Mass on the high seas

Serendipity is one of my favourite words. Its vowels and consonants roll so smoothly off the keyboard when you type it, it feels almost like the start of a Beethoven sonata on the piano. Speaking it out loud gives me that same feeling of cosy well-being as I snuggle up to tell my grandchildren a fairy story about rabbits. A real Beatrix Potter sort of word.

Best of all is its meaning; a meaning as charming and exciting as the word itself. I have to admit that I am a sucker for serendipity — those rare and wonderful, pleasant and unexpected surprises.

So it was extremely serendipitous when my wife and I boarded a passenger liner in Vancouver, Canada, in August to find on the daily programme of events that a Catholic Mass would be celebrated every single morning of the voyage.

The MS Volendam is one of the many cruise liners belonging to Holland America Lines that have been cruising the world for 137 years. If I might say so, they have got it all down pretty much pat, having exceeded my expectations a dozen times a day on average.

I was told that on all of their cruises they invite a Catholic priest to join them and enjoy a free cruise in exchange for saying Mass every day and twice on Sunday, and generally be available to any Catholic who might need the ear or shoulder of a priest during the voyage.

We were fortunate in having Fr Felix Just PhD, a Jesuit and director of Biblical Studies at the Loyola Institute of Spirituality in the city of Orange in California. A humble and gracious man who, in spite of being on holiday, came up with the most inspiring and thought-provoking homilies.

The inner passage on the south-western coast of Alaska is breathtaking; nature at its most beautiful. Vast unpopulated spaces, massive glaciers, soaring mountains, and a sense of discovery mingled with the history of the great Klondike gold rush at the end of the 19th century.

Cruising is the in-thing these days, and I can see why. Quite simply, in my opinion, it offers the best value for money international holiday experience possible. From the time my wife and I arrived at the Ocean Terminal in Vancouver on the Canadian British Columbian coast, we simply didn’t have to think about what to do and where to go. We were looked after, pampered and entertained for eight solid days.

Our journey up the historic inner passage took us northward from Vancouver towards Tracy Arm Fjord, where in millpond conditions I watched ice floes drift past as I finished my multi-course lunch, all snug and warm and edging towards the soporific.

After two days at sea, the Volendam docked in Juneau, the capital of Alaska — population 30,000 — and unreachable by land. There was an enormous choice of shore excursions in Juneau: coach trips to the Mildenhall glacier, floatplane flights to the interior, helicopter trips to four different glaciers where shod in special glacier boots one could hike ice fields, climb ice walls, or just stand on one of these massive rivers of ice with your mouth open and your eyes popping in wonder at the sheer majesty of it all.

Service levels were extraordinary, and I found it not in the least surprising that Holland America Lines has the highest rate of repeat customers in the global cruise industry.

My favourite Alaskan port was next — Skagway. It’s everything you might ever have imagined, with its 100-year-old buildings in pristine condition, wide streets, and wooden sidewalks.

It’s the little town you have seen in countless movies about the Klondike Gold Rush. It was from Skagway in 1898 that 100,000 people battled the elements, mountain passes and treacherous terrain to reach the Klondike goldfields 120km away. Only 35m000 reached their destination, and only a hundred people actually got rich from the meagre gold pickings.

From Skagway on to a full day of cruising through the Glacier Bay National Park, right up to the face of the Marjerie Glacier — 25 storeys high and a mile wide.

And then the return trip, through narrows and island-dotted seas, where white-sided pacific dolphin played among the bow waves of the ship and majestic Northern Right whales and Orca blew great spouts on the surface of the dead-still waters while American Bald Eagles circle overhead and arctic and sooty terns skimmed the waves.

This is the sort of place that would turn even the most die-hard agnostic into a true believer, because only God could be that creative.