On waking up this morning to calm and sunny seas we found, once again, that they were serving free ‘champagne’ with breakfast, as tonight is another formal night. We managed to consume four glasses each (!), the last of which we took out onto the deck at the stern and enjoyed outside in the rare North Atlantic April sunshine. The temperature was actually quite mild and the wind had dropped enough for some people to venture into the Jacuzzi and pools.
At 9.45am we went along to the Neptune lounge to listen to Jack Eaton and Charles Haas talking about “Titanic Mythellany”, elaborating, in fact, on some of the dispelled myths we had touched upon in the Q and A session yesterday. As someone who has been interested in the Titanic for many years (since reading Robert Ballard’s book in 1987, in fact) I always get people coming up to me and saying, in a knowing sort of voice, things like “Did you know that the champagne bottle didn’t break when they launched the Titanic?” and other such rumours and alleged “facts”. So it is great when I can hear results of research which sorts out the wheat from the chaff. Just for the record, the champagne bottle did break. 🙂
We spent the rest of the morning pottering around the ship, spending a lot of time wandering around on deck and enjoying the fresh sea air. We tried to imagine how the passengers on the Titanic would have spent the long sea days 100 years ago, when there were no computers, iPhones, PowerPoint presentations and GPS location maps to keep them entertained, facilities we take for granted here on the Balmoral.
At 12.00 noon Captain Bamberg made his usual announcement from the Bridge, starting as always by saying “A very good afternoon, ladies and yentlemen”. Like many Scandinavians, the Captain finds it difficult to pronounce the letter “J” or the soft “G” sound the English way, as this sound does not exist in their language. So it was always “yentlemen”. As ever, all was well on the bridge. 🙂
The afternoon’s lecture in the Neptune lounge was called “The Mystery Ship” and was given by Senan Moloney. It was designed to try to get to the bottom of the mystery of the SS Californian, the ship who had allegedly seen the Titanic fire distress rockets yet failed to come to her rescue. This is a controversy that has raged on for 100 years; Captain Stanley Lord of the Californian was ostracised for the rest of his life, but was he really the “bad guy” that old and new literature about the Titanic makes him out to be? Senan’s talk showed that there even could have been another ship in the area at the time; also, the wreck of the Titanic was found about 13 nautical miles east of her final known position as given in her SOS call. So there were and are many inconsistencies to the story, and I couldn’t list them all here without resorting to pages of writing.
Soon afterwards it was time for me to go back to cabin 4170 to start to get ready for our second formal night. Once again I was getting my hair put up in a glamorous up-style as befitting the occasion. My dress for tonight was a black velvet, lace and ribbon Gothic-style dress, which was shorter at the front and cascaded into a full-length dress at the back. I wore it with black fishnet stockings, black shoe-boots with three decorative buckles, my long black velvet gloves and a black lace and sequin shawl with a long fringe. It wasn’t really a 1912-era outfit, but the overall effect was, nonetheless, very good. 🙂
As the Captain had been absent for his cocktail reception on 10th April, we were having another Captain’s reception tonight. Oh goody – more free champers on Fred. 😉
While in the queue to go into the Neptune lounge to meet the Captain, I looked around at all the passengers in their sartorial splendour. Formal evenings on cruises are always special events, but here on the Balmoral everyone had really pushed the boat out, so to speak. There were many authentic costumes and people had obviously gone to great effort: from the “3rd Class” gentlemen in their rough tweed trousers, cotton collarless shirts, braces and cloth caps to the “1st Class” ladies in their silks and satins, their pearl chokers and big ornate hats, to the gentlemen in their top hats, tails, silk cravats and white gloves, all around us everyone looked superb. Even those not dressed in 1912 costume had either bought or made the most gorgeous evening dresses and it was a sight to behold.
Captain Bamberg made his appearance and introduced his senior officers. As we have been sailing west we have had to put our clocks and watches back an hour each night (as is usual practice) but tonight, the Captain announced we would need to put the ship’s clock back by one hour and 27 minutes, in order that we will have the exact time on the clock, according to our degrees longitude, that the Titanic had when she struck the iceberg at precisely 23:40 hours on the evening of the 14th April 1912.
Once again we enjoyed some canapés and several glasses of free plonk, courtesy of Fred Olsen, before going into the restaurant for our special Titanic dinner. It was the same dishes served on the Titanic and I have reproduced the menu here.
The passengers on the Titanic, even those travelling 3rd Class, must have been really well fed and the first class food was superb. I started with quail’s eggs in aspic and caviar – how posh can you get? Even today that menu would be impressive.
After leaving the table fit to burst we went along to the Neptune lounge where tonight the entertainment was a Welsh opera singer called Anthony Stuart Lloyd. We realised we had seen him before, in January 2010 on the Queen Mary 2. He has a rich, bass-baritone voice and is a giant of a man at around 6’ 6” with immense shoulders. He sang all sorts of stuff; some from the musicals, some from the opera such as the Toreador March from Carmen. He is an excellent singer and he told us he would be singing again at the memorial service tomorrow night.
We finished the evening, as usual, by going along to the Lido lounge where the magician we’d seen on Monday night, Mark Shortland, was doing another show. He was very entertaining and his tricks are that little bit different.
Then it was back to our cabin where we knew we were going to be in for a rough night; the wind had got up and the Balmoral was dancing a polka on the waves.