Introduction
I am struggling to believe that it is 1 year, 5 months and 5 days since my last post on this blog – I had never dreamed that I would go so long between cruises – but then of course I never dreamed that a corona virus pandemic the whole world with such tragic and extreme consequences.
I remember writing at the end of that last post “I do not have a crystal ball, so I have no idea what the future holds for us, and for companies in the travel sector – Fred. Olsen included“. While I could not have for seen the seriousness and extend of the pandemic, it was easy to see that cruising was going to be suspended for far longer than the two months originally specified, and so I was very concerned whether a smaller cruise company like Fred. Olsen could survive many months or even years, with no income but the ongoing costs of laying up their ships.
Nearly 18 months later, not only has Fred. Olsen survived, it has made significant investment in newer ships, and has restarted cruising once again. Indeed, in a few days time and negative Covid-19 tests permitting, Carol and I hope to be starting our first cruise of this new era. We are so looking forward to resuming our favourite activity, exploring the world by cruise ships, albeit in a very limited way to start with. Naturally this will mean that I can restart documenting our adventures in this blog at last.
Coping with the pandemic
Meanwhile I thought I would use this post to bring you up to date with some words about how Carol and I have coped during the pandemic and the lockdowns, and my thoughts on the changes in the Fred. Olsen fleet during this time. Carol and I were away on our epic 162 night Grand Voyage on Boudicca as the Covid-19 pandemic began to sweep the world. At the very beginning, in December 2019 we were sailing around Australia, and at that time our focus was more on the tragic bushfires that were sweeping across that country, affecting so many people and so much wildlife. When we reached Singapore, I had to visit the hospital there to get my painful knee investigated. When we were met at the hospital entrance by nurses in full PPE, and everyone was masked up, it suddenly became very real and very serious to us. In Mumbai, India, the ship had to slip anchor early to avoid being quarantined, when the authorities there thought incorrectly that a crew member was infected. We continued to ride our luck to Malta, where Boudicca was allowed in, but another ship sailing from Italy was refused, and then in one final stop in Mallorca. That evening we were told Spain had closed its ports to cruise ships, and to cut a long story short we crawled back to Dover missing our final three ports of call – I am sure I saw a couple of rowing boats overtake us at one point!
We arrived back home to an empty kitchen – being away for almost 6 months we had emptied the fridge and freezers of food, and by then panic buying was in full swing and many supermarket shelves we bare. Within half an hour of being home I was on an emergency run to the supermarkets, and I managed to astonish Carol with the amount of food I managed to buy. The first lockdown began a few short days later, and we both hunkered down for the long haul, just keeping ourselves to ourselves. The ever growing numbers of cases and deaths became ever more worrying, but the seriousness and tragedy of it all really became apparent to us when two close family friends of mine – twin sisters – died from the virus within days of each other – something even now that is so hard to come to terms with.
To help distract me from all that was going on, and to help pass the time, like many people I took a much bigger interest in the garden, growing not only many more flowers and shrubs, but also for the first time trying my hand at growing fruit and vegetables, albeit with mixed results.
The four ‘B’s
One thing that has been a great purchase and a huge interest to the both of us has been one of those wildlife cameras, that takes still photographs and/or video clips when it detects motion in front of the camera. We bought it as we had seen some strange scrapes dug into the soil, and we wondered what had made them. The first couple of nights we just got the neighbourhood cats, but then we captured a fox on film! We live in quite a suburban area, so we were both absolutely astonished and delighted when a few days later we also caught a badger! Some nights we sprinkle peanuts on the patio, sometimes with food scraps or peanut butter sandwiches, and we now get quite an assortment of wildlife to watch – either through the windows just feet from the action, or on the camera the next morning. We have had at least four different foxes, and a hedgehog, a cute little mouse (or is it mice?), centipedes, slugs, spiders – and of course lots of cats too.
The biggest thrill of all for us have been the badgers – we think we have at least four different ones – although we do struggle a bit to tell them apart. The first one that came was clearly a female one that was feeding clubs, so we nicknamed her Bertha. More recently we have had three more badgers come in at different times, which are smaller and we are assuming that they are her cubs. We have called them Betty, Barry and Boris – the latter name because it has a tail with fur going every which way, just like the hair of a certain politician! Of course being Fred. Olsen fans we had to choose four names beginning with B!! We were delighted recently when both Bertha and Boris started coming at the same time – and the fact that they are happy to eat together reinforces our guess that they are mother and son.
I know some people would hate to have badgers and foxes in their gardens, but we love having them and watching them, and as we don’t have any lawn in our garden we don’t have to worry about that being dug up. Here are some snaps of some of our visitors:
Four more B’s
I have already said that at the start of the lockdowns I was worried whether Fred. Olsen could survive a long suspension of cruising. I was therefore astonished to wake up one morning and read that the company had bought two more ships from Holland America, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, which were to be renamed Borealis and Bolette. This was a great boost for the future of the company, especially when they then went on to spend a lot more money refitting and repainting them. I have read that a lot of Fred. regulars are delighted to have the newer ships with many more public areas, but to be honest both Carol and I have our reservations – to us they are not small ships they are medium ships, not for example able to sail through the Kiel Canal. Still we are trying our best to keep an open mind until we have sailed on them and experienced them for ourselves.
The arrival of these two ‘new’ ships meant inevitably that two would be leaving the fleet, and although it was not announced at first which two it would be, I just knew that it would be our two favourite ships, Black Watch and Boudicca. We loved these ships for their size and elegance, and also for the very special cruises we had made on them. For us, they were a perfect size, not too many passengers on board to crowd out a port of call, and able to get into tiny ports and places that the medium and larger ships cannot go. Also they looked like ships, with the open decks at the stern and tapered superstructure, unlike the modern ones which are just a vertical block of flats perched on top of a hull. Carol and I met on Black Watch on her 2017 World Cruise, and had our honeymoon on the same cruise a year later. As for Boudicca, her sister ship, we fell in love with her on our most recent cruise, the 2019 Grand Voyage. We knew that they were old ladies who were starting to creak a bit, and that their engines were too old and polluting, so that they would have to go one day, but it was still a great sadness to see them sail off for the last time. Although Fred. Olsen said at the time they were to be accommodation ships, I knew they were really just destined for scrap. At least we still have so many wonderful memories of our voyages on them both.
What’s next
As I said earlier, in just a few short days time, Carol and I will be starting our first cruise of this new era, and it will be on one of the ‘new’ ships, Bolette. We know it will be very different, not just because it is on a new ship to us, but also because of the totally understandable restrictions and measures in place because of Covid-19 – masks, social distancing, bubbles etc. As I said we are trying our best to go with a very open mind, and I am sure that once we get on board and experience that special welcome you get from a Fred. Olsen crew that we will soon feel at ease and that we are back with our extended ‘family’. One thing we have noticed with such a long gap between cruises is that the preparations are taking a lot more thought – we used to cruise so regularly that we could just pack almost on auto-pilot, but this time it is taking a lot more effort!
Anyway, negative Covid-19 tests permitting, we will very soon be resuming cruising, and I will be back to posting about our cruising adventures on this blog at last. I look forward to writing all about Bolette and what we think of her, as well as the ports we visit around the United Kingdom.
An Englishman Onboard 