I’ve adored the ocean since my pirate DJ days
(even if the ship did reek of diesel)
MY FIRST experience of ocean life was as a DJ for pirate station Radio Caroline, aboard the Ross Revenge, an Icelandic trawler and veteran of the Cod Wars, anchored in the North Sea.
It was 1984 and I was 20. Life on board was pretty basic, and everything smelt of diesel, but I loved it. Putting on a Led Zeppelin album and gazing out to sea, I felt an affinity with the ocean that has stayed with me ever since.
Last year my wife Kate and I asked my mother to join us on P&O’s Britannia, sailing around Great Britain, through the Hebrides and to Orkney. A couple of her friends came too. Almost every night our little group would sit on our veranda and toast the sun setting on the sea with champagne brought by Vino, our aptly named butler.
The further north we went, the more spectacular the sunsets became. And there is nothing like opening your curtains in the morning and all you can see is the ocean. What a contrast this glamorous big ship was, compared with the Ross Revenge!
A few years ago I went on a cruise in the Caribbean on a private yacht with friends. I went jet skiing from the boat and a big pod of dolphins raced past me. That was a proper wow moment. Later on, we had some really bumpy weather. We were tossed about but it didn’t upset me in the slightest and I don’t get seasick. But friends do, and I have cured them with hypnosis, helping them reset their mind and body so they never get seasick again. But on today’s billion-dollar cruise ships they have zero-motion stabilisers so you feel only the tiniest movement.
For my next cruise, this spring, Kate and I will be sailing transatlantic on the Cunard ocean liner Queen Mary 2.
It will be a whole week of non-stop ocean views and I cannot think of a more romantic way to arrive in New York. I’ve discovered I love cruising so much that I am planning to go on a cruise every year for the rest of my life.