I was sitting in a fancy French restaurant listening to the waiter explain that black caviar is better than red, when the restaurant began to roll gently. We all ignored the motion because the restaurant was on a cruise ship slogging its way down the west coast of Mexico out of Los Angeles toward the Panama Canal.
To some people, the incongruity of haute cuisine and pampered living on the high seas is the appeal of cruising. To others, the appeal is detachment from responsibilities and problems at home. And to some, the very concept of going to sea implies a modest level of adventure which is intended to stop short of actual challenge of peril.
Anyhow, there we were, Diana and me, committed to 14 days of pampered life at sea, with no responsibilities except to show up for abundant meals three times a day. We could go to lectures, bridge or chess lessons, work jigsaw puzzles, watch entertainers, play shuffleboard, swim. On 6 of the 14 days, when the ship stopped, we could sign up for local tours. For the most part, we could read or do nothing.
I have been a sailor for a half-century, owning my own boat for most of those years. I have spent thousands of hours sailing a boat on the Great Lakes, on other inland lakes and streams, on the Chesapeake, and occasionally in salt water. I have spent hours waiting for some wind to arise and other hours waiting for too much wind to abate. We have chartered in the Virgin Islands and taken other cruises on rivers or seas. But this one was different.
There were 600 passengers and 450 crew, most of them tending to the food and hotel functions. Most of the passengers had Medicare cards or the equivalent from 16 other countries. They were repeaters, veterans of the Sybaritic sailing set. The first question when we met someone was not “where are you from?” but rather “how many nights have you had at sea?” That is important, because the cruise line rewards repeat customers. One woman, admitting to age 91, told us she spends 10 months a year at sea because she likes marine pampering better than she does her titular address in a retirement home in Santa Barbara. Another new friend, a career Navy man who got rich, was staying aboard for a second leg of 51 days for a circumnavigation around South America. In the fall, he is signed up for a jaunt from Seattle to Japan and Hong Kong. Another woman offered the thought that she would be happy never to set foot on dry land again.
For an information junkie like me, the abrupt cutoff of news left a void in my thinking. We were out of television range most days and the videotape library had mostly old movies. Our conversations with new acquaintances about American politics were discreet. Those to whom I admitted my Washington background would ask what I thought of the current government and then tell me what they thought before I could answer. There was one retired surgeon who was horrified when I observed that the Democrats traditionally are more supportive of health care spending than the Republicans. He also was horrified when I explained the shortcomings of the new Medicare part D pharmaceutical coverage.
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