February 1, 2026
At sea on our way to Los Angeles
We’ve been at sea since Panama City. The QM2 has a variety of entertainment every day we’re at sea; lectures and classes during the day and shows in the evening, with live music at various places most of the time.
Mal’s been to two lectures by Robert Thirsk, an astronaut who spent six months on the space station. One lecture was about his life on board the station. The second a fascinating talk about going to Mars. Turns out NASA has done quite a lot of thinking about it, and has some very detailed plans for sending supplies in advance, getting the astronauts there, getting them down, staying for months, and getting back into space and coming home. He was talking about doing it in the thirties.
Mal also heard a lecture from Dr. Stephen Payne, OBE, the naval architect who designed the QM2. Turns out the QM2 was designed to be a liner, not a cruise ship. We learned that the difference is that a cruise ship is intended to carry passengers on recreational cruises, while a liner is intended to carry them on voyages, in particular the North Atlantic, in all weather. So, a liner is built to withstand considerably heavier winds and seas than a cruise ship. Good to know as we think about the next three months.
We also entered a boat race. Turns out there was a contest to build a boat that could carry a six-pack of beer and race it across one of the swimming pools. The boats were to be made from whatever materials we could scrounge on board, and powered by waves made by the contestants. We made up a team with our dinner table companions. Here’s a picture of us with the boat. As you can see, we used only the finest materials; empty water bottles, bubble wrap, masking tape, and fly swatters for keel/rudders that we bought ashore.
We came in sixth for both speed and beauty of design. The boat we beat was a child’s life jacket that lost it’s cargo half way across.
