INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

Granwell Farao from Paarl has worked on the Queen Mary 2 for more than six years. Picture: Leon Lestrade

The RMS Queen Mary 2 holds a number of “the biggest at sea” records.

It has the biggest ballroom at sea and the most restaurants, and passengers consume a staggering 150 000 eggs a week. But what not many people know is that it also has the biggest morgue at sea, which can accommodate 40 bodies.

On every cruise at least one person died, David Picton, the ship’s sports director, said recently. The average age of the guests, who number up to 3 000, is 70 and it’s not uncommon for a passenger to die of natural causes.

The bodies are kept in the morgue until the next port, where they are taken off the ship and received by family or friends.

The Queen Mary 2 spent three days at Cape Town’s Duncan Dock and then sailed to Durban, after which it will rom which it will sail to Mauritius and cross the Indian Ocean to circumnavigate Australia before making its way to Rabaul in Papua New Guinea and then Japan.

It was the third year running that the ship had docked in the Mother City.

She is luxury shipping company Cunard’s flagship and one of the largest, longest, tallest, widest and most expensive liners yet built.

The RMS Queen Mary 2 is on a world cruise that began in Southampton on January 10.

Local wines are stocked alongside wines from around the world. The Todd English restaurant presented diners with a wine-pairing menu, and five of the wines were the Graham Beck range.

There are 1 250 crew members on board, catering to the passengers’ every whim.

Granwell Farao, 32, a bartender on the ship, hails from Paarl and is one of 60 South Africans working on the ship.

Farao says although he gets to travel the world, he misses home, the food, people and most important, nature.

“I worked at the Grande Roche Hotel (in Paarl) for more than six years as a bartender and waiter before I joined the Queen Mary,” he said.

For Paul Clarke, the 14-deck Queen Mary is like a second home. He boarded yesterday for the Cape Town to Sydney leg. This will be Clarke’s 26th trip on the mammoth ship. One of his favourite spots is the huge library, which is the biggest at sea. - Cape Argus