A Life on the Ocean Wave

On the weekend I drove myself and the kids down to San Diego to visit an old French friend of mine who is currently working on a cruise ship and was docked in the beautiful Port of SD for the day.

When my son was a baby, a ten month old baby, Tweedle Dumb and I had the brilliant idea of going to work on a cruise ship. Only catch was, we wanted to be together and also take our baby boy with us. Although this seemed like a ridiculous dream to many, and outrageously ambitious to others, we were incredibly fortunate to get hired by a production company in Miami who were willing to send us out on to the big blue with our baby, they didn't even require us to smuggle him on in a shoe box as we had planned if all else failed.

We spent three wonderful years on ships performing and raising our son (with the help of a crew of eight hundred) until we decided to add to our brood and got pregnant with our baby girl.

It had been thirteen years since I'd actually set foot on a ship so I was excited to see how things had changed and show the kids around. The day was doubly exciting as I got to speak French all day with my old buddy. I'm a bit of a Francophone, love the language, the food, the culture, and yes, even the Parisians.

Technology, 9/11, and H1N1 have changed the way cruise ships operate almost beyond recognition. You practically get cavity searched and fingerprinted to get on board these days as one little slip in security could bring the highly profitable industry to its knees. There are hand sanitizing machines at every restaurant and bar entrance, at every elevator entrance, and probably in your life vest!

But the biggest change is that cell phones and the Internet work even when you're out at sea. Fantastic! Unless of course, you were trying to get away from everything on vacation Hmmm...

Well it's good for the crew anyway. I remember when we were on ships we'd desperately run to the calling centre and line up to contact our loved ones every time we touched down in port or when leaving Miami we'd stay on our brick sized cell phones until we reached the mouth of the dock and lost signal completely...the only way we could contact home was by fax and even that had it's dodgy days!

Our visit was a lovely trip down memory lane and a great day was had by all. The kids, of course, wanted to see the photo albums of when we worked on ships when we got home, so I dragged them out for them...isn't it funny that pictures that were taken in your twenties that you absolutely loathed and thought you looked hideous in at the time, when you look at them fifteen years later you think you looked bloody marvelous...so whatever your age and how ever old you think you look today...take loads of pictures 'cos in twenty years time you'll think you looked absolutely fabulous!