Writes of passage - Cruise Views

A few years ago, I borrowed a page from scar Wilde, who once said, "I never travel without my diary," and faithfully began keeping journals of my journeys.

I also bring a camera to take some snapshots for myself and posterity, of course; but if I had to choose between the two, 1 would pack my journal. It's a treasure chest filled to the brim with my personal observa tions and feelings as I travel. And almost like a scrapbook, it's packed with postcards, stubs, maps, tags, restaurant cards, and other mementoes that overflow with memories whenever I see them.

Old-fashioned paper and pen serve me better than pictures ever could. After all, photos can't tell me about the fragrance of flowers, so fresh, and the welcoming shade of trees in a garden in Capri; the feel of breezes on my skin, like the gentlest fan, out ondeck early in the morning; the taste of a chocolate gelato, sweet and creamy, in Rome; and the rhythm of waves, lapping at our vessel, while anchored at a cove--all of which I enjoyed and recorded during a recent seven-day Sicily, Sorrento, and Amalfi itinerary aboard Star Clippers' Royal Clipper out of Rome.

These and other experiences are in my journal to reread as a joy forever. Along with my impressions of this five-masted, fullrigged ship--breathtaking as her 42 sails unfurl like melodies floating in the wind--are my feelings about the voyage, including the sweet memories of a visit to Italy with my parents three decades before. The best of all journeys, Shirley MacLaine once said, is "a journey into ourselves." A journal facilitates this, inviting introspection.

It seemed especially apt to be keeping a journal, an activity much more in vogue in days of yore, on the Royal Clipper, a ship inspired by the legendary tall ships. But I have kept journals on all types of vessels: from Radisson Seven Seas Cruises' Hanseatic in Antarctica to Celebrity Cruises' Infinity in Alaska; from Orient Lines' Crown Odyssey in Australia to Crystal Cruises' Crystal Harmony in the Far East.

On each voyage I have felt at home writing in my diary, sometimes al fresco on a deck chair (or in the bowsprit on the Royal Clipper), often in my cabin before retiring. It's a wonderful way to think back on the day's activities, people met, places visited, and new experiences, like diving into the cool Med from the Royal Clipper's watersports marina. Where I've noted my visits to the Cathedral in Amalfi and the ruins of Pompeii, the admission stubs adorn the page, along with Italian stamps left over after I sent postcards home. When somebody said something funny, or brilliant, at dinner, on tour, or at the railing, I put it in a box titled: "Comments From Fellow Passenger"; when dolphins were spotted, and Stromboli volcano erupted like fireworks as we watched, details go in a "Highlights Of The Day" box; and so on.

All it takes is a few minutes a day, a blank journal bought at a bookstore back home (all sizes and price ranges are available), and your impressions. You can write as much as you wish, whenever the mood strikes. I try daily, when things are freshest on my mind, but sometimes I skip a day and make two entries at one seating. The beauty of it is that a journal is personal and only you dictate what goes in it.

And, unlike a camera that is not allowed, or wise to bring, to certain places, like museums or on small-boat excursions (a relative of mine once took her camera to the Blue Grotto in Capri and a wave soaked her expensive equipment), your journal can be the repository of all your activities on every journey you undertake.

Will you ever read it? If you are like me, you will often, enjoying each journey anew every time. If I'm ever too frail to travel anymore, I'll still have my diary companions. And when I'm gone, my journals can keep giving back to future generations of my family, as the diary of a friend of mine's mother did. Years after she passed away, my friend discovered it in a trunk and began to duplicate recipes she found in it. Maybe my grandchildren will one day find my journals and travel in my footsteps!

COPYRIGHT 2004 World Publishing, Co. (Illinois)
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group