I was on this voyage with my family and was 15 at the time. My father only traveled by ship or train and we have 32 transatlantic crossings under our belt with the QE2. One thing we noticed was that the 5 day schedule was changed and a day before the usual Captain's Dinner there was an invitation to "meet" the Captain. He made a vague announcement that there was "mixed weather ahead". I don't think there was much concern from the tourist class passengers, which we were part of, as everyone appeared to be enjoying the free drinks. After dinner, when we returned to our cabins, we found our bull eyes shut and covered. My father was highly annoyed and got into a heated discussion with the steward about this. He always brought a wrench and opened the bull eyes for fresh on all of the crossings. In the end we were told that we were heading into a storm so he left them closed. In the middle of the night the seas got very rough, so much so that the drawers next to my bed flew across the room. My sister and mother got seasick but my father and I never got seasick. The next few days were rough but being young I found it very exciting. The waves appeared to be almost as tall as the ship when she dove into the troughs between the wave crests. Throughout the storm no warm meals were served to those of us who still had a robust appetitive out of safety reasons. There was a small area of the outside deck, where people would normally sit in their deck chairs to enjoy the sun, that was sectioned off and you could go outside. I spent hours out there watching the storm. Occasionally another passenger would come out and look at the storm. I loved watching the storm from the deck, the waves were whipped white and covered in sea foam from the wind which howled around the side railings. Back inside I came across a crew member who was trying his best to calm down a hysterical woman who was afraid that the metal of the ship' would give out and we would go down. At the time I found the whole thing very exciting and it wasn't until we disembarked in New York that we saw the damage to the front of her bow from the waves and that the paint was stripped off from the front of the ship from the force of the wind. I wish I had taken some fotos. It remains the strongest storm that my family and I have ever been through on the high seas. Danielle.
