An invitation to join a New York friend on a Caribbean cruise came in a classically Brooklyn blunt e-mail: "I'm taking a cruise out of New Orleans. All my other friends are dead and it cost a hundred dollars to bring a guest. You want'a come?"
With flattery like that who could say no?
We caught the cruise ship, Carnival Conquest, at the Erato Pier on a drizzly end-of-winter day. Sailing time was set at 4 pm, but we left our Faubourg Marigny guesthouse around 10 am—New Yorkers are constitutionally designed to be first-in-line. Also, we heard early arrivals were served lunch. Meals come large and often on a cruise ship. We averaged twelve or so a day.
Our taxi leaped across Poydras Street on to Convention Boulevard. The mile-long ride along the full length of the Morial Convention Center is impressive. Then, POW! The soaring dual Mississippi River bridges appear, towering above the street, the pier and our ship.
The Carnival Conquest stood tall in the water at over 950 feet, and rising ten decks above the water line. In case you missed seeing it while dealing with taxi and luggage, a big-screened image is hung out along the check-in line. It is manned by photographers snapping passenger's pictures in front of her bow. A cute look-where-I-am and you're not remembrance for the folks back home. You will have opportunity plenty in the next seven days for such a souvenir.
The Conquest is fitted with “bow thrusters,” which can propel a ship sideways, and make today's modern captain truly the master of his ship. He can maneuver away from the pier without the assistance of a tugboat if need be. I once saw a captain in Holland (during a tug boater's strike) maneuver his ship up the Mass River and into a square-cut slip along Rotterdam's Europort maze of wharfs. When the lines were tossed ashore sailors on the ship's bridge applauded. A few years later, I saw another captain use his bow thruster to drive his vessel up the fantail of a ship hauling cola syrup up the Houston Ship Channel. "Cleanest thing spilled in these waters in twenty years," the Master snorted. Sailors on that bridge snickered.
You can tell if a ship has bow thrusters by an iconic propeller painted inside a circle, forward near the Plimsoll line. The Plimsoll line is a line painted around the ship's hull. It measures how deeply she lays in the water and is calibrated to account for differences between salt and fresh water. This is very important information for people on ship bound down the Mississippi River all the way to Mexico.
How I happen to know all this will be revealed shortly.
Carnival decorated the Conquest in French impressionist and post-impressionist decor. Great, we thought, an opportunity to bloviate on the Louisiana-ness of Edgar Degas.
Our first lunch on board was wonderful. It was at the Cezanne buffet just off the sun deck, with its variety of water slides, pools and whirlpools. After lunch we toured the ship.
The elegant Renoir dining room was where we had been assigned 9:30 seatings for the whole voyage. We changed it to the new open-ended program Carnival calls "Your Time Dining." This had the added advantage of giving us a variety of table partners. Few of whom it turned out, showed interest in learning about Degas' Louisiana connection.
The next two days we turned loops in the Gulf of Mexico and for my money (really my friend's) this was the best part of the voyage. I loved being at Sea. And nothing can top eating fish-and-chips while hanging over the tenth deck rail.
Jamaica was our first port of call, and my New York friend forewent the opportunity to as he put it, "Marvel at their squalor." At dinner the night before in the Renoir Room, a chatty young couple from Minnesota told us they had booked a day at a gated resort. (There is a booking desk on board for excursions at all ports.) "For clean sands and safe waters.
Jamaica is dangerous," the Minnesota man said. He told us he was a policeman in Minneapolis, and she a librarian.
Sailors passing in the night
At the Jamaican Customs House I was the only one from our ship not boarding a tour bus. Outside, a collection of thatched roof shops that looked vaguely African were laced along a gravel path. I bought a Red Stripe Beer from a small dark lady under one of these conical roofs. The path led past more shops—mostly empty—to a bar offering Internet service. There I ordered another Red Stripe and sat outside at a table with a yellow, black and green umbrella—the Jamaican colors.
A few locals approached with hearty "Hey Mans" and sightseeing offers. I explained that I was a retired sailor who wanted for nothing. A young man with a laptop joined me, and gave the bartender/waitress $3 for which she keyed in the proper password. In minutes he was talking to his home in Bulgaria.
When finished I told him, "When I went to Sea you had to go to special offices with telephone booths and long lines." I sailed out of New Orleans for fifteen years. He told me he was a waiter on the Carnival Magic, a sister ship that was moored beside ours.
"I retired as Chief Steward," I said, as I got up to return to my ship for lunch. Chief Steward is head of the Steward's Department—the ship's innkeeper—and a waiter's ultimate boss.
"I should have been on your ship," he smiled, and wished me “sunny skies and a following Sea."
Early next morning we took breakfast in the Monet Room. A glass sunflower two decks tall stood by the door, and tables towards the aft looked out over the ship's wake. What's not to like?
Crossing the Sun Deck on our way back to our cabin, a giant television screen hanging over the sun deck showed Newt Gingrich in Florida. A man we walked passed told two young girls, "Funny how no one ever says he looks exactly like the fat one in Laurel and Hardy."
Grand Cayman, offshore banking capitol of the world, was our next stop—near zero probability I suspect that any American politician will show his face here.
As Jamaica is poor the Caymans are rich. Yet with all that wealth, the harbor is not deep enough to accommodate any of the many cruise ships in port. We all had to take a tender ashore. Once there, every high-end jeweler, clothier, and perfumer lay at our feet. We sat on well-kept street benches watching the parade of colorfully attired police and giddy cruise-ship shoppers. Our only purchases were time at a computer café, a Grand Caymanian postage stamp (world's best souvenir) and a free strand of beads made from bamboo and given to us by an optimistic lady in a shop named Cariloha. She sold lovely, cool clothing spun from the same fiber.
Another night at sea, with dinner mates from California. It was an elegant night and we were in sport coats without ties, but some passed our table in evening clothes. (There is a rental shop on board.)
We liked the tables on the starboard side next to windows looking over a teak promenade. And we loved being able to order more than one of everything, from a waitstaff that could win the Olympian gold, were their skill set in the competition.
Cozumel Island, off mainland Mexico is a favorite port for the old time cruise sailors we met on board. It was for us, too. We left the elegant shops and walked into "town" for a Cuban Cigar Shop with a caricatured rendering of Fidel Castro in front of it. Tell me again why we ban these?
Near the end of the voyage came a mother and daughter from Oregon as dining companions who actually wanted to hear about Degas. Thank you Neptune! (Degas’ mother was from New Orleans.) We made each other laugh so much that at our last dinner before New Orleans they sought us out, with help from the hostess, for new laughter and the displaying of gifts for the dog-sitter at home.
In my entire life I can honestly say I have never done anything better than this cruise. It is how I should have been going to Sea all along.
Leonard Earl Johnson is a former cook, merchant seaman, photographer and columnist for Les Amis de Marigny New Orleans, and more. Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Johnson decamped to Lafayette. He lives in an old railroad hotel where Elvis Presley once stayed, and regularly rides and writes about Amtrak’s Sunset Limited. His blog is titled Yours Truly in a Swamp, at www.LEJ.org.
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