Day 101/102…and a small bit of Day 102 of 102

You couldn’t make it up!  Last night, presumably tongue-in-cheek, Jo said to me, “I hope it rains tomorrow – then I can spend the time packing….”   She got her wish!  This morning, the Promenade Deck is awash with precipitation from the heavens.  But there are patches of blue sky, which there weren’t when I was awake just before 8 am.  The weather update still indicates 19°C which is quite surprising.  Nevertheless, I would sooner it was 29°C instead! 

I, too, have made serious inroads into the packing. Tuxedos, jackets and trousers are returned to the section in my large suitcase they came aboard in all of 101 days ago.

Two things distracted me today.  One was an announcement that we would be docking at Southampton, not first thing Sunday morning, but at 21.30 hrs….tomorrow!  From what I gather, Queen Mary 2 has some serious maintenance to be carried out before she sails to New York at the delayed hour of midnight on Sunday.  I do wish that I was staying on.  But the travel insurance alone would have run into four figures, let alone the fare.  Captain Hall then went on to announce that at around 1pm, we would be overtaking Queen Victoria as she returns from her round-the-world voyage.  Needless to say, there were few decent vantage points available as I imagine most passengers would like to witness this rare and exciting event.  Nevertheless, my camera on this phone is very clever, and capable of producing some interesting results in difficult circumstances. It didn’t help that the open space on Deck 14 and the Observation Deck forward on 11 were both cordoned off due to high winds. 

As Queen Mary 2 drew level with Queen Victoria, there was a prolonged battle of the sirens between the two vessels, which I videoed with an acceptable degree of success.  For a treasured few moments, glorious memories of those fabulous transatlantic tandem crossings were brought to mind.  Any “stills” of the actual overtaking will have to be taken from the video footage.  Below are several images as very gradually, Queen Victoria disappeared onto the horizon.

I suddenly realised after a while that I had missed lunch, and for the first time, I was feeling really hungry, so much so that I risked a salmon bun, which suddenly became available on a trolly, being delivered for later consumption.  I say “risked” because I consider myself intolerant to fish and hope that I have got away with it. 

Overtaking Queen Victoria was a special and rare occurrence with a wonderful prolonged exchange of ships’ sirens, needless to say, QM2  “trouncing” the slightly younger Queen Victoria!

Afternoon Tea “kind-of” replaced lunch, but I would have preferred something less stodgy. Tonight, dinner will be followed by our usual trip to the Royal Court Theatre, but we will need to be there early as Alfie Boe will be headlining tonight.

I find it so hard to believe that tomorrow is the very last day. And we shall be docking at around 9.30 in the evening.  And Mr. Cunard wants me off less than 11 hours later – 08.20 hrs. Some hope!

The following morning, over one final breakfast in the Britannia Restaurant.

I hadn’t planned to dine alone tonight. Stephen Payne had arranged to answer questions in Sir Samuel’s on Deck 3, right above my accommodation, for just two more nights. I joined around twenty others who fielded much more intelligent questions than I could think of.  The question I would want to ask, but wouldn’t dare is, “What is it like, and how does it feel to have created transport’s eighth wonder of the world?  I don’t have an engineering background, and although he is very approachable, I feel totally out of my depth.  But I was able to gain much from this informal gathering.

I met up with Jo, very much at the front of the queue for Alfie Boe’s second show of the evening. His first show at 8.00 pm extended to 1 hour and 20 minutes.  The second at 10.15 finished at 11.45, and was as good as any rock concert I had been to ashore, except possibly Dire Straits in the 1980s.  My videos, totally disregarding the canned warning against recording and photographing etc, almost captures the uplifting and exciting atmosphere of this fabulous concert.  Again, any stills will have to come from the “undercover video!”

I didn’t want the concert to end, nobody did, and I don’t want this cruise to end.  But today, it must as we (I think) cruise the English Channel and Solent more or less in daylight.

I have entered three more photographs into the competition, but I see far more potential winners than my not too bad offerings.

To be continued… Thanks for reading, David, 22/4/23.