This is the third article in my four part series about love on a ship. To read the rest please click below:

Part 1 – 13 Ways Not to Wake up Next to a Sleaze Ball

Part 2 – How to Have a Real RelationSHIP

Part 4 – Ship Love – Happily Ever After Stories

 

When Nick and I met, we were just friends for quite a while. About six weeks – which is like four months in ship years – before I found out he liked me.

We’d been spending lots of time together as instant ship best buds, going out for lunches in port together, hanging out in the crew bar, going for walks, spending time with groups of friends or just us on and off the ship, and he even came shopping with me once (looking back, I should have seen this was a sign that he liked me – a straight man actually volunteering to shop, and for shoes no less!)

Then one day, I was called into my boss, the Cruise Director’s, office. She told me she was very sorry, but she’d just been told from the head office that my position was being canceled and that this would be my last contract working as HAL Cats (show band) vocalist.

I was devastated. I fled straight down the stairs to the door of my closest friend on the ship – Nick. He answered the door in his underwear, and I proceeded to unceremoniously sob on his bare shoulder, my voice such a squeak it was a wonder he understood a word of it.

“My, (sniff), job, (sniff), is being (snot sniff), cut!” I wailed.

To which he replied, “It’ll be OK. Look, you’re not singing tonight. I’m going to take you out in port; we’re going to go for a nice lunch. And we’re going to get you nice and drunk. And you can forget about it today and don’t worry. We’ll have a nice day, OK?”

“OK” I mumbled, tears slowing, the big wet blobs dripping down my face.

(A side note – it ended up this information was only partially correct. The Cruise Director told me what she knew to be true at the time, but in fact, the job was being cut, but gradually, over the next almost three years it turned out. But anyway, back to the story.)

So out to port we went.

 

The ship was in Juneau, in Alaska, so naturally, we went to Tracey’s King Crab Shack for a crab feast lunch. As we tucked into the soft, tender giant crab leg meat dipped in beautiful warm butter, the tears subsided.

The next natural progression was to go to The Viking, the favorite crew bar haunt in Juneau, where lots of friends were drinking, playing pool and catching up over a dark and stormy or beer. It was the ideal distraction for this sad puppy.

Several pool games – and dark and stormies – later, we traipsed back to the ship. I’m not saying I was tipsy, but I wasn’t fit to be driving any heavy goods vehicles. Or light ones.

We got back onboard, and Nick walked me to my cabin and came in to chat, just like a normal day. Just as I started to remember the thing I was trying to forget, Nick, pacing nervously, said he needed me to be completely quiet for two minutes as he had something he had to say to me. I immediately started yammering,

“Why do I need to be quiet? What do you want to talk about? What’s going on? Are you OK? “ All within about three seconds.

To this he replied, looking very sincere, and almost worried –

“Please, I just really need you to be completely quiet for two minutes or I’m going to lose my nerve. And I have to tell you something.”

This shut me up.

 

He then proceeded to tell me that he liked me. He like liked me. And had since the moment he met me. He said the sweetest things anyone had ever said to me about why he liked me, and ended it by saying he just couldn’t spend another day without telling me how he felt.

And then he kissed me.

Up until that moment, I’d thought of him as a friend. Not a “friend”. But his kiss was electric and was the most exquisite kiss in the world.

So I pulled away from it. I wasn’t sober; Nick was, as he was going to play a song in a guest entertainer show later that evening. I said I needed to think about all this and would it be OK if we talked tomorrow.

Nick said yes, and that he just had to tell me.

The rest of the evening was spent with my wondering what on earth just happened! Nick was everything on my own personal, self-made “No” list.

1. No dating someone in the same band as me. If it doesn’t work out, it can get very messy.
2. No dating a Band Leader as he technically is my boss, and if it doesn’t work out, it can get very messy.
3. No dating piano players – I had a very bad experience with a cuckoo one.
4. In fact, no dating musicians of any kind. They have always been my kryptonite and almost every boyfriend I’ve had has been one.
5. No dating anyone from the UK – on a ship that is boring. I can find that at home. On a ship, any nationality except Brit – Scottish, English, Irish, or Welsh – is up for grabs, but not them.
6. No dating anyone younger than me. Because, no. It’s hard enough to find a mature man who is older, or the same age as me, also I never want anyone to use the “C” word (the one that rhymes with booger) about me.

 

For the next two weeks, we were sort of start-stop, almost starting until I pulled the breaks (twice) ending things before they really began. Then we’d be up in a room alone together and would end up making out.

Then Nick made a stand. He said,

“Look, you have to make your mind up. You are not going to end this again. It’s either on or its not. If you only like me as a friend and not more, that’s absolutely fine, we’ll go back to being just friends, no hard feelings. But, if you’re not giving this a chance because of one of your stupid rules, that’s ridiculous. No one cares about any of those things, or notices them even, only you. Its time to decide, as if that’s the only issue, well then you might be missing out on the best thing you’ve ever had!”

Wow.

 

I needed that kick up the bum. Rule number 6 was really the bee that had been in my bonnet.

We had a night off together that night. This was extremely rare, and only happened as there was a cast production show on that night that used one of the two pianists in the band (who therefore took it in turns to play it), and no band singer.

I had just acquired the new Jurassic World movie, so I invited Nick to come over to watch it with me.

When he knocked on my cabin door I answered, wearing jeans and my Jurassic Park T-shirt, because I’m sad, and I have one.

I asked him sarcastically

“Where is your dinosaur T-shirt? You can’t watch Jurassic World with me if you’re not wearing a dinosaur T-shirt.”

To which he replied “OK.” Then turned around and walked away. I laughed.

I stood at the door, alone, laughing, for a few more seconds. Then I realized I was alone. I stood with the door open for a few more minutes.

Five minutes passed, and when he didn’t come back, I closed the door and sat down on my bed, starting to get a little worried that I’d messed things up.

Ten minutes went past, and he still didn’t come back. “Oh no” I thought, “I’ve really messed this up.”

Starting to get really worried, after fifteen minutes, I called his cabin. No answer. “Oh no, I’ve really messed this up. I was only being sarcastic!” I bemoaned to myself.

A couple of minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I sheepishly open it, to see Nick standing there; sporting a black hoodie, all zipped up.

“Are we going to watch this movie or what?” He inquires.

“Yes…” I stumble, confused.

Nick walks in, and sits down on his usual spot at the end of the bed. As he eases into his spot, he starts to unzip his hoodie, revealing on his T-shirt, his plain black T-shirt – a drawing of a dinosaur.

A drawing made with colored pencils, that he has drawn, colored in, and cut out by himself, and stuck onto his T-shirt with double sided tape.

“I’m ready, are we watching this then?” He says, with a completely straight face, not flinching at all.

“Yes.” I melt.

In that moment, I knew this was my one.

 

 

Well, I didn’t know it would quite end up in marriage and sailing into the sunset, but I knew that I was going to fall head over heels for him. Which I did. In that very moment I think.

We don’t count those first two weeks of indecision, and we say we’ve been together since “Dinosaur Day”.

This is why Nick later proposed in front of the Jurassic Park ride in Universal Studios in Singapore, why we had a dino bride and groom on our wedding cake instead of a regular human pair, and why I walked down, and up, the aisle, to the Jurassic Park theme music.

Everyone’s story is different, and while this might be silly, and cheesy, it is us. You just have to find someone who is the same type of weird as you, so the saying goes.

I’m very happy I did.

 

 

Nick, I love you all of it.

 

 

This is the third article in my four part series about love on a ship. To read the rest please click below:

Part 1 – 13 Ways Not to Wake up Next to a Sleaze Ball

Part 2 – How to Have a Real RelationSHIP

Part 4 – Ship Love – Happily Ever After Stories