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    Casting Off!
    Casting Off!
    Casting Off!
    Ebook78 pages55 minutes

    Casting Off!

    By Robert N. Jenkins

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    About this ebook

    Over nearly a quarter-century as a travel writer, first for the former St. Petersburg (now, Tampa Bay) Times, and more recently as a freelancer, Robert N. Jenkins figures he has boarded more 60 ships to write about.

    Many of those trips were three-night ”cruises to nowhere’’, when a new vessel heads a few dozen miles offshore into the Atlantic so that it can be sampled by thousands of travel agents and a handful of reporters.

    But Jenkins also toured ships still being built, in three European nations. He spent four days amid the wildlife and scenery of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, in a ship so basic that the toilet was in the shower stall.

    Yet on another voyage he crossed the Atlantic on the near-legendary ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 – in Casting Off, you’ll read about his onboard encounters with a movie star, an aromatherapist and a dodgy lothario.

    Twice, he sailed on dozen-day voyages around the Mediterranean. Jenkins also spent a week cruising from Colombia to Florida, and another week between Athens and Istanbul.

    He transited the Panama Canal twice – that report also is in Casting Off. But unlike the tens of thousands of passengers who annually book aboard a ship just for this experience, Jenkins brings you to the ship’s bridge and alongside the canal pilot directing the vessel.

    The award-winning writer also recounts his trip aboard the “mail boat’’ serving the islands of the Bahamas. A newly met fellow passenger woke him before dawn to proudly point out various islands, mere lumps in the darkness, dotted by a few streetlights.

    Wander with Jenkins around the decks of an authentic, steam-driven paddlewheeler on the Mississippi, in a flotilla of similar anachronisms.

    And you’ll climb with the author into the crow’s nest 66 feet above the deck of a four-masted schooner, gliding through the Pacific off Costa Rica.

    The articles in Casting Off also offer potential cruise consumers tips on how to find a ticket that is far cheaper than those bought by most of the passengers on the same voyage, why you might prefer a no-frills ship to a luxury liner, even how to decipher the cheery descriptions of shore excursions the cruise lines seek to sell.

    So climb aboard, we’re Casting Off.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert N. Jenkins
    Release dateAug 26, 2013
    ISBN9781301891931
    Casting Off!
    Author

    Robert N. Jenkins

    Robert N. Jenkins, a native of Washington, D.C., earned a B.A. in journalism at Michigan State University and after working "up North'' for four years, he moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., where he still lives. In a 39-year career at the Tampa Bay (formerly St. Petersburg) Times, he served as editor of national news, state news, features and, for 19 years, was the travel editor. His work in that job won 8 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition awards. Since taking a buyout, Bob has been a freelance writer. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Toronto Star, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, various AAA magazines, CruiseCritic.com, USAToday.com -- and in his former paper.

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      Book preview

      Casting Off! - Robert N. Jenkins

      CASTING OFF!

      By Robert N. Jenkins

      ~~~

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2013 by Robert N. Jenkins.

      All rights reserved.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Prologue

      The royal treatment… almost

      Neo-tropical expectations in Costa Rica

      A voyage to antiquity

      Stay flexible to cruise on the cheap

      As many reasons as fish in the sea

      A very different cruise through the Bahamas

      Steering through one of the world’s wonders

      When size does matter

      Show boating: the Belle of the boats

      Up close with Alaska by boat

      Facelift for a teenager

      Deciphering the shore-excursion brochure

      About the Author

      Prologue

      I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

      And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

      And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

      And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

      —John Masefield

      Not many of truly need to go down to the seas again.

      Rather, we thumb thorough cruise line brochures or web sites looking for something that interests us, intrigues us, perhaps even excites us.

      Usually that decisive factor is the destination—the exotic or merely historic port of call.

      Sometimes, the vessel itself proves to be the lure: its grandeur, its venerable reputation, its technological gimmicks or adrenaline-inducing exercise options. It might even be the knowledge that a Michelin-starred chef has created the onboard menus.

      For whatever reason, more than 21-million passengers were expected to buy tickets in 2013 just to sail on cruise ships from North American ports. That’s roughly three times the number of passengers who chose this vacation option in 2000.

      Over nearly a quarter-century as a travel writer, first for the former St. Petersburg (now, Tampa Bay) Times, and more recently as a freelancer, I have boarded more than 60 ships to write about.

      Most of those trips were three-night "cruises to nowhere’’ when a new vessel heads a few dozen miles offshore into the Atlantic so that it can be sampled by thousands of travel agents and a handfuls of writers.

      But I have also crossed the Atlantic on the near-legendary ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2—you’ll read my article here. Twice, I have sailed on dozen-day voyages around the Mediterranean. I also spent a week sailing from Colombia to Florida, and another week between Athens and Istanbul.

      I’ve been through the Panama Canal twice—again, that report is here, but unlike the tens of thousands of passengers who annually book aboard just for this experience, you will be on the ship’s bridge with the canal pilot directing the vessel.

      I also have sailed the overnight "mail boat’’ in the Bahamas—see chapter six—and have climbed into the crow’s nest 66 feet above the deck of a four-masted schooner, in the Pacific off Costa Rica.

      And while I’ve attended the black-tie gala celebrating the naming of the QE2’s replacement, the Queen Mary, I also have stepped over cables, under ladders and dodged welders’ sparks while touring ships under construction in three European nations.

      So I relate to both of the following excerpts from Mark Twain’s entrancing book, Life on the Mississippi. He describes learning to become a pilot of the mighty river, whose path seemed to change slightly with his every voyage in the wheelhouse of 19th-century steamboats:

      "The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book—a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.’’

      But he also disclosed:

      "Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition.

      "But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone

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