Astor’s Maiden Cruise around the world 1987-1988

About the Book

Mauritius in the late 1980’s, unemployment is at its peak and a young girl gets the amazing opportunity to travel leaving behind her bleak job in a textile factory. A whole Mauritian crew of one hundred and fifty is recruited to form the hotel staff of a brand new cruise ship, the Astor which flies the Mauritian flag and is due for a three month maiden voyage from the port of Southampton in England to Genoa in Italy around the South America Coast to Peru and the Caribbean islands. Their difficulty to adapt to European food and misery of seasickness is compensated by the luxury of their new living quarters and fascination seeing so many wonderful places. The cabin stewardesses Mela, Bianca, Nicoleta and other members of the crew tour this great world stunned by the beauty of Norwegian Glaciers and fjords, the greatness of the Amazon River and awed at Jerusalem and the holy land. Souvenirs of unpalatable pizza in Portugal, encounter with rude Spanish horse carriage drivers in Malaga, meeting with a Togolese in Hamburg, a Pakistanis in Montreal are evoked. They befriend Turkish students in Ankara, eat delicious baby octopus salads in the Balearic Islands and dive in cold seas of the Mediterranean and warm lagoons of the Indian Ocean. In French speaking countries they delight in using their familiar Creole with people of Haiti and Jamaica and enjoy the different French accents of Montreal and Quebec in Canada, Casablanca in Morocco, and Dakar in Senegal. They dance in the nightclubs of the world, moving to South American music in Salvador de Bahia and carnival music in Rio de Janeiro, Whitney Houston’s 1987 tube ‘I want to dance with somebody’ in Montreal and Mediterranean rhythms in Greece.

About the Author

The author gets the job of cabin stewardess on board a five star cruise ship flying the Mauritian flag thanks to her little knowledge of German language. She quickly falls prey to ghastly seasickness while doing the strenuous job of cleaning cabins twice a day Mondays to Sundays. Losing the weight she had been struggling to get rid off for years in only one month of vomiting, spilling her body fluids into hundreds of the ships sickness bags she is endowed with a new slim and beautiful figure. This allows her to take part in crew shows, dancing the Mauritian folklore the Sega, presenting Mauritius to passengers by a play and being chorus girl to a male Madonna singing ‘La Isla Bonita”. Her wild childhood dream to cruise the world in a luxury ship has come true. As if dreaming awake she sees the big wide world from America to Russia along exquisite Greek, Balearic and Caribbean Islands. She sails on South America’s huge brown Amazon River with its amazing life and dances in the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s during the carnival. She visits the Holy land during an Easter cruise to Jerusalem stuffing a secret prayer written on a piece of paper in the famous Western Wall. While in French speaking countries she delights talking to the locals, in Creole in the Caribbean islands of Haiti and Jamaica and French in Dakar and Morocco. In India and Montreal where the ship stays for a couple of days, she can wander around in between duties, or dancing in the nightclubs at night. In Venice where the many stops is during daytime and whole day duties of disembarkation she has to stay on the ship and was never out in the town.