It has been a crazy ride for this scrappy band of Cape Codders.  Our series, Hit and Run History:  The Columbia Expedition, has gone from just the barest of documentary ideas in 2008 to today as the centerpiece of the history site of a PBS-powerhouse.

With a great reception by audiences to our second episode this spring, we caught a break. At one of our last screenings, held at the South Shore Natural Science Center, we were approached by a content producer at WGBH.  She asked if we would consider doing our show as a web series.

We started in a month later on a collection of eight short biographies.  This series wouldn’t be our old episodes cut up for the web.  Instead, they’d be profiles of lesser player in the story of the first American voyage ’round the world.

Captain John Kendrick, born on the shores of Pleasant Bay, may have commanded Columbia when she left Boston Harbor on October 1, 1787, and Third Officer Robert Haswell of Hull may have written the log, but we were looking now to the men behind the venture. The dreamers who inspired it.  The capitalists who financed it.  The other officers who would run it.

That brought us up to the Massachusetts Historical Society and Boston Public Library Special Collections Room in June, the Massachusetts State House and Fort Griswold outside New London in July, Manhattan and Brooklyn in August, and to the Naval War College in Newport in September.

The series premiered in early October with our introduction on “The Medallion” — the rarest and oldest of all American medals, the Columbia and Washington Medal.  It was minted in Boston in 1787 to commemorate the first American voyage around the world. Today, less than 20 survive.

I’ve been working on the story of John Kendrick and the Columbia Expedition for 15 years, and it is great to be able to bring this story to a wider audience.  Books have been written in the past, but the story has always seemed to elude the greater public consciousness.  As we worked on Hit and Run History, we realized it was because, despite a compelling story of adventure at the dawn of the American republic, it was being told in the typical armchair historian style that would typically drive away younger audiences.

We needed to get out there, show how this story can be encountered here and now in small places.  Be Gumshoe Historians and as we say “Practice History without a License”.

Talk about what motivated these guys.  Visit their homes.  Show how you do this.  Make them and the story relatable.  And from what we’ve been told time and time again my audiences, educators and museum staff — we’ve done it.  We’ve cracked the code of Columbia.

The 10-episode series runs weekly through December.  Check back at WGBH.org/history or on the Hit and Run History fan page on Facebook at facebook.com/hitandrunhistory.

Now, here’s the thing:  I’d read up on the Zuiderdam.  The Dutch take their art seriously, and they had thrown a lot of it around this ship.  Well before the cruise, I’d looked up the ship to figure out where the best cabin was… and then seen what was left at bargain prices.

The first cabin I almost booked was close to the elevators.  Great.  But when I scanned the ship’s floor plans, I saw it was one floor above the men’s room.  No, not in a tropical atmosphere.  So we went with something further down the hall, but above a shop.  Should be quiet.  Partially-obstructed view, but so what?  If I want to look at the ocean from my window, I can do so right now.

But I heard that the Zuiderdam had been made for a different market than the usual Holland America Line (HAL) clientele.  HAL has a reputation as not your father’s  cruise line, but maybe your grandfather’s cruise line.  Navy blue and white are the color schemes.  Dowdy.  These are not the “fun ships” — not that they go out of their way to make sure you don’t have fun.  But the impression I got was adrenaline was not a priority.  That all said, Zuiderdam had some glittery, sparkly touches and splashes of red that said, “Grandma’s wearing rubies tonight! — and don’t call me Grandma.”

 First tip-off was the art tour podcast I found on their website.  Then there’s that giant rhinestone seahorse in the lobby.  Not some great atrium you can handglide in, but nice.  In fact, it quickly became apparent that the ship had no huge spaces, save for the  Vista Show Lounge (the theater in the rear of the ship).  This created both a feeling of intimacy and of size.  For someone who had never cruised before, I liked it.

The one thing we had heard raves about was Holland America’s food was the best of all cruise lines.  Well, the Lido deck was one big cafeteria, but it really was top notch stuff.  Before the cruise, they try to sell you a soda card, good for godawful amounts of the stuff.  But there was an ice tea and lemonade fountain in here, so I just mixed the two and was happy with that for the entire cruise.  Why pay inflated prices for something I really shouldn’t be having anyway?

As the ship left port (click on the image to watch the YouTube video), we were discussing our options for the next few days.   There were just a few excursions we were considering, and then Chandra told me there was a karaoke contest at the Northern Lights nightclub that evening.  Having heard her sing, I knew this was definitely something we needed to check out.  But we also needed to see our cabin.

For what it cost, this was not bad — not bad at all.  We were expecting cramped.  Instead, it was fairly open.  In addition, the window was not just a porthole, but floor-to-ceiling windows.  Sure, it was obstructed by a lifeboat.  But there was tons of natural light, and if I wanted to, I could see the water.  And get to the lifeboat before anyone else.

It wasn’t perfect, though.  The handle on the mini-fridge was broken.  There was a very obvious patch job to a hole in the wall above the bed.  But there was a couch, a TV, plenty of closets and drawers, and a bath with tub and shower.  And except for outside our door, we never heard a soul.

So after unpacking, we took a little rest.  But not too long after, Chandra realized that she had developed a rash right where her face touched the pillow.  I was fine, though.  She called down to the front desk and they said would have new sheets put on while we were at dinner.

O-kay.

But right after, I found I had lucked out, because when asked at booking, I asked for a table for 2.  I was told there were no guarantees.  There was the upstairs of the Vista Dining Room, and the lower.  I had read somewhere that the upper was better.  But there was greater availability for the lower, and also better for the later seating than the earlier.  So I played the odds, and when they showed us to our seat, the water said, “the newlywed table”, with a big toothy grin.  Chandra feigned shock, but I’m not one to quibble over details.

Our meals were exceptional, especially, I think because the portions were senior-sized.  Just big enough to feel you ate, but not so big you couldn’t walk.  They were rich, and that was enough.  No aruAnd we headed off to book our excursions.

 Now, we’d heard that we really shouldn’t waste our money on booking through the cruise line.  So we limited ourselves to those things that were fairly specific.  Our next stop, 2 days away, was the dive center of the Western Hemisphere, Grand Turk.  Chandra, not one for doing things in or below the water, decided she might just try a helmet dive.  I. on the other hand, hadn’t used my scuba license in some time, and thought I better.  “How long has it been since you last dove?”, the clerk at the excursion counter asked, as I was trying to decide on the beginner class and the experienced class.

“Some time,” I said.

“Would you say it was more than a year?”

 “Yes.  Maybe a couple years.”

So she decided to fax the dive outfit on Grand Turk and let them figure out which I should do.  The real disadvantage was that the beginner class was for people with no experience diving at all, and you spent the first half of the class just learning.  Prior to my trip to find the Lady Washington ten years ago, I took a scuba class with Bob Peck with Adventure Diving in Eastham.  My certification dive was in the Mill Pond in East Orleans in October.  COLD!  A swirling vortex of bubbles and murk and a stray striped bass in my face.  So the clear waters of the tropics were no problem.  Even if it really had been 10 years since I last dove.

Just in case they decided it had been too long, I signed up for the helmet dive.  Leaving it in God’s hands whether I would be put in grave danger alone or spend the morning sharing an one-of-a-kind experience with my steady.  The clerk said they’d call and let me know the verdict tomorrow.  The verdict, she said.

Casting aside my concerns about punctured eardrums or nitrogen narcosis, Chandra was very excited to check out the karoake.  But stopping back into our room first, we found new sheets and a towel sculpture of… umm… an animal.  Perhaps an armadillo.  Or a Gremlin.  Maybe even a Disney version of a cute, cuddly bedbug.  To me, it looked like a cross between a crab and a rabbit — a Crabbit.  Whatever it was, Chandra squealed appropriately, and I half expected her to tuck it under her arm for the rest of the evening.

When we got to the Northern Lights Disco, things were pretty much already in full swing.  As it turned out, it was part of a competition.  So I managed to throw enough elbows to get through to the precious clipboard with the signup sheet, and back to Chandra for her choice.  Then I had to escort her back again to the DJ booth so she could pick out a song.

 After a few performers with various degrees of talents, Chandra got her chance, giving a rendition of “Heartbreak Hotel” that really impressed the slightly-older-but-not-quite-regularly-on-Metamucil crowd.  Then there were a few more good performances.  Then Julie Andrews got up.  Okay, not really Maria from the Sound of Music.  She was early middle-age, very tall, thin, blond, blue-eyed.  Maybe wound a little too tight.  But a woman who obviously did A LOT of musical theater in the midwest.  She hit her cues flawlessly, had perfect choreography and stage presence, and so her rendition of “I could have danced all night” was just a kinda creepy in the dark, glossy disco.

And then we learned that this was just the first round in something called the Zuiderdam Zuperstar — their version of American Idol.  There’d be two rounds to winnow down the competition, which meant now we’d have to go back and do this again.  Which was not what Chandra really had in mind, but people were really being supportive, so why not?  All she’d have to do is find a good song to do next time.

“What do you win?” I asked.  They wouldn’t say.

Next  installment:   A Day at Sea, Finding a Song, and The Verdict