There are so many things I miss when I am not at sea. I suppose they are all collectively responsible in a way for my love of all things cruise. Some things that I miss are more obvious than others, such as not having to cook or wash towels and bedding, and not having to set an alarm every day for work. I think these are the things we all can’t wait to get away from, am I right?

For me, there’s so much more to missing my time on the ocean than not having to do dishes or wash a few towels. I miss the life, the people, the atmosphere, the smell – I genuinely miss everything. These are just some of the things that keep dragging me back to the open ocean:

The sunset. There’s nothing more spectacular or relaxing than watching the sunset at sea. Electric colours are cast across the sky and the ocean glimmers like precious stones as the sun slowly shrinks and disappears behind the horizon. In those few moments, nothing else in the world matters to me. My mind is clear, all I am concentrating on is what I can see. Any sunset is magical, but ones at sea are something else entirely.

Who can resist the smell of warm teak? I can’t. That smell across the open decks after the ship has been sitting in the sun all day. It reminds me of tropical shores and earlier cruises, it reminds me I’m on a ship. I like it in the evening when you walk outside and it’s still quite humid, the smell is still lingering, as if trapped in particles of air around the vessel. OK, sometimes it can feel like you’re being slowly suffocated if the temperature in the evening doesn’t drop, but you must admit that even if it’s only bearable for a few minutes, it’s unmistakably ship, and it triggers those brain chemicals that make you happy.

I miss the ocean, that’s probably my number one reason for going back time and time again. The gentle pitch on smaller ships in moderate seas that sends you to sleep, it’s perfect. But I also like the crashing and banging in a Force 10 or above. It reminds me I am on a ship. If I didn’t want that, I’d stay on dry land. There’s so much we still don’t know about the worlds oceans and seas, and it intrigues me. I like to scan the surface, seeing what I can spot. I watched a submarine surface on a Mediterranean cruise several years ago, and during our transit back to Southampton in April on Black Watch I spotted a huge shark, neither of which are things you normally see every day.

Waking up somewhere new every day. One thing I have always loved about cruising is the ever-changing scenery that goes along with it. I work from home, so I see the same things day in and day out, literally. The same birds in the garden, the same postman making his rounds, the same kids going to and from school. When you’re someone who lives for travel and adventure, it can be difficult to be so still and monotonous in daily life. Thankfully, I love my job (I talk about cruise ships all day, what’s not to love?) so that helps, but that wanderlust never goes away. I am ALWAYS planning the next exciting chapter in my growing portfolio of world travel.

Ship life, as some would call it, is far different from land life and again, it’s something I miss terribly post-cruise. I’ve missed it more recently since returning from my world cruise. Spending so much time on a ship and with the same people creates a real sense of camaraderie onboard. We were a floating town of just a few hundred people, the ship was our home, the people were friends and family, and each destination we visited was a chance for us all to explore and then share our tales of adventure in the evening, once we were again back out at sea.

There are so many other things I could list, but I’ve got a cruise to start packing for!