Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

Recently I stood on the bow of the Crown Princess. I was doing my Leonardo DiCapprio stunt of standing on the bow of the ship, looking to the horizon. It was cool looking over the waves, seeing the oncoming horizon and feeling the ship go up and down, cutting through the water. It was a sight I won’t forget for a while. It is incredible.

The last day of a cruise is a rather melancholy time for those of us who enjoy and savor the experience. You are feeling sad because the time has passed so quickly, and soon you will have to go back to the hum drum of everyday life. It has also been sad because I realize I will have to go back to work.

However, I am sure that the staff of a cruise ship can’t wait until we disembark. Why? Well, when we all get on the ship, we are still used to taking care of ourselves and carry on our everyday life. However, it is the nature of people to enjoy being waited on, and it becomes evident as we get closer to the end of a cruise.

I was just top side and it looked like a pig sty. That wasn’t because the staff was negligent in doing their job, rather, it is because we cruisers are all now used to dropping anything we are finished with, or leaving laying around anything we didn’t want to eat, glass or dish we have used, or towels we have no further need for. The staff just can’t work fast enough to keep up with the accumulated clutter. We have become a Ship of Slobs. The only difference between Princess and some of the more expensive cruise lines is there is less staff to deal with the crap that people leave laying around. If this were Holland America for instance, then the staff would be plentiful enough to clean up quickly after those who are no living the good life. Many of us haven’t lived the “good life”, and when we can become slobs we will.

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue (and it is blue here). In September 2008 Hurricane Ike pummeled the Grand Turk Island and the Calicos Islands, and then in January 2009 Bonnie and I made a visit at this place.

My question is, what did Christopher Columbus see in this place? Why would he have kept sailing on to find anything else. Of course, Hurricane Ike is said to have leveled the island almost, but there sure wasn’t a whole lot at this place today. Of course, we saw the smallest of the Turks and the Calicos islands, and maybe there was a lot more to this place then I thought.

Columbus did discover these islands, and they are about 550 miles from Miami. The weather today was colder, as was the water. Of course, we have heard through the grapevine that after we left Florida that it go real cold, and certainly we saw that in Princess Cays.

Grand Turk is just a spot in the ocean. I don’t think there is a piece of the land that is probably more than 20 feet above sea level. A lot of the vegetation was probably ripped off by the Hurricane. It is just a spot in the ocean, but it was a nice place to just lay and relax while the boat sat near by.

We pulled out of the harbor at St. Thomas today. What a beautiful island. The amazing thing was sitting for over an hour watching the scenery glide by and noticing all of the islands that appear to be deserted or not inhabited. Not being the bashful kind, I turned to Bonnie and indicated that perhaps we should buy one of those islands for ourselves, build a huge house on it with our own private dock, and call the island St. Hardy. I don’t think she thought that was as good an idea as I thought. Perhaps if it also had a helicopter pad….

I am an Explorer by Nature. I watched tonight the Motor City program that had a lot of young dancers, all in their 20’s and 30’s just dancing their hearts out. Me, I am pushing 60 and part of the geriatric set. There isn’t much that I can do anymore like that, and moreover, my interests have narrowed so that I am really not into that. However, one thing I really enjoy is having new experiences and seeing new places. That is probably why I like cruises.

I am to the point in my life where memories are more important than things I might by, or physical activities that I might do. I like to explorer a place, see new places on the face of the earth. I love to see what is around the next corner. I am an explorer by nature and I get frustrated when I go places and don’t get to explorer. There will not be too many more opportunities like that in my life. I love to explorer things. I want to see places, do things, and have experiences that are within my reach.

I had the most amazing experience this morning. The Crown Princess’s second destination of this cruise is the island of St. Marteen. As I awoke this morning, it was so interesting to see the approach of the island and it take on form out of the midst of the sea.

When I first got up, hardly a soul was moving. I was one of the few, even though it was 6:30 local time, that had taken the time to get up and see what was happening. As we approached the dock, it became clear that there were already three ships docked and that there was room for only one more on the pier. Moreover, it was especially clear that it would be a tight fit. Now you have to realize that the Crown Princess, much like the Golden Princess, is a ship of 952 feet in length (3 football fields), has a mass of 113,000 gross tons, and 3,080 passengers (plus another 1,000 in staff). Thus, the ship doesn’t stop or turn on a dime.

There was some master piloting going on because I watched as the ship was literally backed into the berth it had, no more than 20 yards away from another mammoth cruise liner and then moved sideways into the berthing spot. It was an impressive display of driving, so to speak. All this was done too with a good crosswind, unknown currents in the bay, and so on and so forth. I just watched with amazement.

The next thing that was amazing was walking into the buffet area and seeing half of the boat eating their breakfast. The city had woke up. The ship, while I was taking 45 minutes to watch them bring the boat home to roost, had come alive with its human passengers. The city had become alive.

One of the most incredible sights I have seen lately is 4 cruise ships tied to the same pier, at the same time. Cruise ships, if you have seen them or been on them, or not small pieces of machinery, and then to see these mammoth 13-16 story ships, lined up 2 apiece on opposite sides of the peer, with the peer running down the middle, is an incredible site. It was like a tunnel framed by the portrait of four huge ships of metal.

I had the strangest experience today. I woke up after our first night on the cruise, and after cleaning up I walked up topside to see what the wonderful day had in store. I looked off to the starboard side of the ship (left for you landlubbers) and saw Princess Cays. The strange thing was, it was much further away than it should be. Then, as my gaze took in the rest of the horizon, I saw something disturbing. There was an obvious (think back to Detroit) front coming across the bow of the ship. You could actually see the surface of the ocean darken as the squall line would pass over the surface, and it looked like it must be raining cats and dogs behind it. Well, the net result was, the captain came on the overhead and indicated that because of the increased winds, and how they would blow into shore, that it would be dangerous to tender any of us to shore and therefore they were cancelling the day at Princess Cays and heading on to St. Thomas. Naturally, everyone was all disappointed. Probably at least half of the 3,000 on board had decided to go ashore, and now weren’t going to be doing that.

The net result was, all of those people decided they were hungry (yeah, you guessed it, we decided the same thing). Everyone showed up at the buffets and it was chaos. However, while there I had the strangest experience. Whilst we were sitting down to eat (we actually did find a table), for the hundredth time I thought I recognized someone I knew. As I looked out over the sea, seeing nothing but white horizon because of the rain, I thought of how cool it would be to have 3,000 of my best friends, neighbors, church members, and more importantly family, on board enjoying this time together. It is great to be here with Bonnie and enjoying the time to relax and reconnect. It would be great to have so many friends and family there, enjoying it with you and having fun, not worrying about this world of ours.

Could this floating palace out in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by a white sheet actually be heaven? I think it would be a great event. Maybe I need to see if I can recruit 3,000 of my closest buddies to go and do some crusing.

It was a terrific site tonight as we left Port Everglades. It was right before sunset, and at about 4:45 the huge cruise liners from Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, Holland America, and of course Princess, all took their turn in getting their cruises underway. The boats were huge and monstrous, yet they maneuvered on a time, showing the seamanship of their captains and crews. It was a site that took your breath away, watching these floating cities leave their docks and pulling out to seas. It was a site I will always remember.

Looking out over the sea during the night is a site to remember. We looked out tonight and saw stars and lights on the horizon, possibly land but certainly there were three dots that were cruise ships that were following behind the Crown Princess. It was interesting seeing these ships as they were far away and yet so near. I love watching the ships breaking the waves during the night, the sound of the ocean, and the sound of the wake behind the ship. I love gliding through the night.