Cruise passengers on deck and sunbathing

There is a book to be written about this topic alone. Passengers are fine and rule-obeying until the sun appears and then the sun lounger war commences. On transatlantic cruises is probably on day 5 and you have just sailed away from the Azores that the sun makes an appearance on winter cruises.

The truth of the matter is there is not a sun lounger for every passenger on board. Just isn’t.

So people resort to desperate measures to get a pair of sun loungers and have them placed in a sunny position. I believe it is generally the female partner who orders the act and the male obedient partner who sets off at as early as, wait for it......3.00 am to untie a pair of stacked loungers and relocate them on the deck to the favoured position. He then leaves them decorated with his own blue towels, sets of giant bulldog clips and some personal effects until they have eaten their breakfast. Only then will they return ready for a day of sunbathing.

Just occasionally the bagging of sun loungers backfires when a heavy downpour of rain at 8.00 am saturated the early riser’s towels and personal effects they’d left out on the loungers at the crack of dawn. An instance of natural justice I suppose.

Another antisocial passenger action is to squeeze sun loungers into spaces there really is no room for another pair of sun loungers to fit. What happens then is the pathways become so blocked that you can’t get to the swimming pool without weaving your way through a sun lounger maze.  Forward two steps, backward one step, sideways four steps and back off and start again!

You see, most sun loungers are only used for four or five hours max as passengers have activities to go to, meals to eat, shops to visit and shows to attend but once bagged they are held until sundown or at least until the sun moves around so that the lounger is now in shadow.  Generally, about 4.30 pm the loungers are vacated and the crew begin the job of stacking them away for the night.

Sunbathing and getting badly burnt seem to go hand in hand for many passengers. I saw a guy with a red burnt back so vivid that I had to shield my eyes from the glare. Yet he was ignorant of the state of his back. Surely one of his group of pals would have told him to cover up or step inside for a while? It’s amazing how burnt grown-up adults can get. How they underestimate the power of the sun despite living on the planet earth for 50 + years beggars belief.

Read more about life on board a modern cruise ship in “Murder On Board” (available on pre-order from 5th February 2019). This is my latest novel and available now at 99 cents or pence. 

The ship left harbour with 2,899 souls for a 50-day cruise but will be returning with significantly less. Could it be because the average age of the passengers is 73 and shit happens, old people die? 

Maybe it's because the ship is sailing 1,000 miles up the Amazon River with its precious cargo of geriatric guests placing them in an area of 100% humidity?

Or maybe it's because the Amazon River is home to the Zeka virus and the ship is sailing towards millions of female mosquitoes just waiting to attack its passengers?

Or is it simply because a killer is loose amongst them!