The pair who fell in enjoy at to start with sight on a Cunard cruise ship

(CNN) — New Year’s Eve 1979. Marianna Pennucci clinked glasses with the guy sitting down across from her. With each other they toasted the new decade, which abruptly appeared golden with chance.

Marianna, a 32-12 months-old New York-primarily based admin assistant, was vacationing aboard the Cunard Countess cruise ship. She’d boarded the gleaming vessel with a good friend, thrilled to meander all-around the cobalt waters of the Caribbean, halting off at idylls which include Barbados and St Lucia.

And while the locations were stunning, the journey experienced taken an unpredicted convert and Marianna’s focus was not on the sunsets or the sandy beaches, but on the male sitting down in front of her, who was grinning, a little bit worse for don after an night put in toasting the introduction of 1980.

This was Robert Knowles, a 27-calendar year-previous British-born ship’s photographer who’d developed up in the Caribbean and expended a lot of his adult existence using images on cruise ships.

They’d only known each and every other a number of times, but equally Marianna and Robert felt a potent connection. The only challenge was, she lived and labored in the United States and he lived and labored at sea. Neither of them was specific the relationship would outlast the voyage, but they desperately wanted it to.

“Properly, I observed it. I experienced it. I assume we experienced a connection ideal from the quite starting.”

On board come upon

Marianna boarded the Cunard Countess at the stop of December 1979. She was vacationing with a very good buddy, Candace, and the two girls experienced still left New York early that morning.

Joining the ship in Puerto Rico, they felt tired and a bit raveled. When, as they stepped on board, a man with a digital camera waved and questioned them to smile for a photograph, Marianna just laughed.

“Why would I want this particular instant documented?” she remembers thinking.

The person with the digital camera was Robert. He’d just transferred to the Countess from a stint on Cunard’s most well known ocean liner, the Queen Elizabeth 2.

The Countess available a less regal, relatively funkier, working experience in comparison to the QE2. As Cunard historian Michael Gallagher puts it, the ship, which launched in 1976, was “very a great deal the casual aspect of Cunard.”

“Passengers surely understood they had been on a Cunard ship thanks to popular livery and common service involved with the corporation but ‘zebra stripes’ dominated the primary 1970s interiors and the onboard ambiance was more peaceful,” Gallagher tells CNN Travel.

The style and design, he provides, was “hailed as impressive and trendy.”

Robert’s job was the same what ever the vessel. He worked on fee, wandering the ship armed with a Nikon digital camera and rolls of movie, getting as numerous pics as he could.

When he labored the embarkation shift, he was commonly on obligation with one more crew member.

“With our British banter, we assumed it would be quick to cajole our weary searching travelers to give us superb smiles,” he suggests. “Often it labored.”

He’d snapped photographs of thousands of passengers above the earlier number of a long time. But from the instant she boarded the ship, Marianna stood out to him.

There ended up some 800 men and women on board, but they both discovered each individual other amid the crowds of excited friends.

It was on New Year’s Eve, at an officer’s get together, that Robert and Marianna properly released by themselves.

Even above the sound of songs and raucous crew partying, they both equally felt something specific had begun.

“He smiled at me and there was an immediate connection,” recalls Marianna.

“For the upcoming 5 days when he had the time we would get a consume or a number of minutes to chat.”

A port end at St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands shaped the backdrop for their initially right day.

Robert questioned Marianna if he’d like to have lunch with her all through the stopover.

She agreed. They picked up a rented vehicle and expended several hours chatting together in excess of food at Sparky’s, a pub on the harbor overlooking the drinking water.

Back on board, the few squeezed in discussions all over Robert’s function timetable, which consisted of snapping pictures of onboard events like the Captain’s cocktail hour and then developing the illustrations or photos in the on-board darkish space.

The ship photographers also accompanied travellers on their port excursions, snapping group shots and helping vacationers — in the days before mobile telephones — capture their reminiscences on movie.

The strategy amid crew, suggests Robert, was to do the job really hard, but also enjoy beach and bar time. It was enjoyable, he says, and he’s however in contact with a lot of of his colleagues from his time doing work at sea.

“Theoretically, I guess the personnel were not meant to fraternize with the passengers,” Robert says. “But as a photographer, you experienced entire operate of the ship, because that was your task to acquire photos of the travellers.”

Every time he could, he’d stop to communicate to Marianna. The two invested a large amount of time conversing about family. Equally came from family members that were passionate about cooking — Marianna’s liked the Italian recipes that experienced been passed down as a result of generations, while Robert’s favourite foods have been motivated by his childhood growing up in Jamaica.

“I feel we shared the exact plans and the exact ideals and the identical spouse and children values, which is critical I believe,” says Robert.

A romance reduce quick

Caught up in the enjoyment and excitement of their sudden face, Robert and Marianna attempted to press to one particular facet the knowledge that this budding partnership almost certainly would not have chance to blossom outside of the cruise.

As the voyage drew to a near in Puerto Rico, the couple’s real lives commenced to inch back again into body.

Marianna was returning to New York, although Robert would continue to be on the Countess.

“If you happen to be at any time in New York, remember to stop by,” she advised him as they mentioned farewell.

“I will,” he promised.

On the aircraft journey household, Marianna’s mind raced as she considered what she had seemingly obtained and missing in just 7 days.

She remembers turning to Candace, the friend who’d been on the cruise with her.

“I usually have to leave the excellent kinds driving,” Marianna sighed.

“How come you usually say that?” she recollects Candace replying. Marianna’s buddy reassured her that it failed to have to be that way.

After all, Candace had been witness to the relationship from the start.

“She was pretty supportive. She believed that he was sweet,” suggests Marianna. “She understood that I favored him, and she felt that he would make me content.”

A New York reunion

Weeks handed and Marianna settled back again into her daily life in Manhattan. In amongst perform and socializing, she daydreamed about the man she’d fulfilled on the cruise.

Robert, meanwhile, had a new manager he failed to really get on with. He also stored contemplating about that New Year’s Eve voyage, and the guarantee he’d manufactured to make contact with Marianna if he ever designed it to New York.

February rolled all around and Robert resolved to go for it. What did he have to reduce? He despatched Marianna a telex — an early edition of fax that authorized memos to be despatched between offices — direct from the Cunard Countess to her Manhattan office.

“I might like to arrive to New York and stay with you,” it read through. “Maybe for two months.”

“It came proper smack in the middle of the place of work, so the full business knew that I was possessing this male visitor,” laughs Marianna. “That was awkward.”

But she didn’t feel 2 times and telexed him back again correct away.

“By all suggests,” her reaction browse.

On February 18, 1980 Robert landed at JFK airport.

Marianna waited at arrivals, her tummy in knots.

When he appeared, she nearly failed to identify him — he looked heavier than she remembered, but it immediately transpired this was due to the fact he was sporting each and every shirt he owned, sick-prepared for the icy New York wintertime.

The initially get of business enterprise was obtaining Robert a good coat.

As the two wandered close to the suppliers on Madison Avenue, the effortless repartee that defined their on-board encounters was again.

They have been both delighted to see 1 a further.

“It was good, right from the get started,” states Marianna.

“It just felt correct, suitable absent,” agrees Robert.

They used the following a few weeks jointly discovering Manhattan — sightseeing during the working day, and paying out evenings at the bars and eating places in Greenwich Village, the community wherever Marianna experienced a studio condominium.

Following three weeks, Robert briefly flew to London to get his papers and some possessions.

He returned to New York on March 19, 1980.

“And he hasn’t still left,” laughs Marianna. “We haven’t been aside given that.”

Next measures

Robert was in a position to obtain do the job as a photographer in the metropolis. The few settled into a happy, snug routine and Sundays grew to become the focal level following their chaotic operate months.

“We would get up early and stroll the streets,” remembers Marianna. “We went in all places in New York.”

The certainty they’d each felt about their relationship on the cruise was solidified in excess of these weekend wanderings.

“I had produced the selection to stop by Marianna in NYC and soon right after recognized that I had uncovered a human being with whom I could spend my lifestyle with,” says Robert.

He did not be reluctant about going to the United States. He’d lived all above — from his childhood in Jamaica to boarding college several years in the Uk and his new time at sea — and he felt more cozy with Marianna than any place else.

“Ultimately I felt at dwelling,” says Robert.

In a year, they had been married.

Marianna’s family members welcomed Robert with open arms, internet hosting the pair for Sunday lunches and supplying a house absent from home for the British transplant.

“My life in the US was manufactured all the richer by having a heat and welcoming new family,” says Robert.

Marianna, in the meantime, was not able to meet up with Robert’s spouse and children until finally 1982, as immediately after their wedding day the few could not depart the place until Robert’s citizenship was verified.

When they finally produced it to England and she fulfilled Robert’s mother and father, it was a great accomplishment.

“I was extremely, quite fortunate that his loved ones adopted me and welcomed me and without having hesitation,” suggests Marianna.

The pair lived in New York for the upcoming couple a long time, continuing to enjoy their Manhattan everyday living and summers invested touring.

They welcomed a daughter, Kate, in 1986 and afterwards moved up condition to Westchester and a lot more not long ago to Pennsylvania.

40 decades of marriage

In April 2021, Robert and Marianna will rejoice their 40-12 months wedding day anniversary.

New acquaintances nonetheless marvel when the few inform the tale of how they met, even though the pair are grateful a probability encounter led to so a lot of yrs of pleasure.

“I consider we have been the two at a stage in our lives in which we ended up a little lonely. For me, it was the buddies all-around me had begun to get married, and I failed to see that for myself to start with,” states Marianna.

As for Robert, doing the job on ships still left him with a nomadic way of living that hadn’t lent itself very well to building long lasting relationships.

“I felt like a rolling stone in a way, from early on. So, the chance to locate something that was concrete and settling was good,” he says.

They’ve traveled a good deal more than the a long time, but inspite of cruise vacation actively playing this sort of a notable function in their chance face, situations have hardly ever quite aligned to get them back again at sea.

The couple generally liked the notion of sailing on the Cunard Countess all over again, but the ship — which still left Cunard in 1996 — has extensive considering the fact that been decommissioned and dismantled.

At times, Robert and Marianna come across themselves reflecting on the position performed by fate in their meeting.

Potentially if she hadn’t taken the Cunard cruise, or Robert hadn’t turn out to be a ship’s photographer, they’d have hardly ever crossed paths?

But they’re equally also conscious prospect are unable to just take all the credit. They both of those took a leap of religion that February in New York. Immediately after all, what if he’d in no way despatched the telex, or she’d hardly ever invited him to continue to be in the initial position?

“I’m so glad I produced the option,” states Robert.

“When it felt at ease, we did all we could to retain it that way, so that it would final,” suggests Marianna.

“From time to time you just have to choose a chance and see wherever it requires you.”