Day 5 -Part I April 14th 2012 - TITANIC 100th Anniversary Today

"I felt chills and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I was overcome with overwhelming emotion. This splendid sound felt as if it was coming from heaven itself, channeled through these young musicians."

I started the day by heading back to my favorite corner in the Azamara Journey Library to catch up on two days of backlogged blogs. I had received several messages from friends and new blog readers asking for updates.  I want to say thank you for all the really lovely comments I have been receiving both directly and via Bill Miller. 

There is a German production company on board that is filming musicians who will play the rest of the never finished set by Titanic’s original strings who went down with the ship. As I started write, the 7 piece string orchestra with piano began a rehearsal, playing an impromptu Pachelbel Cannon in D. This joyous rendition with overlapping strings, live, flooded the room and filled me with the most glorious warmth. I closed my eyes. I suddenly felt surrounded by dozens of beings of light in the room, gathering, leaning into each other and commenting, laughing, appreciating this most remarkable concert.  

I felt chills and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I was overcome with overwhelming emotion. This splendid sound felt as if it was coming from heaven itself, channeled through these young musicians. It was as if many souls connected with this tragedy joined in, participating in this milestone remembrance. It was then that I felt the sorrow of over 1,500 souls that perished and the deepest acknowledgment of where we are heading and why we are here. 


As if Pachelbel’s Cannon was not enough, the orchestra then played “Nearer My God To Thee” - vibrant, drawing, passionate, longing, the sounds echoing and magnified throughout the room. Until this moment, I had thought my devastation would come tonight as we are over the site,  and it indeed would flow through me again, but this private preview became simply heartbreaking. I had to record this near out of body experience as I wiped tears from my face.

With the script of my new play 41N 50 W at the
actual coordinates of TITANIC's last reported position.

Most of the day was spent writing, except for a quick snack. The shipped seemed unusually quiet. Bill Miller and I assumed that most people were probably taking naps, trying to get some rest before having to be up late for a 2:20am Memorial Service at the very time the TITANIC went down. There was a very sedate mood in anticipation of what was to come.

Throughout I have tried to imagine a timeline of what would people be doing at this very date and hour a hundred years ago. Although we were approaching TITANIC’s locations (last reported position and site of the wreck) from the west, it’s impossible not to look out at the sea and think of folks relaxing, walking about the ship, preparing for dinner, oblivious to the fact that for so many these simple moments would be their last on earth. Absolutely routine activities only made more poignant by historic hindsight and the similarities to our own actions in 2012.



Close to 6pm we approached the first significant location of 41.46N 50.14W, which is TITANIC’S last reported position.  The Captain announced that Azamara Journey would shortly reset our clocks to the best accepted ship's time as it was on the TITANIC in 1912. Back then time varied greatly between ships based on longitude and latitude. This would make our relative time 33 minutes later than New York (EDT). So at 6:33pm we would retard our watches back to 6:00pm. This would synchronize us with BALMORAL, the other ship that would be joining us.  

Therefore, it will be 11:07pm EDT when it is 11:40pm here, the very hour TITANIC struck the iceberg 100 years ago. It will be 1:47am EDT when it is 2:20am, the very hour and minute recorded as when TITANIC slipped beneath the waves and the hour when all watches stopped. There was no daylight savings time in 1912, so technically speaking New York time would have been 1 hour 33 minutes behind TITANIC on April 14th.  When reading various accounts of the disaster what does stand out is the differing times between New York, Cape Race, and the various vessels as there did not appear to be any universal standard. Part II - the Rendezvous at TITANIC coordinates and the 100th Anniversary Memorial to follow shortly.