Bridging the world

Published 1:00 pm Saturday, September 3, 2005

If you have ever dreamt of traveling around the world for free, perhaps you need a job on a cruise ship.

Two Whidbey Island women, Clare Christiansen of Coupeville and Mary Johnson of Langley, know first hand what it is like to travel and work aboard cruise ships. They specialize in duplicate bridge, a game with a large following worldwide.

By teaching bridge games aboard ship, Christiansen and Johnson have found a way to continue their life-long love of globe trotting.

Instead of being paid to teach, Christiansen and Johnson receive all expense paid trips. Sometimes they have to pay their own air fares to get to the port where the cruise will leave from. In comparison to the cost of the cruise, the air fare is a small amount of money.

Since both women are used to traveling, their teaching jobs are enjoyable.

Christiansen is a retired flight attendant who worked for Pan-Am Airlines for 30 years, and Johnson is a retired flight attendant who worked for United Airlines for 37 years. In retirement both women wanted to continue to travel at little or no cost.

Even though Christiansen worked for Pan-American Airlines before the airline went bankrupt in 1991, she retired without any flight benefits. Johnson still continues to get discounted or free flights from United Airlines.

Both women have been playing bridge for a long time and decided they should become qualified to teach the card game aboard cruise ships.

Christiansen learned to play bridge as a little girl from her mother and sister and then continued on through her adult years. Johnson has been playing bridge for about 20 years.

In order to gain a position as a bridge instructor on a cruise ship, the instructor must be part of the ACBL, American Continental Bridge League, and hold various titles from different bridge competitions. In addition to being a member of ACBL, the instructor must also be a Life Master. This means that the person has attained a certain rank according to the amount of tournaments that they have played in and won points.

According to Christiansen, bridge players who wish to become Life Masters, teachers and directors, must travel all over the United States to gain the amount of points needed to reach the highest level.

After meeting the initial qualifications, Christiansen found an agent to help her find a job with a cruise line. Each line has its own recruiting agent for hiring instructors.

Christiansen and Johnson work for an agent that handles Crystal Cruise Lines and Silverseas Cruise lines.

Christiansen took Johnson on as her teaching assistant and the women began traveling the world together.

So far, they have taken cruises to Japan, the Amazon, Rio Di Janeiro, Singapore to Vietnam and throughout Europe. In addition, Christiansen has cruised around Africa twice, been to the Panama Canal four times and taken four transatlantic trips.

Christiansen and Johnson have had the opportunity to meet a wide range of different people while aboard the ships.

“One of the most memorable teaching experiences happened aboard a trip to Japan,” Christiansen said.

“We taught a Japanese man who was about 50 years-old to play bridge even though there was a major language barrier since he barely spoke or understood English. He was very determined to learn how to play and we managed to communicate with him in the language of cards,” Christiansen said.

Both women teach bridge and are members of the bridge club at the Summer Hill assisted living home in Oak Harbor. Bridge is a game that is recommended by doctors as a way to prevent Alzheimers disease, due to the amount of brain activity it takes to play the game accurately.

Some of the bridge club members have been on the cruises.

Deana Mitchell is a bridge club member who had the opportunity to take a cruise as an assistant to Christiansen. She helped out with the card games and was a partner to anyone who lacked a partner to play with.

“It was great to have the air fare paid for as well as the luxury cruise itself. Mary is a delightful travel companion as well, she is one of the only bridge instructors who never gets mad at people,” Mitchell said.