in the garden.  Standards, standards.  Cherry Blossom and Kiwi are not expensive.

We took Foi Gras and Beef Wellington with a glass of Shiraz for dinner, both reasonable though the Wellington not as good as Jane’s (how could it be?).  Baked Alaska with cherries flambéed in kirsch rounded the meal off.   The theatre was packed for ‘The Three Tenors’, despite us getting there 15  minutes early.  As you know, we have not been much taken by the evening mass entertainment onboard, though the classical concerts during the day have usually been excellent.  But we keep hoping that something to our tastes will come along in the evening, and we dip our toes in the water from time to time.  In the past, the ‘dipping’ process has consisted of us nipping into the back of the theatre during a performance, standing for a bit by the door, then nipping hastily out again.  This time, ‘The Three Tenors’ sounded more promising, so we entered in good time and took a seat.  Oh dear, yet again a disappointment. The songs ranged from opera to the contemporary, performed (as Jane put it) ‘with them jigging around all the time’.  Though not a fan of opera, I would probably have enjoyed it if the singing had been good; alas, it was mediocre and the 45 minutes dragged by like having a tooth extracted without anaesthetic.  Well, we did try.  Should have gone to the cinema to watch ‘La La Land’, which comes highly unrecommended by most friends who have seen it.

Day 98

Easter Monday, 17 April.  On passage to Dubai, in the Gulf of Oman, about 50 nm from Iran.  Position at noon: 24deg 43N 58deg 40E.   Course 305 Light airs. Haze. 28ºC.

It was an early start today for no other reasons than that our body clocks had not yet adapted to the changes in time zone and the sun had risen.  I sat outside on the balcony in my bathrobe while Jane did things in the bathroom, and was struck by a strange screeching noise that I had never heard before.  Investigating, I discovered that the noise was seabirds – later identified as Cape Gannets – swooping low over the water and feeding on Flying Fish that were skimming away from the ship.  It was quite entertaining to watch, as the gannets occasionally dived deep into the clear water after the fish, leaving a fine trail of bubbles behind them.  Clearly, we were near land.

We had ordered breakfast in our cabin and we took the tray outside on the balcony, which was lovely and idyllic until the people in the cabin next door came out onto their balcony and we heard a loud male  Yorkshire voice bellow from behind the intervening partition,
” EEE, DORIS, LOOK! DOLPHINS!  EEEE!  ‘INT IT MARVELLOUS!
This was followed by a quieter female voice saying,
“No Fred.  Arr don’t think they’re dolphins.  They might be Flying Fish”.
“FLYING FISH!  AYE!  ‘APPEN THEY MIGHT BE!  RECKON THEY MUST ‘AVE BIN DRIVEN TO THE SURFACE BY THEM DOLPHINS!
“Shush, Fred, keep yer voice down”.
But it was too late, the idyllic moment had been spoiled.  I despair of my fellow passengers: even the screens don’t keep them out.  We seem to have a lot of descendants of the Wars of the Roses onboard for this leg, by the way, Cunard must have bought a job lot from Manchester or Leeds or somewhere north of Watford (I say this as a true northerner, not someone who comes from the Midlands).  Well, that’s insulted at least four of my friends, and I didn’t have all that many to start with.

On non-lecture days there is always a need to find somewhere quiet to spend the time while one’s steward cleans the cabin.  We quite favour the Commodore Club, which is up for’d under the bridge and has lovely views over the bow.  On this occasion, however, the bar staff were practising how far and how well they could throw empty bottles into the gash bin, so we opted instead for the library on the deck below.  This had equally good views over the bow, and was quieter, until Consumptive Colin two seats away started sneezing and coughing.  Not that delicate little ‘tsssst’ of a sneeze like ladies seem to do, but the explosive, Vesuvius, male version, catching some mucous in his hand and spreading the rest in a fine spray of droplets across the library.  Then the coughing started: deep and raucous and rich with phlegm.  As Ian Fleming once wrote, ‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action’.  Well this bloke would have got some enemy action from me if Jane hadn’t starting hissing at me in warning at my deep sighs and tuts.  At one point we thought the patient had sensibly got up to die elsewhere, but, no, he just stood up behind his chair to increase the range.  In the end, we got up and left: it was like living in a sanatorium.  If we don’t come down with something after this then it will be a miracle.

The ‘cruise cough’, by the way, is a common characteristic of our voyage experience.  It is noticeable on the days of embarkation and for about a week afterwards, often on the balconies as people explore their surroundings for the first time, but sometimes on tour buses.  First one starts up, then another answers, then another joins in.  It is like pterodactyls calling to each other across a primeval forest.  The phenomenon is the symptom of a few generous people who take the altruistic view that their germs should not miss out on a good holiday, so they bring them along for the ride.  The germs love it, of course, and make lots of new friends – which is the aim of every cruise operator.  Entirely coincidentally, today the Captain came on the broadcast to announce that the norovirus had taken hold with a few people onboard and Fumigation Stage 1 had been implemented (or something like that).  Soon the smoke from the after funnels will be turning black as they burn the bodies. 

Lunchtime brought some excitement in the form of the Royal Navy Liaison Officer (that I didn’t know we had) and his announcement that a Royal Navy Merlin helicopter, based at RNAS Culdrose, would shortly be buzzing the ship.  As the aircraft only has a three hour endurance, it presumably had not come from Cornwall that day.  On cue, along came the mighty machine, making several passes down both sides of the ship to the accompanying commentary of the liaison officer, who explained the aircraft’s role, armament and capability.  Of course, the Merlin was part of Naval Party something-or-other (he didn’t actually say) which was working with the Omani Navy to provide ‘security for such as pass on the seas upon their lawful occasions’.  I am still curious how the Royal Navy Officer got onboard: there hadn’t been a helicopter drop as far as I knew (the helo deck is just outside our cabin), and we hadn’t stopped for a boat transfer.  Maybe he got on in Colombo or maybe he was always there, on exchange.  

We watched the last classical concert by the Swedish guitarist in the afternoon.  He was, again, very good, but this time he included some contemporary pieces that sounded like a series of different notes played at random.  Not quite our cup of tea this time, but thank you for the experience.

At teatime we received further excitement in the form of a maritime patrol aircraft, flying low on the starboard side.  I did not see any markings, so cannot comment on its origins, but it was definitely military.  It was a four-engined turboprop aircraft, silver grey, very slim.  I suppose it could just as easily have come from Iran as Oman.  Iran was visible as a brown smudge on the starboard beam at the time – perhaps 15nm away (we were in the northbound channel of the approaches to the Straits of Hormuz).

The good news is that we heard this afternoon that we had been successful in our application to go on a ‘Dubai, the Golden City’ tour on arrival tomorrow.  When we first applied, we were told that the tour was full, but that we could go on the reserve list.  Somebody must have dropped out, because we now have the tickets.  I have no idea where we are going – my wife handles all such matters (‘Dubai’ would be a good guess), so watch this space for the run-down.

Day 99

Wednesday 18 April.  At Dubai, starboard side to.  Hazy and hot.  32ºC.  Light airs.

We were up at 0530 for our arrival alongside and our excursion into Dubai, scheduled to muster at 0730.  The plan last night was to have breakfast in our cabin before departure (the restaurant does not open until 0800), but we discovered that room service breakfast does not start until 0700, so that was out.  We could, of course, have broken our fast in the Kings Court self-service buffet (‘all you can eat with people who can eat all’) which opens at 0530.  Don’t be silly.  So we nibbled on a biscuit and a bunch of grapes on our balcony in the emerging dawn, Jane chuntering throughout about the imbecility of not providing an early service for those on trips.  To cap it all, I mucked up the cafetière of coffee, and she had grounds floating in her breakfast cup.  She didn’t have her happy face on that morning, and for some reason she resented me pointing that out.

Well, there we were, mustered in the theatre at 0730 under Flag 1 for the ‘Golden Dubai Tour’, viewing our fellow trippers with an assessing eye.  We were the second to arrive, so we were well sorted on the precedence for getting on the bus.  No more elbowing here.  The people behind were grumbling like no tomorrow about QM2, saying the theatre was awful and not a patch on the QUEEN ELIZABETH, and the ship was too big, and the food wasn’t as good.  Crikey, they could moan for England and I speak as an expert.  It begged the question, “So why, pray, did you decide to book this cruise?”.  The temptation was to get them ashore, shove them off the bus, and leave them there.  And possibly pay a couple of Bedouin to work them over a bit.  Fortunately, we were soon freed of this whinging, for we were off, following our guide with his little flag.  Only to be shoved back by this enormously fat older couple carrying a huge rucksack, who appeared out of nowhere and barged in front of us.  Oi, porkies, we were number two here.  They waddled along ahead of us like two hippopotami that have emerged from the swamp looking for food, blocking the whole passageway and defying any attempt to get past.  We got our own back when we hit the jetty, however, when the sleek agility of the springbok came into its own, for with one bound we were past, leaving them reeling in the slipstream.  That’ll teach you to mess with Team Shacklepin.  And we can’t even blame Johnny Foreigner this time: the two behemoths were English.

The bus tour was to be a whistle-stop tour of Dubai, compressed into five hours.  Inevitably it could only skim the surface, but it would be better than us taking in yet another shopping mall and time – as ever – was limited.  Our guide proved to be excellent and I wish now I had taken written notes.  Here is what I can remember;  you know all this anyway, I dare say, but I record it for posterity.  Dubai is one of seven states that form the single country that is the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  Each state has its own king, and they take turns to be Head of State of the whole country.  The capital of UAE is Abu Dhabi and Dubai is the commercial and administrative centre.  English is widely spoken as a second language.  UAE only came into being in 1971 when the British left and the separate sheiks agreed to settle their petty squabbles and form a united country.  From then on Dubai changed from being a tiny pearling village to being the enormous trading city that is is today.  To be accurate, the state of Dubai consists of Dubai City, and desert.  Even in the 1990s there were only seven skyscrapers in Dubai City, while now there are dozens including, of course, the highest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, which is a hotel.  Curiously and paradoxically, Dubai’s wealth lies not in oil, but in trading and tourism, the latter being the second highest income earner.  Anyone can work in Dubai and there is no income tax, but no immigration is allowed – that is to say you cannot become a naturalised Emirati.  The latter comprise only 11% of the population and are all middle class; they get free water, 50% subsidised electricity, free education, and free health care.  Foreigners have to pay for these things though, for healthcare, employers are required by law to provide healthcare insurance.  Dubai is a very rich country.  Even the police cars are Ferraris, but –  then – they have to be in order to catch the other Ferraris.  Although Emirati are predominately Sunni Moslems, UAE is a tolerant society that embraces all cultures and creeds without hindrance, and local women do not cover their faces. Women wearing the full burka, our guide explained, will probably be tourists from Saudi Arabia.  Or possibly Bradford.  I put that last bit in myself.  The city, when we visited it by the way, was shrouded in a heavy haze such that you could barely see the top of the Burj Khalifa.  We learned later that this was partly the aftermath of a recent sand storm and partly a fairly normal state for Dubai: they rarely get dark blue skies and bright sunshine.  It didn’t affect the heat, which was prodigious.  It only rains for three months of the year.

The time it took to move from one highlight of the tour to the next, by bus, was itself a measure of the vastness of Dubai.  The city was amazing.  There were six-lane highways, all busy with cars, a very swish high-rise driverless train system (one train every two minutes), and a comprehensive underground Metro system.  Everywhere were shopping malls and huge buildings, ultra modern and tall, yet well-spaced so that there was no sense of claustrophobia.  New construction continued here and there, and it was quite clear from the excavation work that the city was quite literally constructed in the desert.  The city has a rule that any building older than 1980 must either be brought up to modern acceptable aesthetic standard or be demolished and replaced.  Overall, the city was very well-ordered, spotlessly clean and – yes folks – no graffiti!  However, it was not at all pedestrian friendly: there were few pavements and no small cafés on the street; all that was in the many shopping malls.  Water for drinking, and irrigation of the many gardens, came from a few wells, but most was extracted from seawater.  The grass was an intense bright green colour and uniform: better than you would find even in England or Ireland, thanks to irrigation.

Our first stop was a beach to allow Jane to paddle in the Arabian Sea, and for everyone else to photograph the Burj Al Arab hotel: the most expensive in the world, the second tallest, and looking like the spinnaker tower in Portsmouth.  There you could have a nice breakfast for about £70, but the rooms were harder to come by as the hotel is usually fully booked.  I wonder if they have The Times and serve Wilkins ‘Tiptree’ marmalade?  Onward to the largest mosque in Dubai for photographs (magnificent, but entrance was not part of the package, which was fine by us), then to a carpet museum for a pit stop.

A visit to a carpet museum does not sound terrible exciting, but it was only included in order for us to use the ‘facilities’.  This was an adventure in itself.  The Gents was quite normal, but the Ladies had the usual throne, but no lavatory paper; thoughtfully, however, a hosepipe was provided to give oneself a good sluicing down.  Jane refused to reveal whether she had availed herself of the services of Mr Kärcher in this manner; I presume not, as it was not clear as to how she would have subsequently dried her lower half after the deluge.  Mind you, her face did have a somewhat dazed expression, as if she had just taken part in a whole new dazzling experience.  Having used the lavatories it seemed churlish not to look at the carpets on display and to listen to the sales patter.  The carpets were actually framed, and hung on the walls like portraits.  They really were magnificent and opulent, all hand-made in Dubai (not India) and woven in black or rich red, picked out with solid gold thread.  The biggest (about the size of a hearth rug) took nine months to make and was on sale for about £4,000; the smallest, about the size of a bath rug, was for sale for about £400, which I thought was reasonable for solid gold thread and real jewels.  Jane thought they were lovely, but a little gaudy for our conservative tastes, for which I heaved a sigh of relief.

Dubai Museum was next, housed under an ancient fort and very well put together to depict the history of Dubai .  Unfortunately, it was also packed with Japanese and Chinese, all yabbering and pushing at once, so that it was hard to take in a lot of the displays.  What with the yabbering, the heat, the dark, the sand and the congestion it was a bit like the Black Hole of Calcutta down there, and we beat a hasty exit.

Into the fresh (hot) air and onward we went to Dubai Creek to catch an abra, an Arab water taxi, across to the souks on the other side.  The abra experience was hilarious.  The boat was a wooden flush-decked craft about forty feet long, with no railings or bulwarks.  We sat on a raised central platform on deck, while the coxswain stood in a hole in the engine compartment in the middle, whence he could see virtually nothing because of the passengers sitting in the way.  His navigation and boat-handling skills were of the Navy Lark school of nautical practise, inspired by the phrase, “Never mind the torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead”.  We shot backwards out of the berth without looking, bouncing off carefully placed wheels that formed fenders on the jetty, and narrowly avoiding another boat coming in, invoking much swearing in a foreign tongue.  Engaging ahead, with the engine clattering like a cotton loom, we creamed across the harbour with the coxswain bellowing at the passengers in Arabic to get out of his line of sight.  We then entered the berth on the other side, with our arrival a reverse repetition of the departure.  Twice, I was convinced we were going to hit other boats and at one point we went full astern, with the engine screaming and in danger of firing out con rods and piston rings in all directions, while a string of Arab invectives followed us.  Miraculously, we came alongside or, that is to say, we bounced off three bits of land and stopped, still afloat.  And so to the souks, passing up the opportunity to try a camel milk gelato on the way.

We had ten minutes in the spice souk and forty minutes in the gold souk, both fascinating experiences and I was glad Jane was with me or I would have bought a bag of garam masala, two virginal sisters, a camel, and a Rolex watch for £150 (bargain!).  The amount of bling in the gold souk would have kept Mr T happy for a year.  Heaven knows how much all that stuff was worth.  Few items had prices on them, so you were expected to haggle a deal.  Only one item, a gold and emerald bracelet, took the memsahib’s eye and I was directed to go in and politely enquire about an Armed Forces and Pensioner’s discount.  The necklace was £4,000.  I blanched.  I think the bloke would have haggled, but not down to the £100 that I had in mind.  As the News of the World used to say, I made my excuses and left.  As I said to Jane outside, I would have gone to £150, but what would she want jewels for when she had a rare little gem like me?  The crash of a nearby pile-driver unfortunately drowned out her reply.  

We had been warned before going ashore that women should dress modestly and cover up all naked flesh, so Jane wore a long sleeved top, trousers, socks and shoes.  It came as a bit of a surprise, therefore, to see a substantially endowed  British girl in the souk wearing just a boob tube, skimpy shorts, and sandals.  Her boyfriend, also in shorts, had treated himself to a red chequered Arab headdress, presumably to blend in.  I am fairly sure they weren’t off the ship, but I still thought it was a bit of an insult to the local people.  No wonder these people get thrown into jail.

And so back to the ship, in a temperature of 35ºC.  Dubai was an ‘end of segment’ port, that is to say the end of one mini cruise and the start of another.  A new batch of passengers was joining to join for the last leg to Southampton. We examined these creatures – our future shipmates for twenty days – as they lined up in the terminal building with their luggage, their flip flops, their sombreros and their tattoos with a mixture of horror, helplessness and resignation.  ‘Welcome to those seeking style and sophistication’ says the Captain’s message on the Daily Programme; well, that would cover three of them then; what about the rest?

Normally when you come off shore as an already-embarked passenger, you are fast-tracked through the boarding process, bypassing new-joining passengers with their heavy luggage etc.  We were unfortunate in that, just as we arrived at the gate, they closed the fast-track lane and we had to lumber through with the cast from Benidorm.  For some reason, Jane was beside herself at this.  She was spitting like a wildcat on Speed, hopping from one foot to the other and complaining to the port staff, the emigration staff, the security staff, the ensign staff, and anyone else who wouldn’t listen.  As someone in the queue pointed out, even if we had jumped the line past the security scanner, there was still a long lumbering caravan of humanity reaching all the way to the ship’s brow.  But we did finally burst into the open air, where we changed down into third gear and shot past two wheelchairs, five suitcases and an ASDA bag to get onboard.   At last, we were through the second security scanner at the entry port and heading for our restaurant for lunch; thank heavens lunch was extended to 1430 on embarkation days.  We had already planned what we would have, starting with a long cold beer and ending with a large ice cream.  Oh dear.  The restaurant was deserted except for a few crumbs, the last serving having taken place an hour ago at 1315.  We could, said a helpful waiter, get some food in the King’s Court self service buffet?  We didn’t think so.  The wildcat had turned into the Lord High Executioner by this time, and I was keeping well clear lest I be the one who lost his head.  I swear that if Mr Cunard had crossed our path he would be a dead man (actually, he already is).  We made it back to the cabin without her murdering any ship’s staff and took stock.  We had not eaten since 0600, and that had only been a snack.  We could muster half a biscuit, a green banana and three grapes.  Then I hit on a cunning plan.  The mini bar!  Quickly, two ice cold Peronis were poured and quickly they disappeared down our necks.  Second brainwave by The Master?  Room Service.  So finally, after a further half an hour’s wait, we tucked in to a club sandwich and a cheese panini with a few chips.  It might not have been haut cuisine, but it filled a little hole.  We then lay on the bed and promptly lost consciousness for the rest of the afternoon, zonked.

“PEEP, PEEP, PEEP, PEEP,PEEP, PEEP, PEEEEEEEEP”,  blasted the main emergency alarm.  
“For exercise, for exercise, the ship’s alarm is now being sounded and newly-joined passengers should collect their life jackets and proceed to their assembly stations taking care not to use the lifts…”. 
I swear I was off that bed and searching for my steaming boots, overalls, anti-flash gear and life-jacket  before I had even recovered consciousness.  It was 1700 and the newbies were being briefed on how to get off.  Oh well, we were going to get up anyway.  Honestly.

We had a pleasant dinner, our first proper meal of the day, preceded by a Prosecco and accompanied by a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (Zealand Estate, vintage not recorded).  There was no entertainment onboard that night so we spent the evening after dinner on our balcony watching the lights of Dubai and basking in the warm evening.  Lovely.  One idle observation was how much dew was forming on the balcony rail and deck; we always thought desert countries had a dry heat, but clearly there was quite a bit of humidity after all and the temperature dropped fairly fast to the mid twenties.  Interesting.

Day 100 (yes, one hundred)

Wednesday, 19 April.  Hazy sunshine. 42ºC. At Dubai/Sailing for Muscat. Wind Force 3 from WNW.

I spent a disturbed night: I dreamt that I had lost my cap and could not find my Night Order Book and so could not direct the time for flashing the ship’s boilers, the warming through of the main turbines, the testing of the main throttles and the testing of the steering gear and ship’s sirens, thus preventing the ship from sailing.  HMS NONSUCH has a great deal to answer for.   Sleep was not a happy place, so we rose early and were first in to breakfast at 0800.  This threw the waiting staff into some confusion, as they were used to a sleepy Jane coming in at 0915, yawning and stretching like something that had just crawled out of the double bottom tanks.  We had considered going ashore during the forenoon to visit the huge Dubai Mall, but it did not open until 1000, the trip took 40 minutes each way, and we had to be back onboard by 1230.  It was not going to be a goer.  So the plan was to have an early breakfast, allowing us to make room for an early lunch, and therefore allowing us to watch the ship sail at 1300.  Hence, we read books sitting on steamer chairs (we were sitting on the chairs, not the books) in the shade and passed the pleasant forenoon of those on holiday with nothing to do.

Now here’s an interesting observation in human psychology.  One way of identifying a seasoned cruiser is whether or not they wear a lanyard around their necks, attached to their embarkation card.  We all carry embarkation cards.  They are the size of a credit card and operate our cabin doors, record our comings and goings to and from the ship, and act as credit cards to pay for drinks and goods onboard.  They do not show a photograph or name: just a bar code, our voyage and our assembly station; but they do have the Cunard World Club colour on them (did I mention before that we were Gold members?).  Well the cards are difficult to carry if you don’t have pockets, such as if you are wearing a bathing costume or if you are female, so the solution is to use an ID card holder on a lanyard, and slide the embarkation card in there.  And this is the thing: your seasoned cruiser, whether wearing a bathing costume or being female or not, wears the lanyard at all times, like some member of MI5 popping out of the building for a sandwich.  It is displayed in a casual, offhand, understated way, with the badge colour in full view, and demonstrates that one has cruised before, the unspoken comment being, “Oh, one has to wear these dreary things.  I got this one during that cruise around Spitsbergen in ’89, the old one wore out”.  Now you can get these lanyards at the ship’s gift shop for $8, but the ribbon bears the Cunard logo and could be considered a bit naff, as well as revealing to all that you are a newcomer with more money than sense.  Seeing all this on the outward journey, Jane and I were determined to join the club for the return trip.  We raised this difficult conundrum with Laura when we were in Australia, and discussed solutions at some length.  Laura gave the matter weighty consideration, before solving the problem by giving us some old lanyards that she and Derek had (anything to stop us going on about it I expect).  Jane’s has ‘Saab’ on it (Swedish image, goes with the strawberry blond hair and the icy look), and mine bears the inscription ‘University of Melbourne’.  Thus, people seeing me walking purposefully around the ship with my distinguished silver hair, take me for an Australian professor of considerable erudition .  Or maybe a university janitor.

We duly left Dubai at 1300, blasting our siren and rotating on our axis in the usual way.  These actions never cease to inspire and impress me, despite having been onboard for so long.  Absolutely nobody watched us.  Even the berthing party had legged it.  I think the city was taking a siesta.  We passed the breakwater at 1315 in a temperature of 42ºC, the hottest we have ever experienced so far.  Jane seemed very happy.  With us we carry an anonymous and discreet party of ex special forces personnel, as a precaution against pirates.  We haven’t seen them because they are anonymous and discreet.  Let us hope that they are not called upon.  Summary on Dubai?  Amazing, impressive, huge and almost overwhelming.  Clean, well-ordered, very affluent, safe and hot.  Graffiti Factor, 0%; litter, NIL; skateboarders, NIL; dog muck, NIL; dogs, NIL; dossers, NIL.  Not pedestrian friendly, but you can’t have everything.  Would we visit again?  Maybe, but not sure what you would do after you had finished shopping and sunbathing; build sand castles perhaps?  Next stop Muscat, tomorrow.

Although this blog only covers a few days, it is a bit hefty so I will send it off now.

Blog 21. Return from Australia. Port Kelang, Penang and Colombo

Day 90

Palm Sunday, 9 April.  At Port Kelang, starboard side to.  Clear skies, 37ºC. Light airs.

After a good night’s sleep we were woken by a long blast of the ship’s siren.  I looked at my watch: 0700 and a pale dawn was filtering past the curtains.  Tottering onto the balcony, I saw that a local fishing boat was in the main channel and was being encouraged to shove over, or be run down.  We were entering Port Kelang (previously called Port Swettenham), the leading port in Malaysia, and official port for the capital, Kuala Lumpur, 25 miles inland.  It certainly lived up to its reputation, for there were ships everywhere: container ships, tankers, general cargo – all were represented.  To my mild surprise, we were not to berth on a container jetty, but instead we would lie alongside the Boustead Cruise Centre on a T-shaped jetty projecting out into the stream.  The cruise terminal building looked very nice, but it soon became clear that we were fairly far from civilisation, as these ports often are.  There would be no strolling ashore here: there was Port Kelang (just that), the town of Klang (pop 275,000 and 5 miles inland), and Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia and 25 miles away).  A shuttle service would run from the ship to a shopping mall in Klang, and that would take 25 minutes.

Already alongside was a very small cruise ship (or possibly a private yacht) called THE TAIPAN, and a most peculiar square, utilitarian looking, vessel that looked like it was made of used Coke tins and had just come off the set of Mad Max.  This vessel appeared to be a US warship, as she was a dirty metallic grey in colour, flew the Stars and Stripes, and appeared to be manned by marines.  She was a catamaran or SWATH, completely oblong in plan, had a large flight deck, and a vehicle deck with ramp accessed from the stern. She appeared to be made from unpainted galvanised corrugated steel – hence my reference to the Coke tin – and had stains and patches hither and thither as if someone had been treating her with Kurust without bothering to add any primer later.   Despite her warship-appearance, her name was the US Naval Ship (USNS) FALL RIVER.  USNS was not a title that I was familiar with and so I looked her up.  She is an Expeditionary Fast Transport capable of 43 knots and is operated by the US Military Sealift Command, not the US Navy.  As I had inferred, her role was rapidly to transport soldiers or marines of battalion strength, with their vehicles, to parts of the world requiring military intervention.  Why she was built with corrugated iron and was unpainted was beyond me. 

We were alongside by 0800, and the gangway opened at 0915.  Not having booked any trips to Kuala Lumpur (known as KL by seasoned travellers) our options were somewhat limited.  I was sorely tempted not to go ashore at all, but that would have been an opportunity lost, so Jane and I took the shuttle to Klang to look at the shopping mall.  The roads were pretty awful, and we drove for miles across building plots and scrub, bouncing up and down as if on safari. For some bizarre reason, the dual carriageways had speed bumps and this added to the excitement of the journey.  One thing in Malaysia’s favour, they drive on the proper side of the road, so we had left them with a little bit of civilisation, at least.

Eventually, we reached the mall.  You know, if you’ve seen one shopping mall you’ve seen them all. This mall was fine: not a patch on Singapore or Cape Town, but not as bad as some others.  There was nothing special about the shops; they were neither up-market nor down.  We whipped round in 45 minutes and bought nothing but two packets of ground coffee, both more expensive than UK.  Back we went on the shuttle bus, this time in a vehicle with no air conditioning, no speedometer and no seat belts.  Another couple got on after us and said, 
“Well, what a waste of time that was!”.  
Not just us then.

After lunch onboard (only people in the restaurant) we relaxed on our balcony, wallowing in the heat and listening to the generators of USNS FALL RIVER.  Soundproofing was clearly not a priority when they designed her.

An interesting and regular occurrence whenever we sail is that there is always an announcement saying, “Would the following passengers please contact the Purser’s Office urgently: Mr Anthony Snodgrass of Deck 9, Miss Freda Cunningham of Deck 2… etc etc” (it isn’t always the same people).  I haven’t worked out if these people are adrift, or whether the ship’s electronic checking system is not working properly and has not logged them onboard.  On this, the final bit of our cruise the list has seemed to run to half a dozen people.  If the log-in system is defective then maybe it should be fixed for safety reasons if not for anything else; if it is because the passengers are adrift, then tough – just sail without them.   Apparently that very thing did happen when the ship was in Korea: some passengers, who had cut it fine anyway, were taken to the wrong place by a taxi and the ship sailed without them.  Their passports were landed and they had to catch the ship up in Shanghai.  That’ll teach them.  Somehow, I don’t think I’d make a good cruise ship captain.

We sailed at 1910 after the last stragglers had casually made their way across from the terminal building.  No rush, they were just supposed to be back onboard by 1830, but that’s OK; we can all wait.  

Dinner that evening was enhanced by being able to watch the port go by as we sailed away at 20 knots: something we couldn’t do before from Princess Grill (where we could only look at the joggers and fitness fanatics).  Afterwards, we went to listen to a Paraguayan  harpist play his Paraguayan harp in the evening.   He was very talented and the music, at times, was a bit like that of a Spanish guitar.  It wasn’t quite my cup of tea, as I prefer classical music, but I could appreciate the talent involved (the Paraguayan harp, by the way, is different from the normal harp in that it is played while standing up, with the player holding it like a double bass).

Day 91

Monday 10 April.  Sunshine and heavy showers.  35ºC.  At Georgetown, Penang.  

Penang is an island and port off the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula and is an independent state in the federation of Malaysia.  It has a strong colonial past, having been acquired for the East India Company by one Captain Francis Light in 1786 by the usual mix of diplomacy and trickery.  It grew in prosperity and stature and became the capital of the Straits Settlements in 1832, though its stature took a bit of a hit with the ascendancy of Singapore to the south.  Although an island, Penang is linked to the mainland by the third largest suspension bridge in the world, which is eight miles long.  Georgetown is the capital, and it was there that we secured at 0700, port side to against the Sweetenham Cruise Terminal.  Already alongside was a fine four-masted barquentine which was also in the cruise business, though on a somewhat smaller scale.  I do not know how many passengers she carried, nor did I get her name, but she managed to incorporate two small swimming pools into a sailing ship configuration, which I thought was clever.  Presumably the pools empty rapidly whenever she heels over under sail.

From the ship, Georgetown looked like a much better prospect than Port Kelang.  For a start, we could walk ashore straight into the city, which looked inviting and bustling.  Secondly, the town’s strong colonial past meant that there was plenty to see over and above the ethnic aspects of a foreign port.  We were soon ashore in the blistering heat, dodging taxi drivers and rickshaw drivers and setting a fine marching pace for Fort Cornwallis, our first destination.  The fort had been built by Light initially as a stockade, but that was not fated to last and so it was replaced by a stone edifice in the early part of the 19th century.   The fort was in sound condition but, sadly, it was a bit of a disappointment and an opportunity lost by the Malaysian Tourist Board (if there is one).  There was a series of laminated, but faded, photographs dotted around the fort that provided some information, but otherwise there was little else in the way of facts.  Wooden cut-outs of redcoats, with holes for people to pose with, provided a somewhat tacky diversion.  The chapel was intact, and said to be the oldest Anglican church in south-east Asia, but it retained no internal religious features or pews and was currently being used as storage for a few muskets and scaffolding poles.  There appeared to be a barracks, but there was nothing to confirm the fact; there was a magazine, which was clean inside but, again, was devoid of any information.  Hoardings outside proclaimed a huge refurbishment programme for the whole area, including the fort, and I am sure it will make a big difference.  Unfortunately, it will be too late for us.

The sky darkened and rain looked imminent and, of course, rain out here means a deluge.  So our next visit was directed towards the State Museum, a few streets away.  We took in several fine colonial buildings on the way, including the Town Hall and Court House.  The pavements of the city appeared to be…quaint, and dotted with hazards such as very deep storm drains and very deep holes in the ground (by ‘very deep’, I mean like 18”).  I think the holes might have been part of the drainage system, but I cannot be sure.  I know they smelled in a rather noisome way.  The museum was very good, and it explained the history of the island and its very multi-cultural population very well.  While we were in there, the heavens opened and the predicted rain fell in torrents.

After the rain had stopped we set off for the Protestant Cemetery, which contained the European graves of most of the island’s forefathers and was said to be older than Highgate Cemetery in London.  We set off through a very vibrant part of the city, passing colourful buildings and many and varied small shops, over pavement that came and went at random.  Some buildings were modern, others were worse for wear, sometimes next to each other: it was quite a mix.  The cemetery took some finding, mainly because we misread the map, but we found it eventually and went in.  The site was rather run-down and not as well looked after as one might wish, but it still yielded some famous names from Penang’s past, including that of Captain Light himself.  I was particularly moved by some of the graves, such as those of naval and army officers who had died quite young, perhaps of some tropical disease.  The grave of one Charles Theophilus Hogan, Chief Engineer of the colonial steamer PEI HO, who died on 1 January 1869, seemed close to home to me, and I found it very poignant.  I wonder how he died and what his history was.

A drink and some WiFi seemed a good idea, so we called in to the very grand Eastern & Orient Hotel just across the road.  Unfortunately, the WiFi was down because of a loss of electrical supply, so one of the aims of the visit was not achieved.  Never mind, it was good to get in from the heat and sit in some colonial splendour.

So we had a good tour of Georgetown and thought it worthwhile: interesting, varied, quite ‘third world’ and (with some exceptions) very informative.  We were, however, glad to get back onboard as our shirts were sticking to our backs.  The ship was due to sail at 1630, but for the same reasons as given above (Day 90), we did not get away until 1715.  With the usual three blasts of the siren we pushed off from the jetty and headed northwards, weaving our way through the anchored shipping.  A brief visit, but well worthwhile.  Next stop, Colombo (which might just be about to enter the monsoon season – watch this space)..

Day 92

Tuesday 11 April.  Andaman Sea, Position at noon: 6deg 17N  93deg 51.7E.  Wind Force 5 from W.  29ºC.  Rain in afternoon and evening.  Course W, Speed 19.7 knots.  On passage to Colombo.

We put back our clocks another hour last night, making us just six hours ahead of you.

Imagine, if you will, this.  You wake up in the morning to total darkness with just a faint hum from the air conditioning, and you throw open the blackout curtains to a bright sunlit dawn as you make the tea.  Leaving your cabin, you open the upper deck door immediately outside and are hit with a wall of heat, as if from a blast furnace, and you are blinded by the intense sunlight.  You walk aft along the spotless teak deck to the superstructure that houses the aftermost lift and descend ten decks before entering a beautiful oak-lined restaurant, where you are greeted, by name, by the maitre d’hotel and your personal waitress.  Finally, you take your breakfast, with the sea rolling past the adjacent window and soft classical music playing in the background.  That was us, this morning.  Oh, life is sweet.

We are just getting to know our fellow diners in our new restaurant, and they seem a very friendly lot: more friendly, perhaps, than the ones in Princess Grill.  It is early days, but I think we will get on well.  The staff are friendly and efficient enough, but not a patch on the ones we had on the outward trip with the exception of the maitre d’hotel, who is lovely.  I suppose you can’t have everything.  The food, as I have said earlier, is almost as good as Princess Grill, but we think that, possibly, the portions are smaller.  This is no bad thing, as we are desperately trying to lose weight after the previous ninety days.

This was a very quiet day, for the ship’s programme offered little in the way of excitement.  Unlike the journey out, the lecture programme does not – so far – sound promising.  Today’s offering comprised ‘How a Heat Pump Works’ and ‘The Life of Irving Berlin’, and neither of these appealed.  I think someone might have been playing the banjo in the theatre at some point but, if he was, then we didn’t attend.  However we did enjoy a classical concert by a Swedish guitarist in the afternoon, and he was superb.

There was a ‘special offer’ on Duty Free and Jane, in her naivety, thought we could buy a bottle of gin for a little snifter in our cabin before dinner.  However, the gin was $40 and there was nowhere that you could buy the tonic, other than the bar.  As I pointed out, at that price you might as well buy the whole G+T at the bar and get someone to make it for you.  To help overcome her disappointment, we treated ourselves to a Pimms (Jane) and a Bellini (me) in the Commodore Club  – so much for the alcohol-free day.

One piece of bad news that we received late last night was that we will have to pay $60 to get a visa for Colombo, whether we go ashore or not.  It is irritating because I looked up Sri Lankan visas before we left UK, and it said that if you applied in advance (ie from 30 days before arrival), the visa was cheaper.  I duly set a reminder to apply while in Australia, and went online, at that time, to apply.  However, when I looked at the web page the second time it said that the visa was free on arrival if you were up to two days in transit. “That’s us”, I thought, “we will be in transit”, so I didn’t apply.  Big mistake.  To make matters worse, it appears that we are arriving in Colombo at the time of a Tamil festival, when not only will the tensions be high, but most of the shops and all of the museums will be shut.  Already it is beginning to look like Colombo will be a run ashore to look at the draft marks, though I dare say Mrs Shacklepin will drag be further into the city to look at some market or garden or both.

The weather took a bit of a turn for the worst in the afternoon, with heavy rain and squalls, though the temperature remained high at about 28ºC.  We actually sat out on the balcony, where we were reasonably sheltered, for a while but it was so humid that we felt our clothes were becoming damp, so we came in.  Looking out of the window, it looked like a dull autumn day out there, with the instinct to light a fire; however Jane’s new thermometer told us that it would not be necessary.

It being just after the beginning of a new segment of the cruise, namely Singapore to Dubai, there was the usual Captain’s Cocktail Party in the evening, which was Black Tie,  and we were duly invited.  Naturally, with free champagne on offer, we attended.  Also needless to say, we did not go down to the venue by crossing the upper deck.  As before, we really enjoyed it and this time we chatted to a couple of the ship’s officers, which made a nice change.  One little snippet that came out of the conversation was that, although there is a single officers’ mess (I think Cunard calls it the Wardroom, like the Royal Navy), the officers tend to cling to their specialisations (eg engineers, seamen etc) when it comes to seating.  It is like my father, the Master Mariner, always said: oil and water don’t mix.

Dinner that followed the cocktail party, in our usual place in the restaurant, took on a somewhat Rabelaisian air and we had a very jolly time with the people at the next table.  Jane was in fits of giggles most of the time (it might just possibly have been the champagne) and her eyes were streaming so much that she had to borrow my handkerchief.  She was even laughing at my jokes: something that hasn’t happened since 1982.  As the saying goes, a good time was had by all.

Day 93

Wednesday 12 April.  Indian Ocean on passage to Colombo. Overcast with heavy showers.  25ºC.  Wind Force 6 from WSW.  Sea Moderate. Position at 1300: 5deg 55N 84deg 23E. Course 268, speed 22 knots.  We further retarded our clocks last night, so we are now 5 hours ahead of UK.

I was woken this morning at 0500 by a roaring sound that I could not, at first, identify.  When I opened the curtains it was still dark, but you could see a mass of spray sweeping past the balcony like the water wall of a fire hose, soaking everything.  It was torrential rain.  Bearing in mind that the deckhead of our cabin is a false ceiling, with the upper deck above some ten inches above that, there must have been some force there that we could hear the rain.  Our balcony also has a deckhead, and is reasonably sheltered, but the rain was still lashing at the french windows with some force.  I do hope this does not auger badly for Colombo tomorrow.

We took breakfast in our cabin, just for a change.  The original intention was that we would eat outside on our sunlit balcony, but that idea was quite out of the question.  Jane did have hers in bed, however, and looked suitably smug in the process.  

There was not a great deal programmed today that was of interest, but we did attend a lecture by a political journalist, on the subject of ‘Britain After Brexit’.  It is an interesting facet of human nature that some people can talk on a boring subject, yet make it interesting, whereas others can take a God-sent opportunity of a good subject and make it boring.  This man was in the latter category.  His delivery was poor,  his jokes weak, and his points obscure.  Some people walked out in the middle, which I thought rather rude though he would not have been able to see them.  He was not controversial, rather he was very matter-of-fact, and this was to his credit.  Nevertheless, it was hard to pick up a lot of his points, given his clunky and disjointed style, and this was very surprising given his reputation.  What we did manage to understand was some of the detail of the alleged debt that the UK would have to pay off in order to leave (projects already committed to, and the pensions of UK EU civil servants were the items I remember).  He also explained the difficulties of transferring existing EU laws into UK laws (problem being that the laws contain references to EU regulations).  Another piece of information was that exit could be delayed if, say, EU attention was diverted elsewhere because of some international crisis and that, theoretically, the whole process could be stopped.  This last was a surprise, as I was of the understanding that our boats had been burnt when the letter was sent.  However, to reverse the process would require a strong opposition, a change of government, and another referendum, so in practical terms highly unlikely.

With a dearth of worthwhile lectures or entertainment, and a sullen sky, we spent most of the afternoon on our balcony just reading and this was a treat in itself.  Mummy did let me buy that illusive watch that I fancied on the outward journey, but which I failed to buy because of our unplanned early departure in Adelaide.  It can tell the time in 27 different countries you know, as well as the date and day of the week,  and whether it is morning or afternoon.  Perfect for the forgetful mature gentleman such as I.  We also popped down to see our old steward and waitresses in Princess Grill during a quiet moment, and it was lovely that they remembered us by name, with much hugging and kissing (with the waitresses, not the steward).  We were also tipped the wink that we could come in for Princess Grill tea in the exclusive lounge: a treat, as they serve clotted cream, not whipped cream (one does have one’s standards).

We cracked our second complimentary bottle of Blanc de Blanc before dinner: the moment seemed right

Day 94

Thursday 13 April.  At Colombo.  Sunny intervals.  Light airs.  35ºC.  Very humid and clammy.

We arrived in Colombo at 0630, a straightforward entry for once, and secured port side to at one of the container jetties.  

It had been a disturbed night because, when Jane got up to use the lavatory at 0200, she accidentally switched off the cabin master switch as she groped for the bathroom light.  Suitably ensconced on the throne, she was then disconcerted by the bathroom light going off under the time delay caused by the master switch being off.  She then groped in the dark to restore the master switch and, in so doing, switched on the main light and activated the television.  My awakening was triggered by a bright light, a loud television, and a sleepy figure padding around the cabin switching lights on and off and saying, “How do I turn the light off?”.  Fortunately, we had gained half and hour’s sleep because the clocks were retarded yet again during the night, making us 4.5 hours ahead of the UK.  Odd amount, but there you go.

Colombo was once the capital of Sri Lanka (Ceylon, until the name changed in 1972); the capital is now Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, demonstrating that nine syllables beats three in any game of Happy Capitals.  Sri Lanka is very roughly the size of Ireland in terms of land mass, and its occupation dates from 3,000 BC, when a people known as the Veddas lived there.  The Veddas were conquered by the Sinhalese from northern India in the 6th century BC and they remained in occupation for 1700 years until, in the 11th century AD, Tamils from southern India invaded the north of the island and drove the Sinhalese south  This sowed the seeds of the civil war in Sri Lanka that took place in the 1980s and 90s, and which was only settled in 2009.  Colonially, the Portuguese landed in Ceylon in the 15th century, to be displaced by the Dutch in the 17th century who, in turn, were driven out by the good old British in 1815.  Ceylon gained its independence in 1948 and is famous for, among other things, being the country with the first female Prime Minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike.  The main religion is Buddhism.

Colombo harbour proved to be a huge and very busy one, with a very rapid turnover of container ships (we saw seven sail and arrive in the course of the day).  It was fascinating to watch these giants being loaded with containers by the tall, gangly cranes that looked like enormous stick insects.  Extensive land reclamation was taking place to extend the port further and we were rewarded by the sight of a dredger, very close inshore to the beach beyond the enclosed harbour, sucking up the seabed and firing it in a long muddy stream onto the adjacent beach.

Jane and I were actually in two minds whether to go ashore.  The visit brief for Colombo was not encouraging as it stated,

“…Colombo is a loud, noisy and busy city, which can be hot and steamy at times.  Much of it is of little real interest to visitors with only a few hours to see the sights”.

This hearty recommendation was complemented by the visit lecture, in which we were told that we would be arriving during a Tamil festival in which tensions might be high, and all shops and museums would be shut, and no trains would be running.  We were also advised to remove all jewellery and not to take too much cash.  The icing on the cake came when we discovered that we were not permitted to walk into town, and must take the shuttle bus (40 minutes) to a shopping mall or handicraft market.  We did not fancy either of these destinations; we really just wanted to see the city at leisure.  Anyway, there must much humming and hawing, but – in the end – we decided it would be ridiculous to take a cruise that included a major city in the world yet not go ashore.  So we took the shuttle.

It was absolutely scorching on the jetty, with the heat radiating from the tarmac like a furnace.  We hung around looking for the shuttle bus, drifting hither and thither with everyone else, until it duly appeared and we galloped towards it.

Well, getting onboard that shuttle did not involve a lot of Christian charity or an ethos of ‘women and children first’.  It was like a rugby scrum, and the people with the best elbows won.  As I have said before, your Johnny Foreigner doesn’t do queuing.  Then we were off, leaving a disgruntled mob of the halt and the lame and those with no elbows to take bus number two.  When we had passed the main dock gates I was glad that we had not tried to walk.  It was utter chaos out there.  An alternative to the taxi was little three-wheeler cabs called tuk-tuks – you will have seen them in films of India, if not in real life.  These tuk-tuks were everywhere: in front of the bus, both sides of the bus, occasionally dangerously close to under the bus.  There was much tooting and swerving as we made progress, and it seemed to be a game of bluff, with the biggest vehicle winning.  More than once we saw a tuk-tuk being squeezed between two converging parallel buses, narrowly avoiding being crushed.  As well as the tuk-tuks there were people everywhere, all trying to mob the bus and sell whatever they could.  We finally got through this mêlée and made the main highway, taking in some sights on the way and, from what we could see, the city seemed quite clean and with a reasonable mix of architecture, but there seemed to be armed soldiers everywhere and there was a strong contrast between the very poor and the affluent.  One pleasing thing we did notice was that they drive on the left here too, and on every spare bit of disused land two or three impromptu cricket matches were taking place.  Damned civilised, I thought, glad we’ve taught these fellows something during our colonial occupation.

Arrival at the shopping mall was horrendous.  The bus was besieged by a mass of humanity, with men peering in and trying to sell goods, trips, and possibly their sisters.  It was a bit like like when you arrive at a car boot sale to set up a stall, and people try to take your goods before the car has even stopped.  When the bus door opened they would have burst in if they could: it was very unnerving, bordering on being thoroughly unpleasant and there was no way we were getting off there and pushing through that lot, so we stayed on.  We disembarked at the final stop, the handicraft market, and that wasn’t too bad – but outside the gates the harassing mob was still lurking, being controlled by a few policemen using strong-arm tactics.  Venturing further than the market was not attractive.  So we bought some Sinhalese tea because I am quite fond of Orange Peko from the Dimbula region (very expensive in UK) and some Sinhalese coffee, passed over buying a wooden elephant or a brass Aladdin’s lamp, and got back on the next shuttle bus for the ship.  Time from disembarkation to re-embarkation: 61 minutes; the shortest run-ashore ever.

Were we philistines for not trying to see more of this colourful city?  Possibly.  Were we unadventurous?  Perhaps.   But the truth is, it offered no appeal to us whatsoever, felt very threatening and, as an old friend once said to us, “Life is too short to do things that you don’t want to do”.  Other people on the returning bus had exactly the same opinion as us, and one went so far as to say, “What a dump”.  Well, it was certainly a colourful experience.  Verdict on Colombo?  Insufficient data, but we wouldn’t come again.

We sailed at 2000, spinning round in the usual manner, then taking the buoyed channel for the sea.  Next stop, Dubai.

Day 95

Friday 14 April.  Good Friday.  Sunny intervals.  30ºC.  Humid. Wind Force 4 from W.  Sea: Slight. Position at noon: 9deg 41N  75deg 10.5E, 66nm SW of the bottom left of India, course NW.  Clocks were retarded the remaining 30 minutes last night, making us 4 hours ahead of UK.  We are hugging the Indian coast on the way up the Arabian Sea to Dubai in order to minimise the risk of attack by pirates, of which more later.

We awoke early, partly because of the retarded time, which made us think it was later than it actually was, and partly to attend the 0830 church service for Good Friday, advertised in the programme.  The service was conducted by an American priest from Tucson, so we had a proper sin bosun rather than the Captain, and he seemed a jolly and engaging enough fellow.  We weren’t entirely familiar with the service because the priest was an Episcopalian minister, but we plunged in nevertheless.  My goodness, that service went on.  After half an hour, with our tummies rumbling, we were still on Page 1 of the service sheet.  There were three lessons, each of which covered many verses, if not entire chapters; then the Gospel, which also was extensive.  There were two hymns, which we only vaguely knew, but we gave them a good shot until we realised that we appeared to be the only ones singing (everyone else was struggling or just mouthing the words).  To crown it all, Jane and I got a fit of the giggles in the middle of one of the hymns as the tune rose and fell with an, “oo – oooo – ooooooo” refrain at a particularly tricky part, and we only just managed to control ourselves.  It doesn’t do to giggle in the House of the Lord, even if it is the Royal Court Theatre.  The sermon wasn’t too bad, but the prayers seemed to go on forever and we were seriously worried that we might not make breakfast at all.  Finally, after 45 minutes, the service ended and we shot out like a rocket to the other end of the ship to the restaurant before breakfast ceased.  We both concluded that it was very nice, but next time –  on Easter Sunday – we would go to the Captain’s service where there would be no nonsense, there would be hearty hymns that we knew, and all would be finished in half an hour.

After breakfast we decided we needed some exercise to wear off all that food and wine, but we didn’t fancy doing the prison exercise yard that is the promenade deck.  So we decided to do a circuit of every internal deck, starting with our own on Deck 13.  In the process, we could view the cabins in the lower recesses of the ship where the poor people live and, indeed, view the poor people themselves – rather like visitors to a zoo.  So we set off: down the starboard side, round the for’d end, down the port side, down the stairs; next deck; and so on.  Well, from Deck 13 to Deck 2 it took us 1.5 hours do do those circuits: let us say four miles.  We were amazed that it took so long, but we felt all the better for it.  We also, in passing, discovered the ship’s night club which looked very nice.  Who knows, we may return later in the dark to do a little smooching and boogying, or whatever one does in a nightclub these days, though as the club opens after our Ovaltine time this may just be a pipe dream.

The afternoon brought another classical concert with our young Swedish guitarist who, again, was superb.  He played a range of pieces ranging from Spanish, through Portuguese to Paraguayan – thankfully without the backing of the Cunard resident band.

Another cocktail party with the Captain this evening, this time for Gold Badge holders and above.  Of course I have raved about this Gold Badge for some time (well, ever since we got it), but it was quite apparent that we were not the only people so qualified.  In fact, judging by the crowd in the Queen’s Room ballroom just about everyone onboard had one (650 people, to be precise).  Oh dear.  We really must push and try to get the next grade up, the Platinum.  Just one night onboard a Cunard vessel: that’s all it will take.  You will recall that I joked in an earlier blog about receiving the Gold Badge for loyalty (it actually exists somewhere – probably in a suitcase under the bed).  Well, believe it or not, some people were wearing their badges in their lapels or on their dresses tonight.  I knew I should have worn mine.  I could have worn it along with my Blood Donor Badge (‘he gave so that others may live…’), National Trust Life Membership Badge, River Thames Volunteer Lock-keeper Badge, Prefect’s Badge and RNLI Bronze Lifesaving Badge.  Damn: an opportunity lost.