Joy of the Sea: 3,000 nights sailing with Saga

By Rebecca Saunders

First setting sail aboard a Saga ship on 14 April 1998, Joy Howe recently marked her 3,000th night on board. This incredible achievement arose from personal tragedy, sparking a second life of adventure, unforgettable memories and firm friendships.

It all started in the summer of 1969. Joy was at a dance in Plymouth.

She was working as a personal assistant for the Ministry of Defence when she received an invite to the dance, which was being held for the crew of a Naval ship returning from long deployment. After calling girlfriends to see if they would go with her, she ended up going alone.

But it didn’t matter. That night at the dance, everything changed. A young man walked in —tall, slim, dressed in a smart grey suit. Joy looked to see if he wore a ring on his left hand. The Royal Marine Band started to play, and the man in the smart suit came over and asked her to dance.

The phone rang the next morning. Her dance partner from the previous evening was on the other end of the line. Within a few weeks of meeting, Joy and Michael were married. Their daughter, Anna, was born two years later.

As a member of the Royal Navy, the newlyweds set off for a life of frequent relocation, both at home and abroad. Their plan was to spend as much time in each other’s company as service life would allow.

“It was very special,” Joy says. “We had 26 very precious years together.”

Their time together was cut short. Michael died suddenly in service, from a rare form of coronary artery disease, aged 51, in September 1996. For Joy, her world had shattered.

“I was just in shock”

Over breakfast that morning they had chatted about the day ahead: Michael’s various meetings, Joy’s plans to meet a friend for coffee and to go to the shops to buy flowers for the local church.

“The last words he said to me were ‘Darling, there might be a Heads of Department meeting, so I may be late, but if I'm going to be late, I will give you a ring. Love you lots. Take care and God bless.’

“And that was how we parted, and I waved him down the road.”

Michael left home just before eight o'clock in the morning, and at ten to nine the doorbell rang. On the doorstep was the Navy Chaplin and a colleague of Michael’s. Joy remembers that she knew exactly why they were there.

“I said 'has there been an accident?' And the reply was 'no.' And I said, 'is it Michael?' And they said, yes. I said, 'is Michael dead?'"

“I didn't go into floods of tears,” Joy recalls. “No: I was just in shock!”

“I remember saying shortly after we were married, ‘Oh, darling, don't worry about that. We've got 50 years together to sort things out.’ We didn't have 50 years, we had 26 very, very special years. And I'm always grateful for that.”

Picking up the pieces

Later that day Joy stood alone in the shower, the news of her husband’s death beginning to sink in.

“I said out loud to myself, ‘I’m a widow!’ That doesn’t happen to people at 49,” she says, recalling the moment. “I didn't think that I would be able to pick up the pieces.”

In the months that followed Joy threw herself into voluntary work, initially with charities such as the War Widows Association and later working with people receiving oncology treatment. Her own experience of loss, she explains, gave her greater empathy for people in similar situations — something she describes as “very humbling”.

“To be honest, I needed to be needed. I had to have a purpose for getting up in the morning.”

For this, she was driven by Michael’s legacy of love, courage and determination to go forward. “Boy, oh, boy, he never let me down in life and I didn’t want to let him down,” she says.

Although Joy had found a purpose for getting up in the morning, around 15 months after Michael’s death, their daughter Anna had concerns. “Anna said to me, ‘You're giving an awful lot to an awful lot of people, some in quite difficult circumstances. You're not thinking about yourself, I think you could do with a holiday.’” Joy says.

An ultimatum was laid down: if her mother didn’t book herself a holiday, then Anna would do it for her.

“I thought, ‘Damn it, she's not taking charge of me yet! No. You might have to in the future, but she's not taking charge of me yet!’”

A voyage into the unknown

Joy set off to the travel agents and browsed holiday brochures, but nothing appealed. She was looking for something different from what she would have done with Michael.

“I didn't want to go to a hotel on my own because a hotel can be quite soulless when one is dining on one’s own,” she says. “And I said, ‘You know, I think I'd like to have a cruise!’”

That weekend, an advert on the bottom right-hand corner of the Daily Telegraph caught Joy’s attention — the advert was for Saga Cruises.

She rang the free phone number and the rest, as Joy says, is history.

The ship was to set sail from Southampton to the Caribbean, a region she had never been to. She was looking forward to the cruise with great anticipation, but the night before she was due to set off solo for the first time was one of mixed emotions.

Joy remembers a phone call with her daughter on the eve of the cruise. “I said, ‘I’d give anything to not be going. I am so concerned. I don’t know what I’ve let myself in for,’” she says. “Anna’s reply was, ‘Well, if you don’t go, I shall come down, pick you up and take you myself.’ So I went!”

Despite her apprehensions, which continued as she walked up the gangway the next day, any concerns soon passed by the time Joy was on board. “It was just the ambience, the service,the atmosphere,” she recalls.

In fact, Joy enjoyed her maiden voyage so much that when offered the opportunity to continue onwards to the Mediterranean on a 15-night cruise, she snapped it up.

“Well, I think it took all of… maybe a second-and-a-half, at the most two seconds, to say yeah!” she exclaims. “So my first voyage was actually a back-to-back. We did the 28 nights to the Caribbean and then sailed on Saga Rose down to the Med.”

3,000 nights at sea

Since that first intrepid trip to the Caribbean, Joy has spent the past 27 years voyaging around the world with Saga. And, although coming to terms with Michael’s early passing was difficult, she was able to find a way of moving forward.

“Saga has complemented my life in a huge way,” she says. “I wouldn’t say it eased my grief, but it’s given me a different aspect in which to cope with my grief.” She recalls telling herself with determination, in the period following Michael’s death, that she would cope and rebuild her life.

“You will never know what Saga means to me, because they came into my life after my world shattered into a million pieces. But they helped and gave me a new outlook, and in many respects, it was something to focus on, having experienced what I never thought would happen.”

Joy believes that Michael would be “pretty pleased” with her for the amazing adventures she has embarked on around the world. Having her daughter’s blessing to continue to do so “is brilliant”.

“She will say to me ‘For goodness’ sake, Mum, if you can do it, do it!’” says Joy, laughing. “I'm off again shortly — my daughter says just let me know when you're on shore leave!”

For those who may be concerned about setting off for the first time, or wondering if cruising with Saga will be for them, Joy offers some advice.

“I think my first voyage is a classic example. Please just go. Because any concerns will be allayed within a short time of boarding,” she says. “Nobody was more concerned than I was that night before I went to bed.”

Describing herself as “very privileged” to have experienced cruising with Saga over the years, she mulls over what keeps bringing her back. “I think that the onboard staff are Saga’s greatest asset,” she says with certainty, describing them as family.

“There is no differentiation between whether one has the forward, most expensive accommodation, or whether one is in a single cabin. Everybody is treated with the same courtesy and the same standard.”

To the next port of call

And now, after her one-off voyage in 1998 and with over eight years of her life spent at sea, Joy has just completed her 144th voyage. It seems there is no stopping her — and the keen cruiser has her sights set on further goals.

“The delightful Captain Franco has set me two more challenges,” Joy explains. The first is to make his homecoming voyage in March 2026 her 150th voyage. The second challenge is to cruise for another 365 nights to make exactly ten years of cruising. Joy is more than up for the challenges, laughing: “I said, ‘When do I let the bank know?’”

The young woman who attended the Navy dance in Plymouth may never have thought life would take the path it has. After the tragedy of losing her husband at a young age, Joy has gone out and found a life full of friends and adventure.

“When I'm too old to do very much, I shall have the memories, the photographs and – if I’ve still got my marbles – still be able to recall what things I was so privileged to experience,” she says warmly.

“In an ideal world, I wouldn't have been widowed, we would have been living out our retirement in a little cottage, with roses round the door, and a golden labrador. We don't live in an ideal world. But Saga has helped me along the way to make it, along with my very precious family, an ideal world.”