As cruise comes to a close, seventy-odd days after our departure from Castine, I am left to reflect on one of the most unique experiences I have been through- and a quick apology for my lack of updates during this portion of cruise (sorry, Mom!) The ports we visited were beautiful, but incredibly busy, with little time between to sit down and write a decent cruise blog entry. If the first third of cruise moved at a snail’s pace, the last month and a half or so has flown by, hardly a moment to breathe, a whirlwind of watch, maintenance, and port calls. 

At times, it felt that I had no time to sleep – I’d come back from port at 2300, crash in my rack, wake up at 0530, and repeat. Transit between ports was almost a relief; a little bit of routine and structure, but inevitably, by day four or five underway, we’d be itching to get back out and explore. 

Europe is a strange mix of designer stores and historical buildings, hundreds upon hundreds of years old, simply coexisting with some high-end boutiques and tourist traps that look brand-new. The USA is a new country, still, some sites dating back to the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, while a historic downtown area in the northeast would likely only date to the industrial revolution. It was a strange feeling, in all three of our European ports. You would find a McDonald’s tucked away in a massive gothic building, still in all its splendor, or a convenience store on the lower level of a sixteenth-century apartment building.

Tenerife, our first port call, was a welcome breath of fresh air. Just outside of the port itself, was the main drag, full of shops that we spent a little time exploring. Having discovered that part of the island was generally intended for cruise ship tourists- something we resented being mistaken for (we worked hard to get here!)- most of us ventured out into the mountains and smaller towns to discover more of the islands.

One friend and I went on a hike in the laurel forests, high in the mountains, up a long and winding road, from which you could see the valleys and the vast ocean that we had come from. A kindly taxi driver had taken us up, and told us more about the island itself. Out of the city, its beauty was ethereal, but rugged; Tenerife is a volcanic island, windblown and sunbeaten, and its flora and fauna are hardy, well-adapted to steep hills and sheer cliffs. The laurel forest is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. It smelled of rich soil, a little evergreen, and the sea.

Eventually, we managed our way back down the mountain, and into the little town of Las Lagunas, where we stopped for pastries and a lunch of goat stew, served to us by the sweetest waitress, who took the time to help us call a taxi to meet up with our friends. 

The next day was perhaps the best. Another friend and I rented a car, a terrifyingly small Fiat 500, and drove across the island to visit tidepools, and then up to Mount Teide. Teide is a great, towering volcano. Most of the time, from down below, you can’t see it, for the clouds obscure everything above a few thousand feet. And so we went, from the rich browns and greens of laurel forests, to cool pale greens of mountain shrubs, through the cold, damp clouds. They felt mostly like fog, but with a sharper delineation between clear sky and clouds- one second, we were looking at a wall of gray ahead of us, and the next, we couldn’t see. But when we emerged, it was to a brilliant blue sky, red earth, white sunshine, and frigid winds. The landscape was austere, almost Martian. It was easy to feel that you might fall off the edge of the world and into the pillowy white clouds below. 

And then we were underway again, to Mallorca. Mallorca was astonishingly beautiful, too, a veritable Mediterranean paradise. Downtown was fascinating, an endless network of streets to explore and places to visit. The first day, my friends and I spent our time wandering with no goal in mind, our only objective being to cover as much ground in the city as possible. We discovered a perfume shop hidden on a side street, almost like a tiny museum, with a room dedicated to each aspect of the island: the sea, fig trees, oranges, lush gardens, and rich history. 

The second day, we went cliff jumping. Perhaps, according to the nurse and my mother, not our best idea- but no injuries aside from some bruised limbs, and some wounded pride. We started off with a little cliff, maybe ten or fifteen feet high, on a rock outcropping you could climb to from the beach. The water was a deep, infinitely clear green-blue. And then, after a bit of scheming, and a particularly brave volunteer, we began to swim perhaps fifty yards away to a massive forty-foot high cliff, a sheer face of pale yellow stone.

The climb up from the water wasn’t too bad. First, you had to haul yourself up a few feet to brace one limb against a tiny outcropping while the other hand searched for a halfway decent hold. Then came a few feet straight up, and finally, a path of sorts- really just a few larger rocks that you could scale with relative ease. And then there was the cliff.

There were two outcroppings, one five feet higher than the other, and to jump off the high one, you had to launch yourself out and over the lower ledge. We lined up cautiously, and then, one after another, took the leap.

The fall was exhilarating. I remembered what Mr. Macmillan had taught us before ship jump- cross your legs, cross your arms, look straight ahead. It took a remarkably long time to fall. If the fantail was notably high, this was at least twice that, and on the way down, I had time to contemplate the life choices that led to this moment, and pray I wouldn’t teeter off balance. The first jump was painful (I still have bruises) but the second went much better. The ocean crashed around me, and all I could see was darkness and bubbles, and then I bobbed to the surface to cheering, laughing, and high fives all around me.

Our transit to Porto took us back through the Strait of Gibraltar, both beautiful and terrifying at once. On our first time through, a little tanker named Palladium had kept formation with us, but this time, there was a massive amount of MSC vessels, cruise ships, and even a tanker at anchor, right in the middle of the channel.

Porto is perhaps one of the most wonderful cities I’ve seen. We got off the ship and headed into the center of the city, where we explored incredible architecture, from the gorgeous old buildings to the massive bridges, and even took a gondola ride up and down the riverside. We adventured around the town, visited the cutest little aquarium, got lost in a massive old port terminal, found a bookstore that could have belonged in a fantasy movie, and encountered a number of incredible artists. 

Porto is famous for port wine, which I tried and found that it tasted awfully like expired cough syrup, and for its seafood. I sampled some excellent octopus salad, yet another thing that I hadn’t tried before- it was mild and almost sweet, a real treat. 

Walking through the city, I was struck by a sense of awe. It had been here for hundreds of years, bright and beautiful and colorful, birds soaring overhead in the clear blue sky, every detail about it carefully handcrafted. It seemed, for a moment, as if everything were made of fine china, delicate, hand-painted details, and so much care and time put into making it beautiful, for the sake of beauty. The city as a whole is a piece of art, grand and imposing as it is, each piece of the painting is carefully considered. You can peel back each layer upon layer of history as it builds up upon itself, and see the incredible craftsmanship obvious in each little corner.

And then, again, we’re underway- this time across the Atlantic, heading north and west.

Sometimes I think I might love being underway more than any port, no matter how beautiful and interesting it may be. There’s something about the simplicity of the same routine every day, about rising with the sun and getting a good day’s work in and then relaxing with my closest friends, and about the vast, endless blue stretching on above and below us. 

I could dream forever about the beauty of the sky and sea. If you have never been to sea before, you might envision a flat, featureless plain of grayish blue. But it is infinitely beautiful, and infinitely various. I like to stand up at the bow and peer over the side to watch the seaspray that comes off the very tip of the hull, that makes a pitter-pattering sound like a gentle spring rain. Up there, you can hardly hear the machinery. 

I saw, once, a flying fish just off our bow. It looked to me like a small bird flailing about, before I saw the glimmering, transparent wings, outstretched, reflecting the white-gold sun, and then it hit the water with a disproportionately loud “plop.” 

A few days into our transit, we crossed through the Azores, towering verdant islands smack-dab in the middle of the Atlantic. Even from the ship, you could smell green grass and fresh-mown hay and black earth, all the scents of summer in the countryside. It reminded me of a trip I’d taken with my friends once, when we ended up in a little valley town in North Carolina in an effort to dodge thunderstorms. The sun had set, golden, over the lush green farmland and the jagged peaks of the Appalachians, and the summer farmland smell had been the exact same. With this in mind, the Azores seemed startlingly familiar, and I felt a pang of homesickness. 

As the Azores faded behind us, we set course for St. John’s, Newfoundland.

St. John’s is perhaps one of the kindest and friendliest cities I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. It was familiar (I think we were all grateful to be back in North America,) and welcoming, a sort of cheerful warmth emanating from it. All of the houses were brightly painted, to ward off the gray winters, the food was excellent, and best of all, the water was free.

Quite a few locals I talked to had questions about the TSSOM, which I was excited to answer, but on the other side of the same coin, my friends and I had to walk away from more than one cruise ship passenger wondering what “that little blue boat” was- only the best ship in the world! 

In St. John’s, there was no shortage of things to do, and the TSSOM was berthed maybe a hundred yards from downtown, if that. Downtown was a small collection of souvenir shops, galleries, candy stores, restaurants, and bars. A friend and I decided to try a moose burger, and were shocked and delighted by how delicious it was, almost sweet; arguably better than venison, and definitely tastier than beef. I tried some cod (also delightful!) and some jams and pastries that included partridgeberry and bakeapple, local fruits.

Hiking up to Signal Hill was some of the most fun I’ve had, and though it was steep, the views at the top (and the ice cream on the way down) made up for it. From Cabot Tower, you can see the vast blue of the Atlantic, the entire harbor with all of its inhabitants, and all of St. John’s, to the rolling hills and small mountains far beyond. It was brilliantly green, with everything in full bloom under the gentle summer sun. 

The Rooms is one of the most incredible museums I have been to. There is no shortage of galleries and exhibits to get lost in, but the one that touched my heart most profoundly was the one about Newfoundland’s military history, especially during WWI. As a bit of a history buff, I had been aware of Canada’s involvement in the Great War, but seeing that section of The Rooms brought to light just how close of a community St. John’s, and Newfoundland as a whole, were, and how close it continues to be.

On our way to Boston, we did not see the sun but once. The fog was thick and heavy, and the foghorn bellowed nonstop. It was a bit of a bittersweet feeling, knowing these were our last days truly underway, but pulling into Boston was a strange sort of relief- our customs inspections were the last big thing to check off before we got to Portland. 

I’m writing this now, after our first day of maintenance in Portland. The sunset last night was peaceful, as we cruised at a mellow five knots up the coast, the shadow of land in the distance. Warm pinks and yellows filled the sky, and the sun seemed to hover just above the horizon for a very long time, as if it did not want that day to end- and I didn’t want it to end, either; I don’t want to leave the sea. I don’t want to leave its gentle waves rocking me to sleep, the dolphins racing us, my friends, perhaps the best ten weeks of my life. But we all have so much more of this to look forward to.

Wishing all parents, alumni, staff, crew, students, and readers of this blog fair winds and following seas, and a wonderful summer. 

Currently Listening (AKA Greatest Hits of singing on bow watch):

Sunshine On My Shoulders – John Denver

Road to Nowhere – Talking Heads

Come Sail Away – Styx

Atlantis – Donovan

Vienna – Billy Joel

Brandy, You’re A Fine Girl – Looking Glass

The Big Ship – Brian Eno

Homeward Bound – Simon & Garfunkel

Post by: MIDN 4/C Meredith Spotts, MTO.