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.
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for ships, and I think a lot of that had to do with my grandfather serving in the U.S. Navy. He was a naval aviator and served on aircraft carriers like Tarawa, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Wasp. My grandparents’ house had tons of books on ships, naval campaigns, and the like. I can remember pouring over these for hours when we’d go to visit.
Like many, the Titanic disaster was my gateway to the world of ocean liners. My grandparents gave me a VHS copy of the National Geographic documentary Secrets of the Titanic well before the 1997 blockbuster movie came out. The 1996 TV movie starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Peter Gallagher, and Tim Curry was a favorite of mine. Then, in 1997, my parents took me to a Titanic artifact exhibit aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. It was my first time aboard and I quickly fell in love with the ship. I was 10 years old. My parents took me to visit the ship dozens of times after that. Even today, I’ll occasionally tell my wife that Mary was my first love.
Jump ahead to August 2009 when I got hired as a tour guide aboard the Queen Mary. I interviewed for the job the same day that Captain Richard Phillips and his family were welcomed aboard after being given an all-expenses-paid vacation by the ship’s operators. I’ll always remember that day. After I started working there for a bit, I somehow got the inspiration to start an ocean liner blog. I kept it updated fairly regularly until late-2012 when I left the Queen Mary and moved to the East Coast for grad school. The Captain’s Table unfortunately fell by the wayside.
Until now.
My wife and I started going on cruises in 2019. Our first one was aboard the Norwegian Gem for our honeymoon (after being married aboard the Queen Mary…it was actually my wife’s idea). We’ve taken six cruises since then, and I started to rediscover my passion for those grand old ocean liners. I’ve recently found myself doing a ton of research into the virtually forgotten 1965 Yarmouth Castle disaster. It got to the point that my wife suggested that I revive my old blog. So here we are!
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.
So, take a seat and enjoy. The Captain’s Table is ready!