Smithy's Cruise Blog

The immigration authorities at Fort Lauderdale performed as they usually do – very slowly. There were not enough of them and some of our fellow passengers had to wait three and a half hours before they could leave the ship. We were lucky because Jane was in her wheelchair and the US authorities do give preference to those in wheelchairs, but despite that it still took us just over an hour to get through.

Chris and Jenny Branston were waiting for us as we emerged from the terminal building. Then it was off to the Intercontinental Hotel, Doral in Miami to locate Roger Bialcik. That was easy and Roger emerged from the hotel as soon as we arrived. We think that it was 17 years since we last met but our memories are not as good as they were. Chris drove us to the old Pan Am Terminal building on the waterfront – now the Miami City Hall. an Art Deco buiding. It was by the water because the original Pan Am planes were seaplanes and the would taxi across the bay to the terminal ashore.

Jane and Roger

Chris Branston

Jenny Branston

Typical Art Deco at South Beach

On Sunday we arrive in Port Everglades for Fort Lauderdale. In the region of 1000 passengers who joined the ship for the first segment will leave and a similar number will board in their place. Presumably the newcomers will, in the main, be American.

Jane and I will be meeting up with Chris and Jenny Branston who are Uni friends from the sixties. I was their best man when they married soon after we graduated. They have lived in the US since they both retired, although they have owned homes in Florida for much longer than that. They will drive through the Everglades from their home outside Naples, on the Gulf coast.

Earlier this week I received an email from Roger Bialcik in Chicago, who I met when I was working with Julian Avery in Milwaukee in the summer of 1965. Roger and I have kept in touch over the years and have met from time to time in Chicago and Milwaukee and also in the UK. Roger had received our Christmas card telling him of our World Voyage and emailed us to wish us well. He said that he was taking his first cruise this month, leaving from Miami on 12 January – the very day that we arrive just down the road in Fort Lauderdale. It must be 10/15 years or so since we last met. Fate has put us in the same place on the same day, so we hope to have coffee or lunch together before he boards his ship and sails off to the Caribbean.

Apologies for the lack of photos but iCloud is misbehaving.

Saturday 11 January 2014

For the last 3 days the weather has been lovely. Calm seas with a slight swell, gentle following winds and plenty of sunshine. The Queen Victoria has been speeding west at 18/20 knots and eating up the miles to Florida.

It has been a week of parties – four in all, including a full World voyage party and the Senior Officers party. At the latter party last night, I was searching for a second glass of wine and returned to find Jane in conversation with the very amiable Master of the ship Captain Peter Philpott. We had not met him before because he transferred to Cunard from P&O last year after we were last on this ship. He is a great ambassador for Cunard and a natural with a microphone in his hand. And a sailor supreme having guided the ship safely through a storm that he said ranked in the 5 worst storms that he had encountered during the whole of his career at sea.

The lengthy period at sea has meant that the on board lecturers have been very popular. One man in particular has given a number of excellent presentations – Adrian Hayes (www.adrianhayes.com) – who describes himself as an adventurer/explorer. He is an Englishman who lives in Dubai and his claims to fame include treks to the North Pole, the South Pole and to the top of Everest in the shortest time span ever. He is a motivational speaker and has given a number of excellent talks supported by brilliant videos.

I have just looked him up on Wikipedia and have discovered that he went to school at St Marys College, Southampton! I must seek him out before he leaves the ship in the morning.

We are approaching the Mid Atlantic Ridge having made substantial progress. The wind is now gusting at only 40 knots and it is anticipated that we will have cleared the storm by tomorrow. The swell is now down to 5 metres so the signs are good.

We are still not out of the storm that has spread itself across the whole of the North Atlantic. At times we have been travelling at only 3 knots according to Captain Philpott but yesterday we made massive progress and at noon were some 70 miles south of the Azores and heading on a more westerly course.

The largest wave recorded by those on the bridge on this voyage was a gigantic 18 metres high. No wonder there are a large number of empty seats in the dining room in the evening.

Last night we were woken during the night by an almighty crash. Bottles had gone flying in our room  but the only casualty was a broken champagne flute.

We have attended a series of parties in the Queens Room and Jane’s rising wheelchair is already a great success. At the press of a button she is at the level of those standing alongside her.

We left Southampton on time on Thursday evening to a firework display, Queen Victoria being the first of the three Cunarders to embark on her World Voyage. It was a wet and windy evening and it quickly became apparent that we would not be escaping the stormy conditions that were engulfing the UK.

On Friday we hit a massive storm with gale force winds reaching 10 on the Beaufort scale and 6 metre waves. At times the Captain had to drop our speed to as little as 3 knots to keep the ship safe and reasonably comfortable for those of us aboard. The storm continued unabated through Friday night and Saturday morning. Many of us calculated that we would not be able to reach Porto Delgarda in the Azores by Sunday morning and the Captain duly made that announcement this morning.

His plan is to take the ship on a more southerly route in the hope that he can avoid the worst of the ferocious storm engulfing the whole of the North Atlantic. It means no ports until we reach Fort Lauderdale on 12 January, but it is predicted that we will see calmer weather from the 7 January. We will see!

Only 8 days to go and plenty still to do.

In 10 days time we should be packed and ready to go. There will be 3 ships in Southampton that day and, as a result, there will be massive congestion around Dock Gate 4 and our access to the docks.

The itinerary in the Pacific looked sensational. Clearly more than 1500 others thought the same as they boarded Queen Elizabeth in Los Angeles in early February 2013.

The prospect of visits to Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Bora Bora and New Zealand was irresistible. And additionally we were to cross both the Equator and the International Dateline twice.

Honolulu was the first call and as we had been to Oahu and the Pearl Harbour Memorials before, we returned to Waikiki and to the memories of our visit seven years earlier. We had stayed then in the magnificent Moana Surfrider, the first hotel ever built on Waikiki Beach, and it was as elegant as ever with a massive Banyan tree in the courtyard by the beach. Many of our fellow passengers went to Pearl Harbour and they inevitably found the USS Arizona memorial very moving. It is a must if you visit Honolulu.

We then sailed south to the Equator and on 12 February King Neptune and his Queen came aboard and on a beautiful sunny day performed the traditional crossing the line ceremony.

We arrived at Pago Pago in American Samoa – a lush tropical island – on Valentines Day. An amiable taxi driver took us on a long tour of the island said by some to be the birthplace of Polynesion culture. The island is beautiful.

The following day we were in Samoa (formerly Western Samoa) and we visited Robert Louis Stevenson’s house (now a museum) where he spent the last four years of his life. He is buried nearby on Mount Vaea. We then travelled south, passing the beautiful Papapapaitai waterfall, to the idyllic beaches on the south coast. Parts of the capital Apia were devastated by a cyclone last December. Homes were flattened and cars washed away but those affected are putting on a brave face as they clear the debris.

From the Samoan islands we then had three days at sea before our arrival in Auckland. The weather was marvellous and we had four wonderful days in New Zealand. Auckland was followed by Tauranga, Napier and then Wellington.

In Napier the vintage motor cars were out in force, their drivers in period costumes to complement the Art Deco architecture prominent in the town. The centre of the town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 and it was reconstructed in the Art Deco style. The following day in Wellington many of us were at the Harbourside where masses of teams were assembling in Frank Kitts Park for Dragon Boat racing. Once underway the racing was fierce and exciting.

Tahiti was possibly the highlight of the voyage. After five days at sea we arrived in Papeete. The island of Tahiti is the highest and largest in French Polynesia and consists of two parcels of land joined by an isthmus. Our driver took us round the coast in a clockwise direction from Papeete and at the isthmus drove up into the lush green cattle country where the view of Tahiti was spectacular. Tahiti is close to the ideal of a tropical paradise.

Of course we all remember the film South Pacific with its beautiful girls. They are still there and it is easy to understand why the Bounty mutineers were reluctant to leave Tahiti after five months tending their breadfruit and their relationships with the local ladies. They dreaded the voyage ahead of them. We would have preferred to stay longer but looked forward to further travels in the wonderful Queen Elizabeth in Polynesia and the Hawaiian islands.

We were in Bora Bora the following day and as we edged in past the coral reefs, sadly the sun was not shining and rain was forecast. But that did not deny us a trip to Bloody Marys for an expensive drink of that name. The island evokes memories of Bali Hai but the movie was filmed elsewhere. The island is wonderful and is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef.

Queen Elizabeth headed north again towards the Hawaiian islands. Hilo on Big Island was our next call and after the Rainbow Falls we visited the impressive Hawaii Volcanoes National Park with views across the crater. The volcanoes are described as ‘active’ and the museum in the National Park is excellent.

Our final call was to the island of Maui. We drove south to Kihei and our driver was keen to show us the holiday homes of Jack Nicholson and Tiger Woods before embarking on a drive through the lava fields. We then headed north through the beautiful homes in Kula before rushing back to the ship from the Tedeschi Winery. Maui is clearly an island with much to offer. We merely scratched the surface but vowed to return one day.

Throughout the voyage we heard stories of Captain James Cook and in the South Pacific and in Tahiti in particular stories of HMS Bounty, Lt William Bligh and Fletcher Christian. The history of exploration in the Pacific in the 1700’s is fascinating and Cook’s three voyages between 1768 and 1779 took him all over the South Pacific and wherever we went we found evidence of his exploits.

It has not escaped our notice that the Queen Victoria will be in the South Pacific in February 2014. No doubt many of our fellow Queen Elizabeth passengers will find it hard to resist a return to that ocean next year. We will certainly be there.