Come on Let Me Take You on a Sea Cruise

A month from now, presumably, Iceland will stop belching volcanic ash at Europe and I’ll be able to cross the pond to attend my conference in London, at which, don’t worry, the fate of the world will be decided.

Now, though, as I book my trip, the grounding of all flights to and from the Old World has me dreaming of sailing the ocean blue. Just a couple of weeks ago, in fact, as I rode the Staten Island Ferry I thought how much I would like to replicate the immigrant experience of steaming into New York Bay and seeing Lady Liberty beckoning to me with her torch after a transatlantic crossing.

Odd that I’ve never traveled by ship, considering that I once worked at a maritime museum putting on sea festivals aboard historic ships (you know I’m really three sheets to the wind when I start singing sea shanties) and doing oral history interviews with old merchant sailors and ship captains. (One memorable line: ‘We used to say the Atlantic wasn’t romantic and the Pacific wasn’t terrific.’)

The closest I’ve come to a sea voyage was going out overnight on a commercial fishing boat off the coast of southern California. I can’t recall the name of the vessel or even what it fished for — anchovies, perhaps. What I mostly remember is what we ate. I expected bologna sandwiches. But these were Italian fishermen. Why eat when you can feast?

One of the crew had hooked a yellowtail that morning. They grilled it on deck over coals arranged in the belly of a 55-gallon drum halved length-wise and served it with salad, garlic bread and wine. For dessert, one of the wives sent her husband aboard with a mountainous home-baked German chocolate cake. Twenty years later, this moonlit meal on the Pacific remains No. 1 on my best dining experiences list.

After supper we descended to the foc’sle to nap while we motored out to the fishing ground. Lying down might not have been the wisest postprandial move for a landlubber who had just quaffed red wine and scarfed chocolate cake, but I survived with only mild queasiness –the Pacific must have lived up to its name (it usually doesn’t).

Around 1 a.m. I joined the captain on the bridge to listen to the beep-beep-beep of his fish-finding sonar. When the beeps came fast and furious, he gave the order to set the net.

A thrilling tumult of activity followed, as brilliantly lit as a night game at a ballpark. When they pursed the net and began to winch it up, the sea boiled with the silvery bodies of the frantic fish. Then, when the catch was stowed and iced below decks, we all returned to our bunks for another snooze while we steamed back to San Pedro.

That’s about all the business I’ve done on the great waters, apart from ferry rides, some pleasure boating on San Francisco Bay and a whale-watching excursion or two. Come to think of it, though, the journey from Brindisi, on the heel of Italy’s boot, to Piraeus, in Greece, was more voyage than ferry ride. But you couldn’t call it a cruise, not when your sleeping accommodations consisted of a patch of deck big enough to unroll your sleeping bag. Also, there was no midnight taco bar.

Not that a cruise has ever been my idea of a good time. Although I’m not nearly as depressive as poor David Foster Wallace, who finally decided that life was more than he could stand and hung himself a couple of years ago, I’m pretty sure I’d find cruising the Caribbean in a ‘floating wedding cake’ about as appalling as he did. Wallace titled his tale of misadventure on the high seas, ‘A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,’ which tells you everything you need to know about how he felt about conga lines, flaming desserts and ‘the palliative powers of professional pampering.’

That leaves the freighter option – average cost is $100 per day, according to Gonomad.com – but the problem with modern life is, who’s got a week or more to cross an ocean? Sounds grand, though: You get a cabin, sometimes a stateroom, even, and you can dine with the ship’s officers. About all there is to do is read, chat with the crew and gaze out at the briny deep and the starry firmament. No karaoke contests, in other words.

You know, one of these days I’m going to have the courage of my convictions and swear off air travel altogether. Because United doesn’t get me excited and US Air is more than I can bear.