I'M a two-star mariner with Holland America and I've got the badge to prove it. It was a surprising development, as I'd always hated the idea of cruises and vowed never to board one, but seven years ago my partner and I went on a two-week cruise around New Zealand leaving from Auckland and returning via Melbourne on Holland America's MS Oosterdam.
My parents had discovered the joy of a cruise in their early 80s. In late October 2013, by now committed mariners, they boarded the MS Oosterdam in Sydney to travel to New Zealand via Melbourne. Two weeks later, we flew to Auckland to join the return cruise they'd shouted us. We met them off the ship at the Auckland dock and in the few hours between them disembarking and us boarding we had time to escort them to the airport for their return flight to Sydney. The ship was cleaned and prepared for the new arrivals, but we later learned the crew stayed on board and a few of the hard-core cruisers stayed too, for the return trip.
Despite our qualms, we were seduced the second we stepped on board the MS Oosterdam because even the most hardened eco-warriors wracked with middle-class angst can find a well-run, affordable cruise on a beautifully appointed vessel hard to resist.
Cruising is enormous fun, but everything about it is the opposite of social distancing. It's all about people: people and infection control. Cruising is one big joyful mingle with people you don't know, staff and passengers alike, in very confined spaces. You make new friends in the dining rooms each night and meet them with hugs thereafter at every casual encounter on the deck, in the bars, the discos, the swimming pools and gyms.
Hence the infection control. At the end of every announcement from our captain, Henk Draper, or the genial entertainment director, Michael Headla, urging us to get "out and about", we were instructed to "wash those hands singing Happy Birthday twice". Remind you of anything? Automatic hand sanitisers were placed all over the ship and in the event of a small outbreak of norovirus, food handling changed from self-serve to staff only service.
All of this makes the Ruby Princess tragedy even harder to fathom. And this is nothing to do with the benefit of hindsight. The Diamond Princess tragedy unfolded before us in February. While attention and blame focuses mainly on the aftermath it seems painfully clear the Ruby Princess should never have sailed out of Sydney Heads on March 8 this year.
