Cruising

1996 was a big year. It was the first year I went to Stratford, that alone would have made it noteworthy, but before that, it was the year I went on my first cruise. It would also be my last cruise in decades. That is not to say that it was a bad experience or a bad holiday, because it wasn’t; it just wasn’t what I wanted at the time. A cruise was just a floating resort, I’d learn, and I’d had my fill of resorts after peeking behind the curtain and seeing what backpacking could offer.

Henri asked me in late ‘95 if I wanted to go. He told me that he and Sylvie wanted to get away now that Eric (their firstborn) was old enough to not require Sylvie’s full attention. After all those years I’d spent trying to get him and others to go on a trip with me, I could hardly say no. If anything, I was thrilled at the prospect of travelling with friends. He told me later that his sister Cecile had expressed an interest and would be coming along, as well. The more the merrier. I’d learned that travelling alone can be a lonely affair at times.

I’d never been on a ship before; indeed, I’d never even seen one up close either, so in my humble opinion at the time, the Seawind Crown (I think that’s what its name was) was enormous. It wasn’t. It was actually quite small compared to the ships being built at the time. When Henri told me that it was older and smaller, I was actually pleased we weren’t on one of those larger boats. I expected the passengers on a smaller ship to be friendlier than those on a larger one. We’d meet more people, I thought.

I was wrong on that count; there were well over a thousand passengers on board, and as the ship was “small,” dinner was set in two seatings. We’d opted for the second seating on the advice of our travel agent on the pretense that we would not be in a rush to get ready for dinner after shore excursions. That sounded like sound advice. It was, and it wasn’t. Our later dinner was served while the shows were being performed, so we didn’t see any of them.

I thought we’d meet people after the shows. I was wrong on that count, too. The Seawind Crown became a ghost ship after the shows were done, and Henri and Sylvie went to bed early, far earlier than I did. I suppose the casino was hopping until all hours, but I was not a gambler, and all the whoops and bells and jangling of the slot machines drove me out of my mind, so I stayed clear. I did haunt the other bars looking for people, the nightclub, the disco, the piano bar, the forward and aft lounges, but there was almost nobody in them. I’d wander in, see a table or two in attendance, and within the hour, they’d throw back their nightcaps and tootled off to bed.

I began to observe the other passengers day and night to discover who was actually on that boat with us and decode their habits. Most aboard were newlyweds and octogenarians. They both went to bed early for reasons I need not explain. There was at least one extended family, Italian, their parents looking more harried and exhausted as the week wore on. But there were few singles that I could see. There was the staff, but the staff were under strict instructions not to fraternize with the guests. I did get to know the bartenders. And they got to know me by name.

But those girls I did see were young, too young. Or Italian and there was a language barrier. But hope abounds. I’d had a couple holiday romances and was hoping for a third.

Alas, I found myself wandering the halls by myself late at night, the self-described ghost of the Seawind Crown. It was quiet. It was eerie at times how quiet it could be.

Henri was gracious enough to give me a wake-up call each morning at 7 am. Henri and Sylvie were always up early, they were still on baby time, hence their early to bed, early to rise schedule while on board. If not for him, I’m sure I’d have missed a few excursions. There weren’t many, not that I was interested in, but Henri and I signed up for all the scuba diving available. We were new divers and wanted stamps for our dive logs.

The diving was good. The diving was great. In Curacao, we dove with stingrays. I’d say we dove with sharks too, but that wasn’t entirely true. That first dive site was a walled in cove, the animals and fish trapped within. In a way it wasn’t a real dive. It was a zoo. As for the sharks, there was a glass barrier between us and them. We’d feed them through holes, careful to keep our digits away from their teeth.
Dominica was far better, the best of the trip, in fact. We dove a champagne reef, sulphurous bubbles rising us from the flat rocky seabed and curling around us. I pass a hand over one of the vents. The water was hot enough to cook my fingers were I to linger there for even a minute.

We didn’t dive while in Guadeloupe. There was little time there to do much more than step off the ship and visit the farmers market. Guadeloupe was expensive. It was dirty. The streets had ditches deeper than any I’d ever seen, mostly filled with detritus from the jungle, washed down with the last rains.
Barbados was good too, if uneventful. Getting there wasn’t. We had to leave the Caribbean shelf behind, entering the Atlantic in earnest. That evening, we watched as the crew placed airsick bags everywhere. The ship began to pitch. The ship began to roll. Passengers weebled and wobbled, a few fell down. Seasickness grew to epidemic proportions within a few hours. When Henri and I came down for dinner, there were only six other passengers in attendance. Sylvie was deathly sick, so Henri stayed out later than usual. It’s boring watching someone else sleep, after all. We cast about, taking a tour of the ghost ship by night. We even rounded the promenade, at least until we nearly pitched overboard; after that we promenaded indoors. I was rocked to sleep while listening to and feeling the ship shudder with each wave was straddled and crashed through.

We dove another flat reef in Barbados, carried along by a swift current. We couldn’t stop to get a good look at something, even had we wished to. They dropped us off on one side of the reef and picked us up by runabouts when we surfaced after spotting the “end” posts. I’m not complaining. The water was delightfully warm and clear. The day was gorgeous, not a cloud in the sky. I spent my afternoon browsing the curios shops and street venders, buying some beads after haggling atrociously.

I did meet a few day-timers at the aft lounge of the ship, where I spent my steel beach days. One was a judge, and he and I spent more than a few hours sitting about chatting. There were others in that little group, those of us who weren’t chasing the bragging rights of a tan.

But every day I’d share a beer at about 4 pm with the same gentleman. He was working class like me, I imagined. He spoke in the same gruff manner I’d grown accustomed to underground. He was abundantly tattooed, had two sleeves, from collarbone to wrist, a belly and back full of them, too.
One day I asked about them. He said it was something that he and his pals did.

I read the script scrolling around one, a pair of dice. “Pair of Dice,” I read aloud, not reading it properly through his tan and mass of hair that all but obliterated all of his tats.

“Para-dice Riders,” he corrected me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s my club,” he said. “It’s a motorcycle club.”

Henri just about choked when I told him about it a little while later, after the tattooed gentleman had left with his friends to dress for their first seating.

How was I supposed to know he was part of a criminal biker gang?

I’ve never been into True Crime.