At Sea With The Conversationalist - Part 2

After five sea days from the Persian Gulf through the Straits of Hormuz, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and into the Indian Ocean, Seabourn Encore has now been in, and is leaving, the Maldives.

Seabourn Encore

The sea day rhythm, timetabling the many available activities inside my lecture sequence – because every sea day is a talk day – has returned as we head for Indonesia.

Dubai was its usual fascinating place for some and anathema for others. Whichever position one takes, it is still an amazing city with impressive dynamics. Every visit sees more change and the rate of building seems not to have slowed.

The trip from there out through the maritime “choke point” of the Strait of Hormuz is impressive, simply because of the numbers of ships to be observed in close proximity. That looks even more impressive on Marine Traffic which reveals the total number of ships in the locality.

We are on what is known as a “repositioning” cruise, Encore shifting its operational base from the Mediterranean to Southeast Asia for the next few months. Because of that, we were the first Seabourn ship to transit the Suez Canal since Covid set in. The captain and his senior officers love these long spells at sea, it’s what they live for.

Many of the service staff hail from places in Southeast Asia so also love the chance to be closer to homes they miss a lot when away on lengthy contracts. A large contingent of them left us in Dubai, going home for a break and replaced by a new crowd settling in for the next few months.

A good many guests are staying on Encore for Christmas so decorations are beginning to line the corridors, the public areas are highly festive, and seasonal music sounds through all the venues.

As always, there is good interest in the talks, and two new speakers joined us in Dubai, an historian and a former American diplomat now based in Singapore. Guests get a good lot of information and opinion, and it is terrific to discuss with them around the ship, at meals or at the bar – or sometimes all three! The great bonus in all this is, as ever, meeting some really interesting people.

You never know who is aboard. A well known Indian journalist and sportswriter turned up for a chat one morning, and that set the trend for a lot more discussion before the end of the voyage that for us is Singapore in several days’ time.

The logistics for shipboard life are massive, obviously. The food is universally great and that takes a great effort by Executive Chef Ross who, while not at sea, lives in the Scottish Borders, not far from where my paternal great grandparents set off for New Zealand in 1874.

Housekeeping is another major task, and staff come from all corners of the globe. The captain tells us there are something like fifty plus nationalities among those staff, and they are all universally friendly, efficient and incredibly hard working, supporting families back home.

All guests have their own routines. Some are avid card players and a huge number of others are trivia afficionados. Gingerbread house making is reportedly very competitive on this sector. Others are trying to find their preferred bartender following staff reassignments. A corridor block party put neighbours in touch and many friendships have been struck already.

There are a lot of Australians, New Zealanders, Dutch, German, American, European and Asian guests aboard, and all have interesting stories so the new discussions are endless, and it is always wonderful to discover just how creative and pioneering a lot of people have been in business, education, international affairs, the military, the media and innumerable other fields.

Consequently, some of the discussion is robust but ever considerate and respectful of other views. The underlying theme for my talks is the idea that things always look different when viewed by someone from another context. So the “Middle East”, for example, does not look that way to someone who lives in the region, while Islam, to take another case, always looks different when considered in its context.

Many of the guests are kind enough to say they appreciate this role reversal and have learned a lot, and much of the discussion has been about those new perspectives. So when Qatar banned the Crusader uniforms being worn by English World Cup fans, many of the guests immediately “got” the point I was making, and why I still hate the Crusaders name borne by my favourite rugby team based in Christchurch.

The Maldives were a quick reminder that rising sea levels are a major challenge. The government has completed a set of residential tower blocks in preparation for the time when some of the islands become uninhabitable.

Here’s the Encore just now, on her way to Indonesia from The Maldives. If you thought the Strait of Hormuz was busy, have a look at this!