I asked this lady’s permission to take her photograph. It was during a ‘formal’ evening on the Diamond Princess when a number of Japanese ladies dressed in the national dress of Japan. Our next port of call was Akita, which would be the last for Maureen & I, because we would leave the ship in […]
Our next port was Lyttleton, the gateway to Christchurch. Part of Lyttleton harbour We had visited Christchurch on our last trip via Akaroa, because Lyttleton port was still out of action due to the earthquake. When we booked this cruise we were hoping that we would visit Christchurch via Akaroa again because during our last […]
Maureen & I have completed ten cruises over the years, mainly with Princess Cruises, but the one that we use to judge all of the others is Azamara Cruises. Azamara Quest 30,277 GT, the smallest ship in which we have sailed, launched in 2000, with a passenger capacity of 686 and a crew of 408. […]
During WW2 the US Navy created a classification of ship as ‘Attack Transport’, which consisted of a specially built ship that would carry troops in to battle, but as normal troop ships were usually converted merchant ships, and relied on either docking or tenders to deliver the troops ashore an ‘attack transport’ carried her own […]
The red symbol is Nauru My next trip was to review our delivery agency in Nauru and two other Pacific Islands. To get to the other two islands I had to travel via Nauru, which under normal circumstances would not be a problem except that the Air Nauru service from Australia to Nauru was ‘intermittent’. […]
We arrived off Muscat, Oman around 7.00 am on the 29th April – Maureen’s birthday. I’d not seen Muscat for about fifty years, and my memory of the city was of ‘yesterday’, so when we arrived the only piece of Muscat I remembered was the cliffs, the old fort and a few houses along the […]
Our destination was to be Calcutta – I’ll use the names of each port as it was named in the 1960’s. After sailing from Karachi our first destination was Kandla, which is in the Gulf of Kutch in the Gujarat State of India. Gujarat is the red area The pink dot is Kandla & the […]
Sunrise over New Caledonia For a time I was in a business partnership with a Frenchman, who lived in Tahiti and later moved to New Caledonia before finally moving to Sydney. I can remember him saying that for a Frenchman working for the French government and being posted to one of the French colonies in […]
Madrid Station – was spotlessly clean, and very impressive. Our four nights in Barcelona just flew past, and on the final morning we were once again making our way to the railway station for the rail trip to Madrid. Once more we paid a little more for the extra room, but this time we were […]
The sunlight filters through the panes of book-shop windows, pockmarked grey By years of grimy city rains, And falls in mild, dust-laden ray Across the stock, in shelf and stack, Of this old bookshop-man who brought, To a shabby shop in a cul-de-sac, Three hundred years of print and thought.
The red symbol is Nauru My next trip was to review our delivery agency in Nauru and two other Pacific Islands. To get to the other two islands I had to travel via Nauru, which under normal circumstances would not be a problem except that the Air Nauru service from Australia to Nauru was ‘intermittent’. […]
Maureen & I have completed ten cruises over the years, mainly with Princess Cruises, but the one that we use to judge all of the others is Azamara Cruises. Azamara Quest 30,277 GT, the smallest ship in which we have sailed, launched in 2000, with a passenger capacity of 686 and a crew of 408. […]
Savusavu is on the island Vanua Levu, which is on the smaller of the two larger Fijian islands, and I have marked the location. Savusavu is unspoiled & a place that is unhurried and free of most modern trappings and has managed to retain much of yesteryear. Savusavu was a popular trading port for sailing […]
Never mind clocks & watches and all that accurate stuff, when in Fiji one must get used to Fiji time . . . Just after sunrise we approached our berth at Suva, Fiji. Abel Tasman was the first European to sight Fiji in 1643, and this was followed by Captain Cook in 1770. It was […]
