I will give you that sail away parties are normally anything but a party. They normally involve a few people milling around the deck with a glass of wine, a few free appetizers and one or two sets by the band (who play their hearts out I will give them that) – and then you wander off to dinner. They are certainly far from emotional.
Except one.
When we sail away from Manila, I’m not the only one who finds that she’s a bit teary-eyed. It’s a strange kind of crying, certainly not hysteria, perhaps part nostalgia (the sail away format harkens back to the days of ticker-tape send offs that have long since gone by the wayside), part just tapping into the energy on the deck as so many of the crew bid farewell to their families for another long long period of time. Some would say that I cry because I’m a sucker for pomp and circumstances, and perhaps that is part of it I mean after all I take after my mother in that respect.
But no…I think it’s something more than that….
Not that they don’t go all out with the farewell of course…quite the opposite.
This is the only port that gives us a send-off that I sometimes can’t help but feel we don’t always deserve. For one port we are given marching bands and flag throwers and baton twirlers. Whispering across the years from a time when such things were commonplace. And off to one side, shaded from the intense heat, the children from the orphanage who came aboard to perform for us this afternoon boogie on down like only children can.
And then, all of a sudden, the two bands, the flagbearers, the kids, all of them, line up in single file along the edge of the pier and start playing Aulde Lang Syne, the bridge sounds three heavy hauls on the ship’s whistle, the lines let go and we leave the Phillipines behind, and I can’t help but think that we’re a little poorer and a little richer than when we dropped anchor there.
Because this isn’t just a port, this is family…
We’re distant, we don’t all know each other, we’re a little bit clichéd sometimes, heaven knows we don’t always get along, and we certainly put the ‘fun’ back in dysfunctional but never the less…we are family…
And we are so very lucky….