Anchors Aweigh or How I Came to Love Cruising

Before 2005, I had never even wanted to entertain the idea of going on any cruise to anywhere.

Then Garrison Keillor announced A Prairie Home Companion Cruise to the Canadian Maritimes. There was no hesitation in signing up. Who needed to deliberate when we would be living APHC day and night. We also signed on for the one to Alaska.

Since then, we have sailed on much smaller ships (some less than 100 passengers) in the South Pacific, in the Southern Atlantic, down the Yangtze, and around the British Isles.

It was a surprise to me how much I enjoy just being on the water. Watching the pilot, who has safely brought us through the channel into the open sea, jump from our ship to the pilot boat never gets old. I am fascinated by the working ports we have visited. Today we watch three tugs, dwarfed by a barge, maneuver it into its slip so it could be unloaded.

As darkness falls and the ship, now out of the channel, sways gently, I understand Masefield's poem.

Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.



I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide 

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. 



I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, 

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife; 

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, 

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.