High Seas Drifter (Cruise Confidential 4)

by Brian David Bruns

  Dinner began well. We ordered an appetizer of sea scallops pan-seared and sliced thin. Each hearty disk was topped with a mound of paper-thin sliced black truffles. Al skipped the appetizer, commenting, "I don't like truffles. They smell kinda like panties."

  "Precisely why I find them so endearing," I said. Cosmina made a little choking sound, but found solace in her plate.

  Afterwards we were all given an egg. Yes, an egg. Hardboiled, the top had been exactingly sliced off and replaced with a mound of chilled scrambled eggs and shaved truffles. We had no idea what it was, but it exceeded the sum of its parts. It was strangely delicious.

  Suitably emboldened by the beginning, Al ordered some wine. He liked Montrachet and encouraged us to partake liberally. We did so, and soon a second bottle followed. The second offering was brighter and sharper. Cosmina and I enjoyed it, though Al rebuked it for being unrounded. While waiting interminably for the entrees, Cosmina and Al shared cigarettes. We all continued to drink and, far more importantly, shared laughter. Things were improving mightily—until the entrees arrived. Three waiters strode forward, immaculate in their black-tie attire, wearing all the arrogance of mankind on their faces. Each carried a small wooden platter, above which hung our meat, gouged by meathooks and swinging from metal chains. The presentation was strangely barbaric for such a refined place. They delivered the items in unison, then backed off with all the flair of ballet.

  My duck breast was deliciously spiced, but slightly overcooked. Cosmina and Al both ordered the rack of lamb, which was unpleasantly and deeply charred. In suitably French manner, the small amount of bold sauces, both sweet and savory, obscured any remaining subtleties of the meat's inherent flavor. Everything was good, but nothing was great... barring the odd presentation, I guess.

  The dessert, however, was a travesty. The soufflés were awful. Rather than being a light and airy poof of baked egg and sugar, they were just a mound of ooze. Cosmina and Al had both ordered the Grand Marnier soufflé, but the magic ingredient was not integrated into the dish in any way. Rather, it was dumped upon it. We all stared, shocked, as the bland-faced waiter glugged more and more liqueur over the top, effectively washing the pile of ooze into a puddle. My pistachio soufflé was better in flavor, though similarly lacking in the delicate texture that made soufflés so divine. The accompanying sauce of stewed cherries was so delicious, however, that Cosmina skipped her dessert in favor of slurping it all up.

  Ultimately, Le Grill was akin to Monte Carlo's Casino: much more reputation than production. Luckily it only cost $1,400.

  Al wanted to walk back to the ship, so staggering home we went. Cosmina carried her shoes and trod barefoot all the way down to the dark harbor. The waves rippled softly against the concrete pier, soothing and delicate. Al began obsessing over the boats. Not the million dollar yachts, but rather the small wooden tenders. With a drunken howl, he staggered off the path and thumped up against a rowboat resting on blocks. With great, comical effort Crazy Al humped himself into the boat—and immediately began roaring that the squall was coming and it was time to batten down the hatches. Suddenly, somehow, all three of us were in the boat, high and dry, yet screaming for our lives.

  Who knows how long we romped in the various beached and moored boats. At one point Pirate Al and Cosmina faced off against me in separate boats, hurling work gloves, rags, and even ropes at each other. At another point Al stood tall and bold as Washington crossing the Delaware, while Cosmina and I rowed imaginary oars and shivered in fantastic winds. Perhaps most special of all was Crazy Al's dramatic death scene. While Cosmina stretched a hand out to him from a rowboat, he splayed across the concrete to reenact Leonardo DiCaprio's romantic end in Titanic.

  By far, we enjoyed that walk back more than anything else of the night. Fun is where you make it!

  2

  The casino party that Francois threw for Crazy Al was a huge success. There was a reason casinos gave free booze to the players, after all. Dozens of guests packed the Surf's tiny casino, each laughing louder than the other. I attended only long enough to ensure Al was having fun. I was intent on an equally big party; one of a different kind, one in the strangest locale I'd ever debauched at sea. We've all seen the docking ropes rise up from the pier to disappear into those dark, mysterious holes cut into the hull. What lay beyond? The mooring deck, of course, and the night's real party.

  This was an area packed tightly with big machinery, smoothed in motion by copious lubings of grease and smoothed in contour by copious layers of paint. Most equipment was covered with tarps. One corner was sectioned off with hanging sheets, billowing like the sails so high above, for we were running under sail this night.

  I'd been on mooring decks of the big ships several times and knew they rumbled fiercely. Even half a dozen decks up, the shuddering of engines skipped silverware and even crockery right off tables. But under sail, Wind Surf purred through the water. Though mere feet above the propellors, not a shimmy was felt.

  All crew were invited, but most were unavailable during the selected hours of night. This party was thrown for the able seamen; the stalwart few who did so much for so many, yet remained unseen and unappreciated. Thusly small, the party was nonetheless lively. I'd never before seen a crew party so narrowly targeted. It was a most welcome sign of gratitude.

  From the bar I watched people cut loose. There was no dance floor, per se, but only moderately open areas punctuated by winches, capstans, and the like decorated with party lights. Though nearly all danced, few had a partner because everyone was male. Despite this painful lack of women, Hawaiian shirts flashed in the disco light, bodies spun in strobe. Eventually I spied a lone female, Janie, being fairly worshipped by an admiring throng of Asian men. The entirety of the crew was Asian, in fact.

  The song changed from Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' to House of Pain's party classic 'Jump Around'. The crowd thinned to reveal none other than the chief officer, Emmet. Dancing alone, he most definitely moved like a white guy. But oh, was he having a ball! With every shout of 'Jump! Jump! Jump!' in the song, he leapt into the air goofily, pulling his knees up high as they would go.

  "It's good to see him having fun," a voice called. I turned to see Barney beside me, also watching.

  The song came to an end, replaced by one slower. Most of the men began congregating over beers, to catch their breath and grumble over Janie's choice of partner. She had dismissed her cult with a grateful laugh and wave, and was now grooving with a particularly robust-looking Filipino. Though she didn't know it at the time, that dance sealed her fate.

  As Emmet approached, Barney excused himself and stalked past the lone, dancing couple.

  "Care to join me, Emmet?" I asked, gesturing towards the windows in the stern.

  We hopped up onto a mooring winch; a giant spool of thread, really, with a thick tarp covering the reel. We stared out to sea. Few passengers ever experience the sea so close to the propellors. From this vantage at this hour, the wake was all: a vast, churning and chalky white extending into darkness. It was a strange dichotomy seeing such reaching turbulence so very close, yet feeling nothing. We stared into the chaos, mesmerized, silent.

  I really liked Emmet. He was a handsome and genial man. But more than that, I was impressed with his dedication and his enthusiasm through all the hard work that entailed. Though chief officer and second in command of Wind Surf, he spent more time in a boiler suit than in whites. Emmet only differentiated the days by whether he was covered in grease or in paint.

  Patting the tarp beneath our bums, I asked, "So we're sitting on... halyards?"

  "These are mooring lines."

  "What's the difference?"

  "Halyards are used for rigging a ship: raising a flag, things like that. The term is specific to sailing vessels like Wind Surf. It means 'hauling yards', as in yards of canvas. Ever see pirates in the movies pulling ropes? Those are halyards."

  "I only see pirates ripping sails by using a knife to slow their descent from the mast
s. That's on my bucket list to do before I die."

  "I wouldn't try it here if I were you," Emmet said with a smile. He pointed to various giant winches and reels of rope, through which the dancing resumed. "Every ship has mooring lines. They're very heavy, so seamen throw out little ropes to people ashore. The dockers haul on those little ropes, which are attached to the mooring lines in this and other winches."

  "Those little ropes called painter lines?"

  "No, painters are specific to smaller boats like a tender or life raft. Painter lines are no longer than the boat itself to avoid fouling the propeller. The ropes seamen throw to shore have different names, depending upon the order in which they are used. The first rope, the head line, warps the bow to the pier."

  "You already lost me," I admitted.

  "It's very simple when you don't use nautical terms," Emmet explained with remarkable patience. "They have different names only so we know which step of the process we're in. The first rope hauls the bow of the ship—the head—towards the pier. The head of the ship gets the head line. Simple. The second rope is called the spring line, which secures the stern to the pier. It goes on from there."

  "So warping isn't just a playful Star Trek term?"

  "Warping is the act of hauling on ropes to move the vessel, usually against the wind or in a dead calm."

  "I see. So if I was docking a small boat I would attach a line at the front—the head line—and pull on it to bring the boat snug with the dock—warping. Then I would attach a line at the back—the spring line—to keep the boat firmly alongside the dock."

  "Exactly. With ships the warping is done by machinery, of course," he said. Then, with a devilish smile, he added, "Those mooring winches have a first counter pressure medium exerted by each fender. A second pressure medium is relieved when the pressure thereof exceeds the pressure of the first medium by discharging the second pressure medium to a pressure relief tank, all without effecting a recoil action on the fender."

  "Well duh," I said, quickly hiding behind my beer. Acknowledging my painful lack of understanding, I switched tactics. "This is the area so prone to fires, isn't it? As I recall, the big fire way back on Carnival Ecstasy started here."

  "Not exactly," Emmet corrected. "It started in the laundry room with an unsupervised welding operation. They accidentally ignited all the lint lying around. Then the fire moved to the mooring deck and lit up the ropes. Once that happens, you're in big trouble. Polypropylene burns incredibly hot and fast; far more than hemp. So, yes, this area is particularly prone to fire. Notice that though this is a party, nobody is smoking."

  "Why do they use such flammable ropes, then?"

  "These Dyneema ropes look like any plain old rope," Emmet explained, "but are strong as steel cable. Same diameter, but only one-seventh the weight."

  "Wow," I said, blinking in surprise. "So Dyneema ropes go through the hawsepipes and into the ship?"

  Emmet's face pinched to indicate surprise and, of course, that I was wrong. This prompted me to admit, "Hey, I'm throwing out every nautical term I've ever heard until one sticks. At least I didn't say 'shiver me timbers'."

  "You are close," Emmet admitted. "The hawsepipe is specific to the anchor because it is a steel pipe reinforced to handle the wear of the anchor chain. But yes, conceptually there are similarities between the hawsepipe and the rollers here on the mooring deck."

  "I only know it because Captain Turner said he 'came up through the hawsepipe'."

  Emmet laughed. "He said that, did he? It's true. He's had a wonderful career."

  "How about you?"

  "My beginning was also as a seaman," he said. Sipping beer and smiling with the memory, he continued, "I volunteered one summer on a windjammer—out of Holland, of course. It was hard work. All day long, sails going up, sails going down.

  "Wow," I said, astounded. "Sounds surprisingly like jobs in my hometown, too. At General Mills people drop toys in cereal boxes as they go by on the assembly line, all day long."

  "Nothing like that," Emmet rebuked. "There's no sense of futility at all. Even if there was, I would gladly do it for the rush of climbing the ratlines fifty meters up under a wind strong enough to topple a man."

  "You weren't worried about being blown out to sea?"

  "Of course not. All sailors know to climb on the windward side of the ladder in a gale. That way the wind blows you into the ladder and not away from it, likely into the sea. But it does take a lot of strength to climb a wriggling rope ladder that far, that fast, in wind that strong."

  "Captain Turner mentioned how dangerous the old sailing ships were," I agreed. "I guess that alone might be a draw for some men."

  "Ships are temperamental, yes," Emmet said. "But it is more than that. A sailing ship is no more dangerous than any other mode of transportation: a car can be dangerous, or a train, or a plane. But a ship is more than a machine. She is a kindred spirit."

  "But what about now? Now ships are just floating hotels."

  "Not Wind Surf," he said crisply. "Maybe your big barge-like cruise ships too fat for ports and too weak for the high sea, but not Wind Surf. Big cruise ships are not of the sea. Wind Surf was made for the sea."

  He looked at me, searching, then asked, "You do understand that, don't you?"

  A squeal from the dance floor drew our attention. Barely visible in the crush of bodies, Janie was held up by the waist by her dance partner. The Asian man was surprisingly strong for his small stature. Another squeal, a giggle, a kiss. Emmet, carefully noting the distraction, took the opportunity to excuse himself. He set his half-empty beer on the winch and, like Barney before him, abruptly left the party.

  I stared at the sea, neatly plowed aside afore, tumbling broadly abaft. How many of these sermons had I heard since signing onto this, the world's largest sailing vessel? Four? First Ardin the photographer, then Captain Turner, Fabrice, and now Emmet: all had expressed great admiration for Wind Surf. Not just the lady herself, but the family and tradition she represented. Each held disdain for modern mega ships. Nor could I really reproach. Big ships were growing so large that many didn't fit into the majority of ports in any given sea. No longer were cruise ships about visiting far off shores, but rather floating resorts of Vegas-like magnitude. They were awesome to behold and a joy to embark. But they were not of the sea.

  Was I?

  3

  Three years ago I was a waiter on Carnival Cruise Lines. I worked a minimum of 80 hours a week—that is, seven days a week for many months at a time. On Carnival Legend I slaved 100 hours a week for 15 weeks before I stopped counting. I was so tired that rising in the morning was physically painful. I 'fondly' remember lying in my bunk, head and feet pressed against the bulkheads and curling my body around my luggage, muscles screaming at the thought of rising. Being a 'rip the Band-Aid off fast' kind of guy, I learned to grit my teeth and make that horrid leap out of bed. Then, if my foreign, stranger roommate was not already standing, I could dress for work. The cabin, of course, was too small for two grown men to dress simultaneously.

  But then I became an art auctioneer. Two years of hard work in that role had not led to alcoholism and back pain—well maybe a bit of the former—but to a luxurious guest cabin. It had it all: a couch, a bathtub, a desk with the little green lamp shade, and even a private balcony! Best of all was the fully-stocked and free mini bar. So much for beating the alcoholism rap. But then, we were all sailors. Everybody knows that sailors party harder than everybody else.

  Ah, the sailor's life. Now that was something else. On a normal cruise ship, a big cruise ship, thousands of new faces rotate in and out every week. Not only do several dozen crew members depart ship life weekly, so do friends. Sailors continually endure the jolt of nerves that comes with total change. Most people on land experience that but rarely. Finishing high school and/or leaving for college is total change and can be scary, but there's usually friends or parents to blunt the new. A sudden firing or divorce will bring total change. Worst is the loss o
f a loved one. These are not positive experiences and—hopefully—rare occurrences. But on ships your home literally travels the globe. Total change is constant.

  Continual, total change creates an environment that skews time radically. One month on a ship may not equate one year of land life, but it comes close. There is no routine to make the days disappear, no 'same old same old', unless you're at the bottom of the food chain. Time is intense with the constant alertness of adaptation. Plus, of course, everyone is working seven days a week and you are required to find 'living' time outside of eighty hour work weeks. You focus so much on every second that you lose sight of the minute, the hour, the day; you lose the ocean for the waves. Knowing the day of the week goes first, followed soon by not even knowing the month. The first time I realized I couldn't honestly answer what month it was really freaked me out. Eventually you even stop knowing—or even caring—whether you wake up in Bermuda or the Bahamas.

  But Wind Surf was not a 'normal' cruise ship. The passenger list was small and frequently did not even rotate out at the end of a week-long cruise. Many guests remained aboard for two or more cruises, so as to better maximize their Mediterranean experience. The crew list was downright tiny, so much that wearing multiple hats was a necessity. Replacing bodies was a more involved process which, thusly, occurred less frequently. It was small town compared to metropolis. Wouldn't routine take over, then? Wouldn't life resume a sense of normalcy?

  Hardly.

  To keep the total change a molten, pulpy mass of slag in which we were hammered, Wind Surf boasted something most unusual in the cruise world: not just ports seven days a week, but an ever rotating, randomized list of them. Whalers—hell, even pirates—had routine ports of call, but not Wind Surf. In the course of a seven day cruise it was not uncommon to hit five or more different nations. My job required liaising with port authorities using different languages and different currencies every day. I learned how to navigate foreign backwaters, when to lie, when to bribe, and when to do neither. By the end of the first month my head was so used to spinning I could have given a Dervish a whirl for his money.