Sail Away At Home

History "You also see many who have met onboard and then they arrive in Australia and are married three weeks later. There seems to be something about that salt air." He says that passengers not only formed strong relationships with fellow passengers, but with their ships, many naming their houses or children after the vessel which brought them to their new home in Australia. "You do see many stories where people have this connection with their ship because, for many of them, coming here and the journey here changed their lives considerably. They all came here chasing something and most of them found it." Though many, he points out, found it in very interesting ways—among them, the countless 19th-century sailors who decided that Australia was most certainly for them. "Jumping ship became quite an issue. A ship would arrive with crew and then many would jump ship and the captain would be left there thinking, 'Well, what do I do now?' "When you look at things like the police gazettes, one of the things they were constantly looking for is sailors who have jumped ship and it would give the description of what these people looked like, but because this was the period before photography there was no way of truly identifying anyone." So from the convicts who arrived on ships and the P&O-delivered settlers (and ship jumpers) came a nation of innate seafarers. A country built by the sea and a population whose culture revolves around the coast, the Australian connection to the ocean runs generations deep. "One of the things that always surprises me about cruising is the number of people who do it once, and then they do it again and again and again, because it's in our genes somewhere. Because for all Australians, or at least the vast bulk of us, that's how we got here." "When you're out at sea and you're gazing up at the stars, it's a view that is essentially unchanged from when our ancestors came here. Whether they came 10 years ago or 210 years ago. Whether they ate dried, salted meat or the best crème brûlée you can get, there's something about the journey and the connection with the journey that makes it special, and I think that's why Australians love cruising so much." forming memories Above, finding love at sea, making life-long friends and gaining an affinity with cruising and the ocean are the basis of many Ancestry.com.au stories. barrabool Bottom left, ships such as P&O Branch Line's Barrabool are important to Australia's history. Celebrating 175 years of cruising is a huge task so we're glad we have all of you to help us out. Our new website is filling up 175 with favourite P&O Cruises stories from past passengers and we would love to hear yours. At 175yearsofcruising.com.au you can see these stories on an interactive timeline and also share your own. Sail Away. Spring 2012 15 of cruising

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