Crossing the Atlantic
(... another blog post still in progress with photos to follow ... cruising part 3 is now complete and I'll soon get part 1 up too ...)
There are two of us who get up before dawn. I walk the decks, 5 minutes a lap, so 12 laps for the sky to turn from black to charcoal and then lighten through indigo to eggshell passing, depending on the weather, through crimson and fuchsia or rose and peach. There is another woman up, doing yoga on the bow, and we acknowledge each other every time I circle by. It is my favourite hour of the day, not only because of the sky and the promise its rainbow of colours represent but also because of the freshness of the air and the relative peace and I cannot fathom that everyone else is still abed if not asleep. (By everyone else I mean all 1000 of the other guests of course, there are dozens of crew up swabbing the decks, cleaning the railings, setting out deck chairs for the day, jobs that, even with many hands, are not light work. I often wonder if they appreciate the pre-sunrise show at all or if working the early morning shift precludes enjoying anything.)
After the sun is actually up I tend to go and stand on the bow for a bit looking for dolphins as this is the time of day, I am told, they are most likely to be about.
I was worried that I'd be lonely on a cruise ship all by myself, lost, at loose ends, feeling like a sore thumb, especially with 6 days in a row at sea. But no. First of all there are a surprising number of other people also cruising by themselves, secondly there is such an eclectic range of activities offered that there is no chance to get bored, and thirdly everyone is happy to be there, relaxed, and, above all, with time to be open to befriending others. I do the ab workout at 8 am everyday, the organized morning walk at 8:30, the aerobics at 9:00 and then after breakfast I 'do the rounds' and check in with my various new friends; the two Dutch girls who have convinced me to do the daily Arts and Crafts with them and who are keen watersliders, the British sisters who almost convinced me to do the daily Ballroom dancing with them, the four Australian teachers in the middle of their summer holidays, the only other Canadian on board, with whom I have a daily game of scrabble... And the day flies by, the days fly by. My dinner table has a man who retired in 2008 and has been travelling ever since, some Baptist Texan ranchers who honestly believe the world would be a safer place if everyone carried a gun at all times, a rich couple from Puerto Rico... you might not think we'd gel being such an odd group with little more than a language in common but each evening we are the last ones left in the dining room and our waiter has to ask us apologetically, once again, to move on so that he can clear and reset the table.
I'd rather be crewing than cruising. I'd like to be working, standing watch as the sun rises, rather than merely observing others work as I walk, and I actively dislike both that my bed has new freshly washed sheets put on it by someone else every single day and that each dinner involves me dirtying at least 6 plates that someone else will have to clean, it also worries me that even as the climate change conference is going on in Paris, I, on a huge boat, am definitely adding to the problem rather than being part of the solution, but, that sort of concern aside, cruising is OK too, the meals are fantastic, the service impeccable, and the after dinner shows reliably amazing... if you don't mind being waited on hand and foot, having your every desire anticipated and acted on, then it's not bad.
