Forgotten Hero Ship: The Wreck of La Jenelle
The coast of Oxnard, California was stormy on April 13, 1970. Gale-force winds blew about and rocked the nearly 500-foot cruise ship until her starboard anchor began dragging. There was little that the two crew members aboard could do to stop it. Less than 30 minutes later, the ship grounded itself on nearby Silver Strand…
Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition Las Vegas
As I mentioned in my last post, we recently visited Las Vegas for a quick little getaway. We stayed at the Virgin Hotel and planned to spend a lot of time at the pool. However, cool and windy weather forced us to change plans. One of the things we ended up doing was revisiting the…
Haunting Reminders of the Night: Titanic Artifacts and the Paranormal
Earlier this week, my wife and I were in Las Vegas for a quick little vacation. We decided to visit Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Luxor Hotel and Casino. We first went in September 2022, and I’ve been wanting to go back ever since. I’ll write about this recent visit in a future blog…
Movie Review: Phantom Ship (1935)
Here we are…the final Horror Movie Monday of 2024! Today we’re looking at a 1935 film called Phantom Ship (released as The Mystery of the Mary Celeste in the UK). Starring the great Bela Lugosi, this was one of Hammer Film Productions’ earliest offerings. It puts a murderous spin on the real life mystery of…
Movie Review: Torture Ship (1939)
Welcome back to Horror Movie Monday! Today’s film is 1939’s Torture Ship starring Lyle Talbot, Julie Bishop, and Irving Pichel. Directed by Victor Halperin, the film is rather short at just 64 minutes (and there are other cuts that are even shorter). The screenplay is “suggested” by the 1899 Jack London story “A Thousand Deaths.”…
The Haunting of the QE2
The Queen Mary isn’t the only Cunard ship that’s said to be haunted. It’s said that Queen Elizabeth 2 also has a very healthy amount of ghostly activity. After the ship arrived in Dubai in November 2008, reports of weird activity began emerging. One of the workers aboard QE2 was interviewed by the Daily Mail…
The Captain’s Table
Stories from the Golden Age of Ocean Liners to the Cruise Ships of Today
How it all started…
Over a decade ago, I started a blog called The Captain’s Table to tell the stories about the ships and people involved in the Golden Age of ocean liners. I was working as a tour guide aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA at the time and it was a way to help me both deepen my knowledge and explore a topic I’d been passionate about for a long time.
With this overhauled version of the blog, I’ll continue to explore the stories, ships, and people connected to the old ocean liners. But there’ll also be a new emphasis on cruise ships as well: they continue the traditions and history made famous by such ships as Queen Mary, United States, Mauretania, Caronia, and many others. I’ll be nerding out a lot, and I really hope that you enjoy this blog.
Zach Whitlow
Writer, Ship Geek, and Avid Cruiser