July 6^th, 2026

At Sea

Finally a sea day. When I looked out of the balcony it was quite overcast and difficult to identify where the horizon was, it was all a light blue blur.

However, later on there was an actual demarcation on the horizon, but the sun never shone, and the sea never looked deep blue. I guess we are not in the Indian Ocean.

It was a busy day, but first things first – I had a coupon for the spa, so I put it to good use. You don’t get a half price pedicure every day, so I decided to take advantage of it.

As I sat there enjoying every moment of the relaxing bubbling hot water, my mind strayed back to March of 2020. I was sitting in the same spot. Enjoying the soothing water, feeling relaxed, and giving thanks to the person who invented pedicures whoever they were.

I was on the 2020 QM2 world cruise. COVID was rearing its ugly head around the world, and already our stops in some Asian ports had been cancelled or rearranged.

Brian was still working and was due to join me in Hong Kong. I found out when we were in Dubai that because of our itinerary change we were no longer going to Hong Kong, and he would have to join the ship in Singapore. A bit of a blow, but doable, and I had no problems changing his flight.

So there I was relaxing as the pedicure lady was massaging my feet, when the peace of the pedicure was disturbed by Captain Hashmi announcing that they were following the coronavirus situation very closely, and he would keep us updated. That was it, he didn’t say anything more. The pedicure lady and I  looked at each other, and spontaneously burst out – we are going directly to Australia! No Asia for us.

Sure enough Captain Hashmi made another announcement – we were heading straight to Port Kelang where we would stop to restock and refuel. Passengers would be able to disembark, but no one would be able to go ashore and then return to the ship.

When we leave Port Kelang, we will head directly to Fremantle and should arrive there the day we were originally scheduled to be in Hong Kong.

There I was in the middle of a pedicure realizing that my much-anticipated world cruise was not going to happen. World events were going to intervene.

Today sitting in that same chair, I was flooded with the memories of how anxiety provoking that cruise had been, overwhelmed by all of the uncertainties.

But we survived; being thrown off the ship a month later on our return visit to Fremantle was the least of our worries as it turned out.

That was all more than 6 years ago. Can you believe it? But now here I am in the same chair obsessing about what color my nails should be. I ended up choosing the same red color I had chosen 6 years ago, not the bright blue which I had thought would be fun. I knew Brian would be happier with my choice.

At the end of the pedicure, they give you these bizarre plastic slip on shoes to wear back to your stateroom. Your feet slide around in them thanks to being smothered in all of those lotions. Do NOT try to use the stairs, you are guaranteed to come a cropper. Trust me!

I returned to our stateroom to complete the drying process of the polish, still deep in thought about the 2020 voyage.

I couldn’t focus on that too long, as soon as my nails dried there were places to go and people to see. It may be a sea day, but I am as busy as ever.

The talks were all great. Jeff Skiles who was the first officer on that plane that went down in the Hudson talked about the story behind the motion picture about the event.

Seth Gopin talked about Thomas Paine, the Englishman who was a founding father of the United States, and no celebratory cruise would be complete without a talk from Bill Miller. He talked about Floating Palaces – The Great Atlantic Liners. OK so we have all heard it before, but I can never get enough of ocean liners.

Apart from the Insight talks there was a lot going on – bridge, watercolor classes, a scavenger hunt, line dancing, ballroom dance classes, a Springsteen movie, baggo to name a few. It’s not easy to escape it all and spend time away from everyone in the Commodore Club.

In fact as I got ready for the Gala night tonight (black and white) I realized I had not been there all day. The situation would have to be remedied on our next and final sea day.

There was no captain’s welcome on board party, no senior officers’ party and we missed the wine tasting, but we did get to go to the Cunard World Club party. And Captain Hashmi was there so I was happy.

Deirdre and I are on board with 4 clients, and we wanted to show our appreciation by taking them to the Verandah for dinner.

Dinner at the Verandah never fails to please as far as I am concerned. It was a lovely evening – especially as Kim appeared with more bubbly and everyone was happy.

We finished dinner just in time to watch the late performance of Vox Fortuna, 3 men with lovely voices. I really enjoyed it.

I had not got as much done today as I had hoped, but in any case, it was a wonderful day, but then any day on Mary is a real treat.