The ship

and it's two stowaways

I didn’t know there were so many shades of grey until I took a ship across the Atlantic.

There are two ways of doing this — one, as a worker on a tanker, or on a cruise (the third way is of course, on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger but that’s someone else’s story).

We took the way of least resistance, tigers and rope-hauling aside and booked ourselves the Transatlantic cruise.

It was November, 19th 2013 when we stashed our bags in our room with a lovely view of a bright yellow lifeboat, and scrambled up to the viewing deck.

In said bags, we had stuffed our own champagne and a cigar to share that we procured from a corner tobacconist beside a bakery in Brooklyn. I unwrapped it gently and stuffed the plastic covering in my pocket.

The sun was setting on the mid-November day and we already felt incredibly lucky to be there. The ship set off and we toasted our cheap champagne to Lady Lib as we moved serenely past her, smoke clouding our vision, cackling like small town maniacs let out on good behaviour.

As this was a cruise, a healthy amount of overconsumption was on offer — though as this was a point-to-point trip, to deliver a ship at the end of the season, it was more simple than some might be. We were on the Queen Mary 2, and yes! our destination was England (and my sister).

Though there were plenty of black ties and furs on a few of the special evenings, there were a fair number of ‘people like us’ — regular folk, who wanted the experience of being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and who could not get themselves on an airplane (my other sister).

We had left North America with tired minds, wounded hearts, and the process of getting somewhere was what we craved. To put the clock ahead one hour per day instead of 7 all at once; to allow the brain time to disconnect, have space, and reconnect to the body on the shores of Southampton, felt good; and more organic than air travel. The history also appealed — we sailed past a few kilometers from where the Titanic now rests.

Our six-night journey was more or less the same each day. It’s funny how one needs a routine, particularly during a completely unusual experience. We had a lot of coffee, slept long hours, enjoyed people watching, and squirreled away the buffet up to our cozy bedroom for dinners. Every afternoon at two o’ clock, in the British spirit, they would serve cream tea. Scones with jam and cream. Every Brit knows the tension of: apply jam first, then cream — or cream first, and then jam to top. Surely, wars have been fought and lost over this.

To enjoy this daily repast, I would find a sheltered spot on the deck, sit with my back against the wall and if the sun shone… it felt positively Mediterranean, darling.

We had a couple of days of a storm, where walking the decks was the only thing keeping the nausea at bay. It was evident this was our first cruise, as we were some of the few out in the blowing rain and wind — the rest of the ship were inside, gambling, dancing, watching films, eating, eating, eating. I commend their tenacity (some folk retire and actually live on these ships — it’s cheaper than rent back home; and others well, they thought of anti-nausea drugs).

Apart from the storm, the weather was balmier than we had anticipated. We assumed the Atlantic in November would be icy — but the days were mild, and it was the currents of the Gulf Stream that kept it so.

I started writing this reflection because I was afraid I would forget it.

It was also the last week of November and I was reminded because of the colour palette — or lack of one. During winter at home is when I see it reflected most, as we often dwell in this liminal space hovering around -5 degrees, sometimes without the magical white sparkle of snow not yet settled in.

The basic monochrome of the sky and Atlantic on the queen Mary was a tonic to our spirits; the sky and the sea was our leveler, our grounding presence. And I never tired of seeing it, of walking the perimeter of the ship and holding the interplay of light, of the grey and blues, shimmer and dim going hand-in-hand.

Brooklyn getting smaller

iPhone4 selfie of our evening laps