Author: Richard Smith

This naval vessel appeared to be protecting us as we left the Solent on Tuesday!

The third night was a Gala Evening (What used to be called a Formal evening). The Black and White Ball for those who still like that sort of thing.

First it was the Captain’s Cocktail Party in the Queens Room. We joined the queue to shake hands with the Captain. We usually avoid that queue because it delays you getting in and that means the initial trays of drinks have been hoovered up.

But Kim had not met Captain Inger before and we had not been with her for a couple of years. The Captain remembered Jane and seemed pleased to see us. We had the standard photo (not very good of me so I haven’t bought it!).

Then followed the usual bun fight to get a drink, but after finding a waiter who remembered us, we ended up with an excess of G and T’s. Why do we go to these parties? They are always the same. Four each voyage. I suppose it’s the fact that Cunard is giving us a free drink (or two if you work at it).

Then it was off to dinner. Would the 3 missing guests be there? Well two were there, meaning we were now up to 7. Two ladies from North America. Karol, who is the Art teacher aboard and her friend Karen who lives in Mexico. They are on the ship until October. I will find out more!

Today from the cabin. A beautiful day.

We are settled in once again. We have our favourite cabin on 7 deck and many of the crew remember Jane. A few of the remember me – but not many! The Master of the ship is Cunard’s first lady Captain Inger Klein Thorhauge. She and Captain Aseem Hashmi alternate – 3 months on board and 3 months on leave (I think).

One of the speakers, Malcolm Nelson, is a former senior Customs Officer. His lectures are based on his career at Heathrow catching drug smugglers. We’ve seen him before but he appears to have a great deal of new material. He is excellent.

And the ship’s Port presenter, Rachael, is also very good. In the past, Port presenters tended to promote tours organised by Cunard, but now their presentations are much more balanced. Rachael’s talks describe the ports and surrounding areas, the architecture and the places to visit with no hard sell on their tours.

At dinner two more guests appeared, Maggie and Gordon from Surrey. Still 3 empty seats!

It was a brilliant start to the next voyage. The weather was good. Amazingly all the packing had been finished on Monday. The drivers arrived on time. Well, Ian Gordon was early and the Taxi was late, so they balanced each other out.

Ian was abused by the jobsworth parking attendant when he arrived at the Ocean terminal. Ian misheard what was shouted at him and sensibly aimed for lane one to enable him to drop the ramp on the adapted vehicle. Jobsworth wanted him in the inconvenient lane three and hurled abuse and was still seething when we drew up just behind. Power gets to these chaps particularly when people don’t obey them.

The luggage disappeared in a shot. We were lucky with the check in and within ten minutes of arriving in the teminal we were going through security. Five minutes later we were aboard Queen Elizabeth. The process is terrific. Congratulations to Cunard.

Jamie Firth of Cunard fame, at present on leave, had once again ensured that we were assigned to our favourite table for 8 for dinner. But for the first time ever, only the 3 of us appeared for dinner. What happened to the other five? We will find out tonight.

Just a week to go. Linda will be house sitting and Kim will be joining us again on a voyage from Southampton to Valencia, Sicily, Venice, Sibernik, Dubrovnik, Cagliari, Gibraltar and back to Southampton

This is a test run as it must be 3 months since my last blog. It’s amazing how quickly those of a certain age forget how websites like this work. It would be great if you could reply to confirm that you have received this.

In the last week of July, our son Mike married his beautiful fiancée Gretchen in wonderful ceremonies in Dubai and at Little Bear, Pangbourne, England. As I write, the happy couple are honeymooning in the Maldives.The Dubai wedding

The ceremony at Little Bear

On Friday 10 August the 3 Queens were all in Southampton together. They left at about 6.00pm and headed for Cowes. It was the last day of Cowes week and as the Queens sailed along together, the Red Arrows carried out a magnificent display above.

Our friends Terry and Jane Smart had, some time before, booked a trip on SS Shieldhall to watch the Cowes Week fireworks. It was to be a treat for one of their Canadian grandchildren who was staying with them. The Shieldhall is a preserved 2000 ton steamship based in Southampton.

SS Shieldhall with the Red Arrows

When they booked they had not appreciated that the 3 Queens would be sailing out together, nor that the Red Arrows would be appearing overhead. They were so excited by the occasion that they have decided that now is the time for them to book their first cruise and not surprisingly they want it to be on one of the Queens!

I will of course be their advisor!

We were very lucky with the group who arrived at Table 311 in the Britannia Restaurant that first evening 17 days ago. This is the group

In the front and closest to the camera is Jeff (with a J) and, clockwise next is his lady Edwina (Eddie), then Kim, Jane, me, Terry (with a Y), Terri (with an I) and Sandy.

They were all great fun and we enjoyed their company enormously.

This is Eddie, with Jane, during the departure from Gibraltar

From time to time I have heard a number of presentations by junior deck officers in the Royal Court Theatre on the subject of navigating ships like Queen Elizabeth. This time the presentation was by the Master of the ship Captain Aseem Hashmi.

He was excellent. He is a brilliant communicator and kept the packed theatre enthralled. It could have been a stodgy subject, but he brought it to life with his clever timing and special sense of humour. Don’t miss it if ever you sail with him on Queen Elizabeth.

I have mentioned his background in the past and the fact that he qualified as a BA Pilot first, but as BA had too many pilots at the time, he switched to the sea. He went to nautical college, and over the next 20 years worked his way up the ladder.

Laura (pronounced Lowra) was the driver. She was pretty and her driving was fine, but her command of the English language was poor. When we booked the adapted vehicle we were told that we would have an ‘English speaking driver’ and that the driver would take us to the Cathedral and a tour of the city and then suggest places outside the City that we might like to visit.

As we drove out of the port I asked her about a brightly painted ferry that had just docked. It quickly became clear that she had understood little or nothing of what I had asked her. It was a pity because we completely missed the Cathedral that we had asked to see. She had deposited us in the old town without telling us that we were within a few hundred yards of the Cathedral. The cobbles, the steep slopes, the parked cars and the vast numbers of tourists defeated us.

But we did see the Church of San Michele.

Cagliari is an industrial town and much of it is not particularly attractive, but we did look down on and later drive around the lagoons on the west side, many of which are used as saltpans.

Nick Brewer was telling me last month that when he was a youngish RAF Officer he did a stint in Sardinia at a base near Cagliari (no ‘g’ as Simon Mayo would say). After 2 weeks of behaving like a bachelor out drinking with the boys and pretending he was younger than he was, he was due to return home to his lovely wife Wendy. He was packed and ready to go when the CO told him his replacement couldn’t come and that Nick would have to stay another 2 weeks. A difficult phone call followed (before he converted back to bachelor mode)!

I think that was the gist of what he told me. If I have embellished the story a little, I apologise.

Laura then took us to Poetto beach which was magnificent. Presumably in holiday periods and at weekends it is packed, but on Tuesday we almost had it to ourselves. After a sunny hour in a cafe on the beach we returned to the town and the port.

My chum Michael Yeomans had been sent out to recce Olympia before our visit. He reported to me by email on Friday after his visit to the Olympia site the day before. He gave me a number of useful tips.

It was only by chance that he had mentioned that he was going on a Silversea voyage about a month ago. He didn’t have any detail of the ports they would be visiting as Posie had booked the trip. I looked up their itinerary and found that the voyage took them to Katakolon, the port for Olympia, 2 days before our visit.

We had booked an adapted vehicle through Cunard for 10.00am and I wanted to be sure that we would be able to negotiate Jane around the archeological site. Many internet message boards were saying that wheelchair users would be unable to get around. Occasionally we would find steps and no ramp, or areas of loose gravel, but we had no real difficulties.

Antonio was the driver. The vehicle had a lift and Jane was soon settled in position. Olympia is about 40km from Katakolon and we set off at a pace. There was very little traffic and we were soon at Olympia. A large town has grown up around the site with souvenir shops, restaurants and bars. A little different to the place as it was back in 776BC.

No one is quite sure why the Games started or who started them, but from 776BC for more than 1000 years the Games took place every 4 years. All wars stopped for 3 months beforehand to enable the great and the good to travel to the Games safely!

Antonio took us past all the no entry signs and along the walkways to get us to the archeological entrance and we spent the next 2 hours exploring the site and the Museum. The highlight was the Stadium and the arch through which the athletes entered the arena. Probably as many as 40,000 people would watch the Games, seated on the grassy banks surrounding the arena.

This is Titus, I think

After the museum we headed back to Katakolon. I had imagined it would be a sleepy little port. In reality it is packed with shops, bars and restaurants all beautifully laid out by the harbour. Someone (the EEC?) funded the construction of a dock large enough to take two large ships at a time. Antonio said that some Italian cruise ships come there on a weekly basis – 7 day roundtrips out of Rome.

What do I know about opera? Not a lot, but I do know that Andrew Massey has written one. Whether or not he has persuaded anyone important to listen to it and consider its merits, I don’t know, but I hope that he does succeed.

He might run it past Celena who performed here on Queen Elizabeth two nights ago. She is a soprano and has a beautiful voice and is also a very pretty girl.

We came to Crete twice in our youth. The first time was in 1975. We came with another couple and stayed at the Elounda Beach Hotel. It was a 5 star Hotel and pretty up market for us in those days. I remember that there was a fairly primitive windsurfer on the beach for the use of guests. We had never seen one before. We watched two German men trying to sail it, without success. By watching them we worked out how to steer it and how to sail it and enjoyed our first windsurfing experiences.

It looked a bit like this. I remember that the mast did not fit into the board very securely and it often came out and hit your toes or your ankle. Very painful.

In later years when we holidayed with Mark Warner on sailing holidays in the Med Jane became a real expert and windsurfed with a harness with considerable skill. I stuck to Lasers, being much older than her!

Our second visit to Crete was when Louise was about 4. No Michael at that stage. It was November and we stayed in Rethymnon in the north. The weather was poor but we were told that the south coast was always sunny which proved to be correct. Something to do with the mountains. We rented a little car and drove to the beaches on the south coast around Irapetra each day.

We also took in the Minoan sites including Knossos and our favourite, Phoestos, on the south coast. It was easy to stand at the head of the valley and imagine the army marching towards you to attack the Palace.

Today was our first visit by sea. We arrived in Heraklion at 7.30am. There was a strong wind and 2 tugs were in attendance to help with the 360 degree turn in a tight dock area. The turn was executed in style.

We left the ship at about 10.00am and found that an elongated golf buggy had been converted to transport wheelchair passengers to the terminal building. From there we found a number of smart Mercedes taxis. Dimitri was the best salesman and had the best English. His tour took us around the city and then up into the hills to an unspoilt farming village. Olives, goats and sheep and not much else, but the views were spectacular.