May 23, 2001 (Day 77)

May 23, 2001 (Day 77): QE2 bound for Southampton, England – late

Morale:  Good.

Health: Fair. Hard to sleep. While the rocking of the ship was relaxing, the scraping and popping of the plastic panels kept me awake. It was about as loud as someone speaking in a slightly raised voice at the foot of the bed. We also suspect that we were not given decaf coffee after dinner last night, which would be a factor as well. Not being able to sleep, I took the chance to finish the new Alan Furst novel I borrowed from the library (Kingdom of Shadows, very excellent). Having completed that and still being awake, I went for a walk.

At 5am, the QE2 is quite an interesting place. Not surprisingly, there are not a lot of people about. I shared the ship with a few maintenance folk cleaning the stairs and a couple other crew members, still in their tuxedos, sitting around chatting over a beer, unhampered by the grate pulled down over the bar. The air was stale with the fumes of cleaning formulas. The machines in the casino remained dark but the distant vacuuming and the ever-present creaking of panels broke the silence. The seas were still a bit rough, causing noticeable flourishes of the curtains and requiring a bit of caution on the steps now and then but nothing like earlier in the day.

I found myself a chair and settled in to watch the sun rise before giving sleep another chance. Always inspirational. There was a break in the clouds, so we were getting away from the storm. The seas were still rough at noon, but had settled down substantially by dinner. They even came in and ‘unbattened’ our hatch, which I took as a strong vote of confidence.

At noon, the officer on watch came over the loudspeaker with our current status, including latitude, longitude, water depth, and nearest landfall. At the time of the announcement, the nearest land was the Azores. I need to double check my maps; we were pretty far out. Piecing together the data from last announcements, we seem to have been going about 555 nautical miles each day. We were about 1000 nautical miles from Southampton and, according to the charts posted in the hallways, making good time since noon.

Today was an easy day. We slept in a bit, enjoyed the sunshine at breakfast, and went and see the movie, Chocolat, which allowed me to gaze admiringly at Juliette Binoche for a couple hours. I am sure there was a plot to the film, but I didn’t care. Anna had hoped to swim but the pool was still closed. It is most inconvenient that we need to plan our dining schedules. There are large blocks of time when food is unavailable. Sleeping in and catching a late breakfast is not an alternative, which is quite annoying.

After dinner, we went to the floor show called Can’t Stop the Music, a revue of musical tunes. It was not bad. Indeed, the singing and dancing was quite good. The audience was a group of Philistines constantly taking flash photos despite being told otherwise. My heart went out to this one fellow who seemed to be having more than his fair share of costume problems. His shirt came untucked and then his tie came off. The crowning moment was when he was hit in the nose by part of his costume. In keeping with one of the many themes of our trip, there was the requisite music from My Fair Lady and Mamma Mia, the musical built around the songs of ABBA.

Afterwards we took in the midnight buffet. I understand why they encourage you to bring your camera. There were ice sculptures, butter sculptures, ridiculous amounts of foods arranged for maximum appeal. Or at least it must have been before everyone tore into the edible displays. I can only imagine that. As it was, my favorite piece was the ice vase with real flowers in them. The swans were a close second.

Excerpts from Anna’s journal included

• ChasingFogg15
• QE2
• Travel