I used to be a competent and sharp-witted person—exactly what one would expect from one of the world’s first female airline captains. When I retired from flying airliners, I assumed nothing would change.
I was wrong.
Now fatigue affects me in ways it never did before. After a late night of packing and leg cramps that disturbed what little sleep I might have enjoyed, my octogenarian mother and I embarked on a fourteen-day cruise through the Caribbean.
We boarded the Constellation at 11:30 a.m. in Miami and dived into the lunch buffet while waiting for our cabin. Our three previous vacations on Celebrity Cruises were aboard their new ultra-luxurious Solstice Class ships. We were assured this older Millennium Class ship had been refurbished to be in line with the newer ships. Maybe we would’ve agreed if the new ships hadn’t spoiled us. We booked it because of the two-week itinerary available only on this ship.
When we entered our so-called suite, we were dismayed by the tight quarters and tiny bathroom. There was barely enough room to stow our belongings. I couldn’t walk around without banging my shin on a bed corner or bumping into something. My coordination wasn’t at its best after a sleepless night, so the bruise count was mounting.
We somehow stowed everything away by 3:00 p.m. and decided to enjoy siestas before the 4:30 sail-away party. My nap in our balcony deck chair was interrupted by a loud persistent announcement. In my exhausted stupor, I couldn’t understand the heavily accented voice. I managed to catch a few words: mandatory drill, muster station, and life jackets. It was 4:00 p.m., and my foggy brain recalled doing this on every cruise before departure. Too bad I didn’t remember the salient details of previous musters.
I studied the plaque on the door, located our muster station on the map, and noted pictures of passengers wearing life vests. Mother and I dutifully donned our life jackets. The stiff design clamped around us like neck braces for crash victims.
I stepped into the hall and learned something interesting about people for whom English is a second language. If what you say to them doesn’t match the situation and how you look, they focus on what they see and tune out your words.
I encountered a steward and reminded him to separate our beds. He looked confused, so I made hand gestures. He fixated on my straitjacket life vest and assumed I was asking how to remove it. I assumed he didn’t speak English because even though I kept saying, “Beds. Separate the beds,” he kept saying, “Yes, pull apart front and lift above head.”
I gave up, and Mom and I headed for the stairs. We were greeted by laughing crew members who cheerfully informed us life jackets were not required for the drill. So Sharon Stupid and Dottie Dimwit dashed back to our cabin to stow the life vests before reporting to the muster station. By the time we arrived, the only unoccupied seats were tall bar stools.
My mother loses all coordination when she’s tired, and I seem to be headed that way. Sitting on the barstool should’ve been a simple maneuver, but Mom looked like a two-year-old trying to climb into a big girl’s chair. She succeeded on her third try. By then, the crowd was staring.
Mom and I get the giggles when we’re tired. We looked at each other, remembered the stupid stuff we’d just done, and giggled uncontrollably. Fortunately, it was New Year’s Eve, and everyone assumed we were harmless drunks rather than incompetents.
We attended the sail-away party on the top deck, followed by dinner, a show, and the countdown-to-midnight party and New Year’s celebration with plenty of the Paso Robles Midnight merlot for moi.
Back in our microscopic cabin, we collapsed into our separated beds, which I had finally arranged with an English-speaking crewmember. We planned to skip breakfast and sleep in.
That didn’t work out.
Even though a Do-Not-Disturb sign was displayed on our door, I heard persistent knocking early in the morning. I opened the door and smelled smoke. A crewmember said we must evacuate the room and proceed to our muster station. I stumbled to Mom’s bed and told her to get dressed quickly. Silly me, we couldn’t do anything fast in such tight quarters.
I wish I could say that I took command of the situation and made sensible decisions, but no. Apparently my brain only switches to pilot mode when I'm in an airplane, and my airline captain days are long gone.
I’m a writer now. So is Mom.
Did we grab our diamond jewelry and warm clothes for the life boats? No. Did we take our money, passports, water bottles, or life vests? Nope. We threw on shorts and T-shirts, slipped on sandals, and grabbed our laptops.
We were almost out the door when Mom said, “Wait! We forgot our Kindles!”
We shoved the Kindles into the laptop cases and hurried to the muster station, confident we had saved what was most important.
We knew we couldn’t eat our Kindles or drink our computers, but our manuscripts were in the laptops, so no way would we leave without them. When we arrived at the muster station sans life vests, hugging our computer bags, we once again drew the attention of the crowd and crew. As our stupidity became apparent, Mom and I looked at each other and giggled uncontrollably. Fortunately, the group assumed we were still drunk from New Year’s Eve.
While waiting for the crew to douse the small fire in the breakfast buffet and evacuate the smoke, I began writing this account of the first twenty-four hours of our fourteen-day cruise. I could hardly wait to discover what stupid things I’d do next. Too bad I left the sensible part of my brain in the Boeing cockpit.
My next blunder was sitting next to the only man at our dinner table for eight. Frail and balding, he appeared to be in his seventies. I attempted to engage him by inquiring if he’d served in the military.
“I served in the Canadian military as part of a U.N. peace-keeping mission in Palestine in the sixties,” he said.
“Sorry, did you say you were in Palestine in the 1960s? Did you mean Israel?” I asked, trying to be helpful.
His voice increased by about twenty decibels. “No! I mean the nation of Palestine. They still have their own country.”
“Really? Where? I don’t recall seeing it on a recent world map.”
“It’s there! They have their own government leaders and everything.”
“Then why are there Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon? Wouldn’t they rather live in their own country if it still exists?” I asked. Big mistake.
He blasted into a loud tirade about the Jews stealing Palestine. All the women at our table glared at him, siding with me. A woman from Texas reminded him the land had belonged to Israel thousands of years before the Palestinians took it over.
Spittle spewed from his frothing mouth as he raged on about how wrong we were. He finally stopped yelling when his wife gave him the evil eye.
I never sat near him again. I try to learn from my mistakes.
The next night, I savored Wild Horse merlot and listened to a talented young man play guitar and sing on the afterdeck. A man resembling a scrawny old rooster danced alone in front of the singer. He wore swim shorts, a sleeveless shirt, and flip flops while everyone else was dressed in formal evening attire.
His dancing was the strangest I’d ever seen. He looked like he was constantly getting zapped by a Taser as he jerked and contorted his body. It was apparent large quantities of alcohol were involved. He almost fell several times. Then he dragged a woman onto the dance floor and grabbed her every time he lost his balance.
The spastic dancer entertained the crowd through several songs before he staggered over to me and said, “Come on, baby, you know you want to!” He tried to pull me out of my chair.
That’s when the Russians came to my rescue.
According to our cruise director, there were eighty-two passengers from Russia. I noticed the men were tall and broad-shouldered with deep voices. After all those years of repression, they were making up for lost time in the fun department. A giant Russian bear pulled the rooster away from me and crushed him against his chest in a silly man-on-man slow dance. His buddies shared a good laugh. When the dance ended, the rooster stumbled away in a daze.
When I smiled at the Russian and said, “Spasibo,” he bowed.
As Mom and I headed downstairs for the evening show, she did something completely unexpected. I sensed she wasn’t behind me when I reached the bottom of the two-story stairway. When I looked up, she was still at the top.
“Stay there and catch me!” she shouted as she hiked up her black chiffon gown, swung her leg over the railing, and proceeded to slide down.
Mom was eighty-five and a non-drinker, so you can imagine my surprise.
“Slow down! There’s a painful-looking lip at the end of the banister!” I managed to stop her before she reached it. “Mom, what the hell?” I said when she climbed off.
“It was on my bucket list,” she said with a defiant look. “Well, okay then. Dare I ask what else is on your list?”
“I’d like that darn fairy book I worked on for twenty-five years to be published!”
“Journey into the Land of the Wingless Giants will be published this year. That’s a promise,” I said as we strolled into the theater.
I met the handsome captain of the ship, Alexandros Andreas, in his fancy uniform the following day. He was from Greece—aren’t they all? I convinced him to give me a tour of the bridge. Afterward, he invited me to join him for a private dinner.
Cruise ship captains are treated like kings. His steward served us steak Diane and new potatoes with a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild. I must admit I was impressed. And the decadent chocolate parfait was the perfect finale.
Over the next several days, we enjoyed each other’s company.
As the cruise neared its end, Alexandros confided in me that he was deeply depressed. “If you don’t sleep with me, I’ll end it all and sink the ship.”
That night, I saved the lives of thirty-five hundred people. Twice.