Sandy Dengler’s: Around The World In 80 Years
There are whitecaps in the toilet bowl.
We are sailing south on a bright, sunny day into swells that vary from four to seven meters. We are going against a strong wind, which means that if you step out onto an open, exposed deck, God will rearrange your hair. We are a bit under nine hundred feet long, and we sway and yaw.
I have said before that Cunard does it up big. Today, they outdid themselves.
The Bridge—that is, the ship’s brass; captain etc.; invited all the South America cruisers to a big party. Huge buses transported us to the venue, an excellent troupe of dancers and musicians entertained, and the wine flowed freely. The finger foods they served were local beef and produce.
One of the hardest jobs on these long-distance cruise ships must be finding stuff for the guests to do when you’re three solid days underway and nothing out there but more water. I’m writing two books and thinking seriously about a third, a book about worms (and it’ll be a real page-turner), so I’m pretty much self-entertaining.
I am not a sailor. I can ride a horse for weeks on end, but waves? Not really. I wear acupressure bands and pop an occasional Dramamine. I do not stagger like a drunk, I’m walking a straight line and the boat is staggering under me. There’s a difference. But so far, praise His holy name, I have not been really uncomfortable, let alone green.
Picture a vat of butterscotch ice cream topping several miles wide and a thousand miles long. Now imagine yourself floating on it. The vision is sweet enough to rot your teeth. At this time of year the Amazon is exactly the colour of butterscotch. Its roiling surface even has that butterscotch gloss.
Let’s say you want to have a wildlife reserve, but you don’t have any wildlife. Barbados faced just that problem.
The only mammals here were rats brought by ships, so they imported mongooses from India to get rid of the rats. Mongooses are diurnal. Rats are nocturnal. System failure. The local snakes ate the rats, but the mongooses ate the snakes. Sometimes you can’t win for losing.
I come from Port Townsend, Washington, a small, laid-back, casual enclave of rather eccentric artists. There, “formal attire” means putting a fresh rubber band in your pony tail. Too, I am a paleontologist. Paleontologists fancy themselves well dressed if they’re wearing clean cargo shorts. So when I bought this cruise around South America on Cunard’s Queen Victoria, I was coming from seriously behind.
Foolishness persists when wisdom fails. It’s the same as back home: people ride the elevator up to the gym on the ninth deck, then get on the stairclimber to work out. Yesterday I explored around the vessel, finding where everything is. The gym facilities are on the ninth deck, with all the apparatus you find in a gym.
Somewhere many years ago, I think I read that Disney invented the turkey chute at Disneyland. They put it to good use boarding the QV passengers. We went through security similar to airports’ but it was faster and more sensible and they didn’t care if you carry a knife. Don’t get caught with a bottle of Pepsi, though. Then we snaked back and forth in the chute to reach a bank of folks who took our pictures and issued us cards. Through the tunnel and aboard.
Cunard sure doesn’t do things by halves. They booked my flight, the red-eye from SeaTac to Fort Lauderdale. First class. They booked me a hotel. Marriott on the beach. A modest limo took me from the airport to a comfortable bed. Tomorrow they will transport me to the Queen Victoria. All I have to do is stand there and it all happens. I could get used to this.
