By day 3 we has settled in to a steady groove. The air had become somewhat more biting, as one would expect with our 200 mile detour to the north, but remained a still pleasant 60 - 62 degrees F, or 15C - 16C. But what really affects your comfort more than anything else on a fast ship like this is the wind speed and direction. For the most part we were very spoiled on this crossing as we had predominantly following winds, that is they were blowing at the back of the ship. Many times I looked at the weather on the nav display and would see it reading around 30 knots from 270 degrees, meaning it was right behind us and almost exactly matching our speed. This means if I were to go out on deck, the air should nearly be still. So I went out and amazingly... it was. Due to minor course changes, gusts and other little variables, you'd get the odd unpredictable breeze, but for the most part it was very, very calm. Even at 15C, you could sit just about anywhere on the sunny side of the ship and roast away.
In the afternoon we managed to get tickets to another planetarium show and this time made it in. And despite the design constraints of fitting it on a ship, it's just like being at the real thing! The dome is a large retractable affair which is housed in the ceiling of the ship's theater and is lowered when needed. When sitting anywhere but the very edge, it is every bit as good as the big boys.
The shows themselves are produced by the American Museum of Natural History and are narrated by well known actors and space buffs like Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford. The second show in particular we saw the next day on the size of the universe was absolutely awesome. During the day you can also attend lectures by authors, historians and experts on various subjects. Those on our voyage included Margaret Atwood, astronomer Ian Ridpath from the Royal Astronomical Society, and an English coroner who's an authority on Jack the Ripper. I expect that last session was not for the squeamish. Every night there was a very good selection of movies to watch, but I couldn't imagine sitting in there while there was such much more of the ship to see, not to mention the whole experience of just being on deck and watching the North Atlantic roll by, something you simply cannot buy anywhere else.If those things weren't enough to keep you occupied, the daily list of other activities delivered to our cabin every night with the ship's news letter was staggering. On any given day I counted more than 80 different scheduled activities... classes, workshops, seminars, lectures, ballroom dances, theater plays, wine tastings, opera performances, musical reviews, it was mind boggling.
One of my favorite daily rituals quickly became listening to the noon address by our ship's master. Commodore Warren would come on the P.A. at around 12:15 everyday to greet us and give a brief update on the ship's position, expected weather and various news and highlights about the voyage so far. Listening to him was a real treat as he had that perfectly formal ironclad British commander's voice. Icy cool, assured and confident, he ambled along at a stately, measured pace, with good long pauses for dramatic effect. But you could also hear a degree of warmth behind it that suggested this was a man who was extremely passionate about his position and the experiences it afforded him, and he peppered his daily speech with the sort of little trivial nuggets that might somewhat bore the average passenger but fascinated those of us who wanted to soak up every second of the true experience. If ever I had to go to war at sea, this was the man I wanted at the helm. It was in fact very, very easy to close one's eyes and imagine that we were now on a troop ship crossing the Atlantic in 1943, enemy on the hunt for us, mines lying in wait in the channel. I'm sure Commodore Warren would have sounded just about exactly the same...
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we're terribly sorry to have to interrupt the afternoon tea service, but our observers have just detected a U-boat several hundred yards off the starboard bow, and we must immediately commence depth charge operations (long pause)... We would ask that you kindly avoid walking on deck during this time (pause) due to the risk of flying debris (pause) and we do promise to resume the service once jerry has been successfully dispatched"...
I smile thinking about this, but the reality was no joke. And Queen Mary 2, believe it or not, is a direct descendant of ships that performed that exact duty.
From the very beginning of WWII, the most dangerous ocean on earth was the North Atlantic. If you were a merchant seaman at that time, things did not look good for you making it home. At the peak of the U-boat attacks in mid 1943, nearly 60 allied ships a month were being sunk. By war's end, allied merchant shipping had lost a total of 3500 ships and over 30,000 sailors. It was under these conditions that the commanders faced the difficult proposition of finding some way to transport the massive numbers of troops they needed to invade Europe from North America, and getting them there alive. On top of the horrible loss factor, there were no allied military ships in existence at that time that could carry the sheer number of men necessary in order to meet the schedule. The best option for addressing both the need for safety and capacity was to commandeer the largest passenger liners they could find, and the three stars of this converted fleet were Cunard's Aquitania, Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Mary. The latter two each could carry up to 16,000 men per crossing, which nearly on its own made the entire venture possible. But not only did they have enormous capacity, they were also three of the fastest ships in the world, and despite having some deck guns fitted to discourage would-be attackers it was this speed which provided their best defense. Unlike the thousands of vessels in the merchant ship convoys, the three big Cunarders ran in continuous service across the Atlantic for more than two years completely alone more than 90% of the time, without any form of military escort. One doesn't even want to begin to contemplate the horrors of one just of them being sunk... with 16,000 men on board not only would it have been the worst maritime disaster in history by a factor of ten, but it would have been one of the single greatest losses of any kind in WWII and terrible blow to morale for the allies.
Despite the perils, they ferried more than 1 million men in complete safety and by Winston Churchill's estimation, contributed to shortening the war by at least one year. This is without question the ultimate tribute to the incredible engineering of this family of liners. To further illustrate how rugged they were, consider these two incidents I came across on QM2's direct ancestor, the Queen Mary, during her WWII service...
On October 2nd 1942, the HMS Curacoa, a 450' long British gun ship, was sailing in formation with Queen Mary as she left Ireland. At that time it was normal for ships to steer a zigzag course to make torpedo intercepts more difficult, even when grouped. Unfortunately the Curacoa misjudged her partner's intentions and turned in front of QM at the wrong moment. The Queen Mary, having no time to maneuver, smashed into her at full speed amid ship and her massive bow split the Curacoa cleanly in two. Due to the danger of U-boats in the area, she was under strict orders to continue and made it to Boston only a day behind schedule. Other ships in the area arrivied shortly on scene, but unfortunaely only 98 of the 338 men aboard the Curacoa survived.
In December 1942, QM was carrying 16,082 American troops from New York to Great Britain, a standing record for the most passengers ever transported on one vessel. While 700 miles from Scotland during a gale, she was suddenly hit broadside by a rogue wave that may have reached a height of 28 metres (92 ft). An account of this crossing can be found in Walter Ford Carter's book, No Greater Sacrifice, No Greater Love. Carter's father, Dr. Norval Carter, part of the 110th Station Hospital on board at the time, wrote that at one point the Queen Mary "damned near capsized... One moment the top deck was at its usual height and then, swoom! Down, over, and forward she would pitch".Very few other ships would likely have survived the incident, especially with such a heavy load. The occurrence inspired Paul Gallico to write his story, The Poseidon Adventure, which was later made into a film by the same name, using the Queen Mary as a stand-in for the SS Poseidon.
Although we can be thankful that we don't have to worry about being torpedoed or dive-bombed, the threat of bad weather remains a real issue for crossing the Atlantic at all times, and can be extremely serious in winter. The danger posed to most ships cannot be underestimated, to this day commercial vessels still disappear at a rate of two a week due worldwide to weather conditions and the North Atlantic claims more than her share. Even ships designed for these waters can be at peril. During a westbound crossing in 1966 the Italian liner Michelangelo was hit by a large wave that collapsed part of her superstructure, injuring more than fifty people and killing two crewmen. That particular incident was foremost on the mind of naval architect Stephen Payne when her set out to design QM2. Borrowing and improving upon all the lessons learned by her formidable predecessors Queen Mary and specifically Queen Elizabeth 2, QM2 was conceived from the beginning to achieve, in his words, "epic invulnerability". I for one am happy with the results so far, and see no need to have the claim proven further to me.
Days 4, 5 and 6 seemed to fly by, I can't believe how quickly the time passed. Many wonderful opportunities kept coming my way, on Thursday I got to meet our ship's master at a book signing in the library.
I had to wait about a half an hour to make it to the head of the line, but once there Commodore Warren was extremely gracious, not only signing my book but indulging a number of my pointy questions on the ships technical aspects. He also corrected my assessment of what caused the pitching we had experienced in the wee hours of Monday morning. Although Bill did dump some leftover showers on us, he had little to do with the ride, that was due to some fairly aggressive waves caused by a mixture of some local offshore currents and the strong following winds. Although this type of wind is nice for walking the deck, it can actually cause the waves to race up and overtake you from behind, "jacking" the ship up from rear to front and causing some rather nasty pitching.
We saw a second planetarium show, ate more fabulous food, hung out at the pub and the champagne bar, and continued to find new rooms, passageways and decks. On the morning of our last day at sea, I take an early morning walk around the lower decks. One spot I love in particular is the Game Room corridor, where there are about twenty tables lined up alongside a like number of big portholes, looking out onto the ocean flying by at near eye level. Once again, I am amazed at how the sea surges and pounds at the hull outside, but nary a thing moves inside the ship. Spotting a backgammon chip lying on one of the tables, I get an idea.
Time for a little Bill Nye the Science guy style experiment...
Despite my leisurely pace and best efforts to rest, my cold worsened, and it was getting to the point where I couldn't stop coughing. I tried every over-the-counter med I could buy in the ship store, but nothing seemed to work for more than an hour at best. By the last afternoon I could take it no more, and I suspect my mom, despite her her vehement claims otherwise, was by now entertaining the idea of chucking me overboard in my sleep, so I went down to the ship's medical center and saw the doc. Expecting to find little more than a desk and a small examination room, I walked into for what appeared to be a full blown CLSC sized operation, and the service was as polite and efficient as anywhere else on the ship.
The prognosis: Bronchitis.
Lovely.
But the doc fixed me up with the good stuff, some heavily fortified codeine cough syrup, and finally I had some relief.
My plan for the last day was to get up in the wee hours so I could see the English coast appear and watch the intricate dance needed to shuffle such a massive liner into the docks at Southampton, but it was not to be. I did wake up at the required 3:00 am, but one walk outside into the chilly breeze on the balcony convinced me that it wouldn't be a bright move from a health perspective. It's a rare day that I choose the sensible solution over the exciting alternative, but knowing I would have to be back at my desk in what seemed like mere hours now I thought the better of it. I knew I would regret it. When we awoke for real it was eerily quiet, no sound of the seas, no nothing. I peeled back the drapes and looked out, sure enough we were parked at the docks. Damn.
We eat breakfast on board for the last time and at the appointed moment head for the main theater, where the passengers are staged in groups for disembarkation. This goes without a hitch, and my mom, old-time cruise hand, is amazed at the lack of lines, crowds, or bottlenecks of any sort. In a matter of moments we are in our bus and on our way to Heathrow, where we will spend nearly the entire day trapped in the terminal waiting for our flight. Ugh.
As our bus pulls away from the pier, I take one good, long, last look at Her Highness. I can't believe we have to go. Given my choice, I would hop right back on and ride back to the Big Apple. And that's just what many people do. I now can now fully and completely understand why. 
I've really tried my best to convey the experience of what this was like in words, but reading it back now it's not even close to cutting it. This ship has more soul, spirit and thundering majesty than all other means of locomotion I've had the pleasure of travelling in or on combined. If you have the time and the funds, there is simply NO other way to go. This may have been my first voyage on Queen Mary 2, but rest assured, it will definitely not be my last.
Farewell, Queen.
More images available at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41542666@N07/sets/72157622115382203/detail/
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