An Atlantic Crossing

Lifeboat drill: Maritime law requires one every seven days at sea. When the seven long whistle blasts sound, you turn out with your life jackets tied properly, near the boat you will use to make your escape from the, god forbid, sinking liner. Ours is boat station three. We have only to walk out our cabin door, march 60 feet down the corridor, turn left and out the door to the deck, and we stand beneath our boat.

During our one drill, we emerged on the deck to find ourselves in a crowd of older people already tied and trussed with their garish orange life preservers. The boat crew said women and children should stand forward and this we explained to some older ladies standing at the back. They told us they had practiced the drill several times already and it was old hat, and anyway if it were a real emergency they would flatten us.

Many of the passengers arrive for these cruises prepared to die. Some bring their EKGs, some bring all their medical records. Some file wills and living wills with the ship surgeon and some bring their own doctors. The happenstance of death is not uncommon on a ship, and it is accommodated as would be any special passenger request.

In the old days when people died aboard ships they were buried at sea. Burial at sea involved a small ceremony, after which the deceased was placed-already wrapped and weighted-on a wooden chute opening to the water below. Following the ceremony, a catch was sprung and the dead fell to its deep rest. Tradition dictated that the man who built this chute receive a bottle of drink as reward.

On one occasion, so goes the lore, this reward was enjoyed before the actual ceremony, and during preparations someone hit the catch and sent the body plummeting. No matter. A bag of garbage was collected and wrapped, and assembled into human shape, and when the time came it served the purpose just as well as the body. This plan was not even foiled when the wife of the dead man asked to kiss her husband one last time. She was told that maritime law forbade it. Now, they no longer bury at sea, but keep the deceased in a refrigerated box in a room that might otherwise hold fruits or vegetables-in any event something needing cold. Julie, our ship’s host, told us of a time when a passenger had died and the next day everyone on the ship had bananas served with every meal, bananas displaced from the refrigerator. Doctor Echo Ens, one of two doctors on the Rotterdam during this trip, said no one had died during this long voyage. The refrigerated box that would contain the bodies of those dearly departed instead contained flowers.

Death closes all. But meanwhile the ship runs like a handsome clock, and the surrounding admirers only watch and comment. The ship corridors bustle with crew, housekeeping staff, and officers, and the corridors also rustle with the the halting walk of an elderly man with a cane. An electric wheelchair is parked in a corridor outside a stateroom. At dinner, elderly women stow their walkers discreetly by their tables.

Meanwhile, no dark feelings invade the pleasantness of the decks. We have cloth towels in the public bathrooms, hot chocolate served on the Promenade Deck, and a new vase of flowers every day. In the evening, a man goes around with a kind of upright xylophone on a stick, playing a diminutive rendition of reveille. This announces dinner. Once seated, a violin and guitar duet begin to play for you.

And you are always at pains to wear the right clothing. Grand voyage custom decrees that on certain nights you dress formally. In fact, on the Rotterdam we have three levels of formality in evening dress, and a different level is in force each night. The dress schedule is listed in the trip itinerary and reminders show up every day in the newsletter. On Casual nights, you wear what you like, shorts and t-shirts excluded, though most men wear jackets at least. On Elegant Casual nights, you wear a jacket and tie. On Formal nights, you wear a dinner jacket. A certain latitude is built in and no one has yet been thrown overboard for violating this code. Yet it must be admitted that this uniformity commends a certain fellowship to the passenger list.

Dinner with the captain (if you have been invited) begins with cocktails on the Promenade Deck at the Tropic Bar. Then you take elevators down to the dining rooms on C Deck, file through the La Fountaine dining room to a special dining room in back, the Grand Voyage room, a stately, walnut-paneled place, with square columns throughout and oil paintings on the walls. The table is set opulently, with five forks to the left of the plate, four spoons and three knives to the right, an additional set of silverware above the plate, two wine glasses and a water glass. There are ten Indonesian men in green uniforms surrounding the table, which is set for 14 diners along each long side and two at each end. In the center of the table, a huge floral display obscures your vision of the captain’s overbite. You get five courses, starting with a fruit plate, each a gourmet dish as you can tell from the great expanse of white plate surface left uncovered by food.

While you eat, the staff lines up behind you, and a photographer snaps pictures of whole blocks of you and your fellow guests. These photographs appear the next day in the photo gallery and you find the one showing you and your dinner mates. You appear to be having a good time.