1: Dover
I arrived on time at Dover despite doing battle with a 150 year old Connex train that had never been either cleaned or oiled. Most of the way its speed was what it should have been divided by three, occasionally interspersed with what it should have been multiplied by ten to make up for it.
Outside Dover Priory station I’d been hoping for one of those courtesy buses to convey me to the docks, but none were in evidence, so I climbed into a taxi. The driver asked me which boat I was getting and when I replied ‘The Triton’ he looked perplexed and said he’d never heard of it. This was a little worrying as The Triton was supposed to sail regularly from Dover and I was now wondering whether the Connex train had transported me into a version of Dover in a parallel universe where my boat had indeed never sailed.
As we got close to the docks, a large cruise ship with the word ‘Triton’ in two foot high lettering on the side came into view, and I turned to the taxi driver and said ‘There it is’, in what must have sounded quite a ‘told you so’ tone. ‘No’, he replied, ‘that’s the Royal Olympic, I’d know that one anywhere, comes here all the time’. Royal Olympic were, in fact, the owners of the ship and did indeed have their name on a little sign by the taxi rank where we pulled up. My driver must have never noticed the ship’s name and I wasn’t sure whether this was a worrying oversight for a man in his profession or just an indication that he kept his eyes firmly on the road.
No matter, I was in the right place at the correct time (and universe) and quite soon I was walking up the gangplank onto what was to be my home for the next ten days. I was immediately caught off guard by the ship’s pest, the ‘cruise photographer’, who, I was to discover, would lurk in all sorts of unexpected places with her digital monster and then plaster the results all over the dividing partitions of the ship’s shopping area within hours. She’d then try to sell them to you at exorbitant prices and looked sulkily at you if you inspected them without buying. When I say that I was caught off guard, I mean that I smiled co-operatively into her lens in an almost Pavlovian manner. From then on I tried to be ready for her and would greet her by turning my head away as quickly as possible, thus ruining her potential sale and preventing my image from appearing on public display, quite against my will. Sometimes however, as with all true pests, you didn’t even know she was there.
I set foot on the ship for the first time and was quickly escorted to my cabin. I’d been hoping against hope for an outside one, complete with port hole, but it was not to be. The cabin was very nice however, spacious for a boat and extremely clean and best of all it had a large and comfortable bed. In fact, it had two large and comfortable beds, so I had a choice and the added luxury denied to couples of somewhere to lay my suitcase flat. The main problem with an inside cabin was that with no natural light, no matter what time I woke up, there was no way of knowing what the time actually was without switching on a light and checking my watch. This got a little wearing until I realised that the sounds of the people in the adjoining cabins getting up were an extremely reliable alarm clock - after that I slept very well.
It turned out that there was much to do between being introduced to my cabin at about 4.15 and dinner, which would be at 6.30. First I ambled around trying to get my bearings and discovering where the main points of the ship were. Then there was a ‘ship safety’ video, followed by a talk about shore excursions and then I had to queue up to get the various bits and pieces necessary to life on board; a boarding pass which now had me bar coded and would register me on a computer every time I disembarked and re-embarked; a restaurant pass with my table number on it and finally, but most importantly, my ‘unlimited drinks’ card which, once purchased, would sustain me through the worst that the north sea had to offer and those chilly Norwegian nights without worrying about the tally.
Dinner time arrived quite rapidly, and I was anxious to see who my table companions would be. On ships you stick with the same people for the whole trip, so it’s quite important that that the companions are compatible. I was first to the table, which could seat six, and quickly claimed a chair by the window. First to join me was a septuagenarian lady by herself who nodded, smiled and sat diagonally opposite me looking very nervous. There were quite a few people around my age or just a little older, but they all seemed to be walking by. Next to arrive was a couple in their sixties who sat on my side of the table looking rather stunned, by what I had no idea. There were two seats left and the passengers were running out. Then, bringing up the rear, two ladies in their eighties slowly approached with the aid of walking sticks and manoeuvred themselves somewhat clumsily into the remaining chairs. Our party was complete.
I felt like I’d gate crashed a SAGA convention with representatives from each
decade of the ‘third age’. I’ve nothing against retired people, it
was just that I was completely outnumbered, five to one being fairly conclusive.
I decided to break the ice by introducing myself. The 60’s couple were
Doreen and Reg who hailed from Norwich. Reg turned out to be
pretty much deaf and never said a word at the table for the entire ten
meals that we ate together. To compound his deafness, Doreen was very softly
spoken – I’m not sure whether this was a deliberate act to exclude her
husband, but it left Reg in his own little void which none of the rest
of us ever managed to penetrate. The 70’s lady was the rather posh Miriam
who came only vaguely from
We were on to our dessert when the ship’s engines kicked in and the white cliffs
began to sail past the window. It would be a while before we would reach