Smithy's Cruise Blog

We received an invitation to sit at the Captain’s table last night. The Deputy Captain Simon Love was the host. Jane sat next to him and he was in excellent form. We knew that he had gone to sea as a young man, had gained his Masters ticket, but after marrying had left the sea. And after 17 years ashore he had returned, working initially for P&O and then for Cunard.

Over the years I have met many men who left the sea when they married but I had never heard of anyone returning after such a long gap. Apparently he had worked for the family business while ashore and some 8 years ago his elderly father (who had been a P&O Captain himself) decided to take all his family on a cruise. They were on the Aurora and by chance the Captain was a man who Simon had worked with in his early years at sea. He told Simon that Carnival were trying to encourage people like him to return to sea. As his children were growing up and as his wife and children could accompany him from time to time, he took the plunge, requalified, started with P&O and has now moved to Cunard.

As many of you will know my father, George Smith, was a Cunard man. Born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire in 1914, he went to sea when he was 15. He studied at the Grimsby Nautical College and joined the New Zealand Shipping Company as a cadet. He had been round the world 7 times before he was 21.

In those days wives of serving officers were not allowed to travel with their husbands which meant that my father was away from my mother and the family for long periods. While on the Queens it was not so bad for my parents as the transatlantic runs meant that my father would be home for 2 days every 2 weeks while the ship turned round in Southampton.

I think my father was a Chief Officer at that stage. He went on to become the penultimate Captain of the old Queen Elizabeth and the second ever Captain of QE2. His last ship before retirement was the Franconia which ran between New York and Bermuda on a weeky basis. 36 hours at sea from NY to Bermuda and then 3 days tied up on Front Street, Hamilton and then 36 hours back to NY and a day to turn round.

We arrived on time at 0630 and sunrise revealed a clear blue cloudless sky. A perfect day appeared to lay ahead, but by the time we had had breakfast a thick sea fog had swept in, enveloping the city.

We found a very tidy and clean resort with vast expanses of sandy beaches, modern hotels and apartment blocks. We also found the President’s summer residence which appeared to be a copy of a small Windsor Castle! We walked for miles through leafy parks before deciding to return to the ship in the late afternoon.

In the early evening we left Valparaiso and set sail for Tahiti and Polynesia – a longish passage at sea. Hundreds of local people watched our departure, some in a vast array of colourful pleasure boats and many more on shore.

No this was not another Admiral aboard QV as a guest lecturer. My brother in law David Holt lent me a book on Lord Cochrane some months ago. I brought it with me but only realised, when it was mentioned in a lecture last week, that some of Cochrane’s greatest exploits happened here in S America. So I dropped Alex Ferguson’s autobiography (a Christmas present you understand) and started to read “Cochrane the Dauntless” by David Cordingly from which I gleaned some of the history I will share with you here.

As many of you will know, Cochrane was a hero after his naval successes in Europe, but he fell out with the British Establishment and was imprisoned for a time. In 1817 Cochrane was persuaded to join General Jose San Martin and General Bernado O’Higgins (remember him?) who were attempting to establish an independant republic of Chile.

Over the previous 300 years Spain had effectively controlled central and southern S America (only Brazil lay outside their control – Portugal ruled them) and the people resented not being able to run their own affairs. O’Higgins realised that they needed control of the seas if they were to succeed and for that reason he signed Cochrane up to lead the naval skirmishes.

After fleeing North America in the early 20th century Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are said to have settled in Argentina and bought ranches with the proceeds of their US bank and train robberies. They are said to have crossed the Andes and travelled to Puerto Montt to sell their cattle and buy supplies. As we know they returned to the more exciting life as bank robbers and were eventually killed in a shoot out with the Bolivian army.

The main street of Puerto Montt did not appear to have changed very much in the years since they were here. It had the feel of a cowboy town, but those that travelled out of the town found breathtaking mountain scenery in Chile’s Lake District and at the resort area of Puerto Varas on the shores of Lake Llanquihue.

As QV was at anchor Jane was not able to get ashore but I had nearly 3 hours wandering around the town and taking in the Cathedral and museums.

The Captain has just announced that we are having to divert as there is someone aboard who needs urgent hospitalisation. She is aiming for Concepcion and it appears that a boat will come out to us to collect the patient. We are due in Valparaiso early tomorrow so the individual concerned must be very ill if he or she needs to be taken off now. Whether or not this diversion will delay our arrival tomorrow is not clear. Valparaiso marks the end of this leg of the World voyage and a large number of people are leaving the ship (and a similar number joining).

Many of the world’s glaciers are retreating. Amalia is located in the Bernardo O’Higgins (Could this be one of Brian Kelly’s relatives?) National Park on Chile’s Southern Patagonian coastline, and it has retreated nearly 5 miles over the last 50 years. Frankly it looked much the same as it  was when we were here 7 years ago. 

As we edged ever closer to the glacier at perhaps 2 or 3 knots (to avoid creating waves and damaging the wall of the glacier) we sailed through growlers and mini icebergs that had broken away. A small, fast rib was launched to take photos of the ship and to collect a small iceberg which was then brought aboard the QV and carved into a sculpture of the Queen.

After our trip around Cape Horn we tracked north to the Beagle Channel and into Ushuaia where we spent Tuesday. It is a busy little community and the centre for Antarctic expeditions and fjord cruises. I could remember that the main street was parallel to the port but up a hill. 

We are not popular in Argentina. Large signs called Ushuaia the “Capital of the Malvinas” and other large official signs stated that the occupation of the Falklands by the British is illegal.

Last time we were at Cape Horn it was early evening – darkish, cold and windy. On that occasion we were sailing from the Pacific to the Atlantic, west to east and it was only during a lecture the day before that I heard that cruise ships rarely travel round Cape Horn by the obvious route around the bottom of the continent. 

The winds and currents are considered to be too wild and changeable to risk the simple route. It was reported to me that for 200 days a year there are gale force winds and 50 foot waves in the region where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet and 130 days when fog and icebergs abound.

The bottom part of S America, Tierra del Fuego, is a vast island surrounded by hundreds of small islands. Cape Horn is on the southernmost of those small islands and there is a navigable channel round it.

Last night we were less than 100 miles from the Falkland Islands. It was appropriate that in the major lecture yesterday that the former First Sea Lord should deliver it.