Ted Scull: A Tribute to My Dear Friend & QuirkyCruise Partner

Caption above: Ted and a friend with the Nantucket steamer in the background.

(I'll add more photos to this post in the coming days and weeks.)

Ted Scull: A Tribute

By Heidi Sarna

I’m still processing the loss but wanted to share some memories of my dear friend and QuirkyCruise partner, Ted Scull, who passed away earlier this week at home in NYC in his beautiful abode, on his terms, in his own bed, nestled by family heirlooms and the precious things he collected and cherished from his lifetime of travel. I know he is at peace, he was ready to go, to sail into the night one last time, to be reunited with his lovely partner Suellyn, who passed away in 2021.

I met Ted in the early 1990s in NYC when I was an editor for a travel magazine devoted to cruises — it was my first real publishing job; I was 25 and Ted was 50. Ted had recently retired from a career as a teacher at various private schools in NYC, eager to devote more time to his many other talents and interests that had been side hustles up until then — ships, trains, history, writing, photography and lecturing.

By his midlife, Ted had become a prolific freelance writer, penning travel articles for major newspapers in Canada and the US, back when newspapers travel sections were robust with many inches and dollars devoted to full length travel features with large color photos. Ted also wrote for magazines and niche book publishers. His favorite topics were mid 20th-century ocean liners and early steam-powered ferries and trains. He lectured about his travels, illustrating his talks with slides from his legendary collection, boxes upon boxes of which packed the shelves (and floor) of his large home office like tiles on a roof.

Our Budding Friendship

In those early days, we would run into each other at press events in NYC, there were so many. Cruise lines and travel companies would host press conferences, lunches, parties and “cruises to nowhere” in and around Manhattan to share updates about new ships, itineraries, dining programs, leadership, you name it.

Ted was always warm and chatty, joyful and enthusiastic about travel, both past and present. Ted’s enthusiasm was contagious and his expertise in so many things, impressive. Wherever he was, he would hold court sharing stories about his early ship experiences — from the Nantucket steamer ferries of his childhood (his story for QuirkyCruise about those days was one of my favorites: “It All Started With A Nantucket Steamer”), to later adventures in his 20s working for Holland America in NYC and traveling whenever he could aboard cargo and passenger ships crisscrossing the globe to and from Africa, India, the Middle East, Europe and North America. He was especially attracted to Africa — he worked in Tanganyika (later known as Tanzania) as a young man — and to India, where he traveled many times throughout his life. When I married an India-born man, Arun, Ted couldn’t have been more delighted.

In those early years at the cruise magazine, Ted would pitch me stories about upcoming trips and I was chuffed to edit articles from such an experienced writer and world traveler who also wrote for Toronto’s Globe & Mail and the Christian Science Monitor and who was quoted in New York Times stories. Later we would work together on cruise stories for Travel Holiday magazine and write reviews for each other’s cruise guidebooks put out by Frommer’s and Globe Pequot.

We became fast friends, connected by our careers but also a shared playfulness and sunny outlook. And we also shared an emotional side. Ted was sentimental and would often have a tear in his eye when sharing a childhood story featuring his beloved mother or nanny. He felt deeply for the past and he reveled in keeping it alive.

The Family Connections

Over the years, we got to know each other's families. Ted’s dear wife, a sharp, witty, kind Australian headmistress for a tony NYC school, Suellyn became a friend too; we'd meet for drinks and she was at my baby shower. Speaking of babies, one of my fondest memories of Ted is strolling my twin boys at about 9 months to Central Park, where Ted met us for a playdate; he beamed with love and emotion, holding Tejas in his lap as they locked eyes.

We dined with Ted and Suellyn many times over the years, often on the lovely roof deck of their building on East 72nd, with Ted at the grill cooking chicken legs and sausages, and my twin sons assisting as they got into the tween years.

Ted met my in-laws in NYC one year for dinner at our place in the early 2000s when they came to visit and later. And about a dozen years ago, on Ted and Suellyn’s last trip to India, the two couples lunched together at the Gymkhana Club in Delhi, a classic hold-over from the British Raj days, an era Ted was drawn to. More than once, when Ted and I would meet in more recent years, when I would pass through NYC on trips to and from Singapore, where I lived for 17 years, Ted would recount that afternoon in Delhi with my in-laws, tearing up as he remembered how gracious and welcoming they were to him; he was deeply moved by encounters like this.

Ted and Suellyn were a comforting pair when I would stop at their place, with a giant suitcase or two in tow, to break journey for a few hours before the long 24-hour journey back to Singapore after visiting my dad in Pennsylvania for a few weeks several times a year. My favorite memories of these visits were Ted and I taking a twilight walk along East End Avenue, chatting about this and that, passing the time… these walks and talks greatly relaxed and centered me.

Hatching QuirkyCruise

We would of course discuss Quirky Cruise on these strolls, an idea we began discussing around 2012 or so; finally taking the plunge and launching the site in fall 2015. We had both published many travel and ship books of various kinds, but this would be our first website, a completely different beast. We were armed with enthusiasm and passion, though very little knowledge about building websites how to monetize them; that didn’t stop us! We hired a web designer and forged ahead to create our online magazine focused exclusively on the small-ship cruise experience on vessels carrying no more than 300 passengers. We were both were passionate about traveling without the crowds on small ships to off-beat places, to enjoy the access and up-close encounters with the natural world (think Svalbard, the Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, Raja Ampat) and local culture and history (from SE Asia to the Amazon River and the canals of France, Sweden and Scotland).

While we had both traveled extensively, it was Ted who was the maritime expert; I fell into the ship world as a journalist whose first editorial job happened to be at a magazine called “Cruise & Vacation Views.” Ted grew up loving ships, traveling to Europe on luxury liners with his parents and taking classic ferries to Nantucket; he became a walking encyclopedia of conveyances by water. I was grateful to work with such an esteemed authority.

It was a huge undertaking to get QuirkyCruise off the ground, with Ted in NYC and me at that time in Singapore. We brainstormed across the 12-hour time zone, split up the work and got busy, always though, trying to have some fun along the way! Ted was tickled when I would address him in an email as “High Tee” or “Hi Tea,” quipping back with a “Dear Hi D” or a “Hello High Dee.”

Creating and running our own website was immensely satisfying. And lots of work. We weren’t experts on the business side of things, so we just focused on writing and growing our reservoir of small-ship cruise reviews, working with some of the wonderful freelance writers we had met through the years. In the beginning, we were buoyed by the support of esteemed colleagues and friends like Anne Kalosh, Peter Knego, Ben Lyons and Karl Zimmermann, in more recent years, we have enjoyed working with contributing writers including John Roberts, Robin McKelvie, Gene Sloan, Cele & Lynn Seldon, Judi Cohen, Sandra & John Nowlan, Jackie Sheckler Finch, Alison Abbott, Donna Heiderstadt and Sue Bryant.

READ SOME OF TED'S QUIRKY STORIES: Ted was a prolific writer; here are a selection of his stories for QuirkyCruise.com. One of his most popular stories, according to google searches, is about the world roughest cruising regions — here.

Rest in Peace My Dear Friend

Ted’s childlike wonder, disarming nature and vast reserve of knowledge always made him a delightful shipmate, dinner companion or fellow passenger in a train compartment. His life force radiated like a beacon. His eyes wide and ears open, Ted loved learning, he loved people, he loved connecting, he loved life. Until it finally began slipping away from him. Then he knew it was time to go.

Rest in peace my dear Mr Tea. I will never forget you and neither will any of your quirky crew.