Queen Mary 2: Anachronism and elegance
What is it about the sea that attracts us so? Why do we long to be in, on, under or beside it, walking its shores and watching its moods? What is the mystique that holds us fast like the sails of a square-rigger?
“I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea,” observed John F. Kennedy.
He thought it might be that we have the same amount of salt in our blood. “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to sea ... we are going back from whence we came.”
John Masefield, the English poet, felt its fever: “I must go 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.”
Living on an island much of the year, you learn the rhythms of the tides as if they are the times tables. Islanders discuss the temperature of the water and nature of the tides — be they king or red — like skiers discuss the properties of snow and the pitch of a slope.
All this may explain why I found myself aboard RMS Queen Mary 2 sailing from New York to Southampton. At some 1,100 feet in length and 148,000 tons, it calls itself the largest ocean liner in the world, the flagship of the Cunard Line, and entered service in 2004.
Ours was a crossing, not a cruise, evoking the fast, luxurious ships known as “the greyhounds” that once plied these waters.
For days, you see nothing. No islands or headlands. No atolls or reefs. No ports of call. Nothing but unbroken water, at once inspiring as it was for explorers and terrifying as “the bowl of tears” was for Irish emigrants.
The sea is the show. The North Atlantic can be rough the first week of May but our passage was as calm as a millpond. Sea in still life.
The air was chilly, rippled with wind and lit with intervals of sunshine. With most of the 1,601 passengers happily inside, the long teak deck was empty but for walkers (three circumambulations makes a mile). We found a sheltered spot on the stern quarterdeck and each morning settled into sturdy deck chairs. With an English woollen blanket and a good book, what more could one ask?
The world goes by slowly and anonymously as the ship follows the Great Circle Route. Below us, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The Sohm Abyssal Plain north of the New England seamounts and its chain of 30 volcanic peaks. The remains of the Titanic. The Maxwell Fracture Zone, 1,000 miles wide and 10,000 miles long. The Porcupine Abyssal Plain, south of East Thulean Rise and Isengard Ridge.
Eventually, we reach the western approaches of Britain, a smudge amid the milky haze. Bishop's Rock, west of the Isles of Scilly. After seven nights at sea, we enter busy Southampton.
The Queen Mary 2 sailed some 3,100 nautical miles at an average speed of 21 knots. She is as well-appointed as an art-deco mansion, a crew of 1,200 providing impeccable service, fine food and diversions (a planetarium, theatre, casino, swimming pools, hot tubs) if blanket and book don't appeal.
The tone is as elegantly anachronistic as high tea, served daily. It is all polite, orderly and civilized. Dress matters.
Worry is not wanted on the voyage. The gentility is as old as the patrons, many recalling transatlantic travel of a generation ago and revelling in the manners of England.
Once upon a time, this was the only way between continents. The upper-deck crowd was aristocratic and glamorous.
In today's age of mass travel, this voyage is accessible. Passage for two, all in, can be cheaper than a one-way flight from London to Toronto.
Benjamin Franklin crossed the Atlantic eight times in the 1700s. It took him a punishing six weeks. Today it requires just seven days. Round-trip passengers remain on board and return the same day.
For them, the voyage is more important than the destination. It is, as always, about the ageless, endless, mysterious sea.
We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to sea ... we are going back from whence we came. JOHN F. KENNEDY