Page 36 - ATA

But I don’t recall hearing any stories about this adventure on the high seas. I never knew my paternal
grandparents, and as a child it simply didn’t occur to me to ask my father, who died when I was 18,
what it was like for a family from north London to encounter something as foreign as the Caribbean
back in the 30s.

And then, a couple of years ago, I discover a diary kept by my grandmother during the voyage. It is a
daily record of what life was like aboard the so-called Drunken Duchess, and her impressions of the

intense heat and exotic ports of call, providing a fascinating 10,000-word insight into a bygone era of
cruising. It would be impossible to re-create that 1936 itinerary in a single cruise today, but I want to
follow in some of those family footsteps with a cruise line known for its traditional approach. That is

what brings me to Curacao aboard Holland America Line’s handsome Vista-class ship, MS
Zuiderdam.

The island’s colonial-style Hotel Americano was burned to the ground in a 1969 uprising by native
workers, but I know where it stood from old postcards. Today an unassuming bar, Cafe Americano,
stands on the site.

My grandmother wrote: “Curacao is a Dutch possession and the buildings are all very clean. No
whitewash is allowed owing to the glare, but the place looks much more picturesque with the various
pastel shades.” When I visit, the view across the water appears virtually unchanged, and, three days
into my pilgrimage, I am overwhelmed by a sense of connection with the past.

It happens a few times on this evocative trip, which also takes in Half Moon Cay, Aruba, Colombia,
Panama and Costa Rica, but mostly it is the differences between cruising then and now — in terms of

both on-board life and shore excursions — that are so striking.

The diary describes how, in Curacao, “Everyone came back to the ship for lunch as there is very little

to do and, after a nice rest until tea, we went ashore again and made a few purchases. There is
nothing very much to buy there, the articles being mostly hand work on cloths and dressing gowns.”