Puerto Montt is a town in southern Chile known as the gateway to the Andes. It began life quite late, not until 1853. For a ship’s tour of nearly eight hours the cost would be USD $169 per person, so it was research time to cut the cost. It wasn’t long before I found GV […]
We arrived safely in Moji, and when off duty, I was free to walk around the town. It was 1967 and the lack of English language signs was noticeable, considering that all of the other Japanese ports (about five or six) that I’d visited, had some western symbols, even if it was only a neon […]
The trip across the Great Australian Bight was uneventful even though this Bight has a reputation for bad weather. It was cool. but not cold and people till managed to swim in the ship’s pools. A quiet peaceful day followed by a very nice dinner and we were just in time for the evening show. […]
There comes a time when you have to drag yourself away from the staff who are selling books. Space at home becomes a problem, because we live in a small house. A school near where we live has an annual ‘Big Day Out’ – food stalls, fairground, homemade jams, hand made jewelry and of course BOOKS! […]
Thirty six hours after disembarking our first Baltic cruise students we embarked another full complement for our second cruise to the Baltic. For this cruise our first port of call was Stockholm; what a beautiful interesting city. We arrived off the coast of Stockholm during the night, and picked up our pilot and sailed quietly […]
Cast off, the voyage has started as we make our way from the dock area to the open sea. Some just like to sit in the spa, with little interest in our sailing, but that is their choice A pleasant warm day with clear sky, but not all are interested in the passing scenery. Even […]
Puerto Montt is a town in southern Chile known as the gateway to the Andes. It began life quite late, not until 1853. For a ship’s tour of nearly eight hours the cost would be USD $169 per person, so it was research time to cut the cost. It wasn’t long before I found GV […]
Life had become busy busy busy after I settled into working at Head Office in Sydney. The onboard courier system had expanded greatly. Each courier was obliged to collect their courier bags on arrival at the destination airport, and the bags were getting heavier as business expanded. Bags used to be around 10 to 15 […]
Why do trains have such a fascination? After reading From Russia with Love I knew that one day I would travel by train through Eastern Europe, if not along the same line as Mr Bond, but some where in Eastern Europe. Murder on the Orient Express – could I afford to travel with Agatha Christie […]
Upon sailing from Colombo we cleaned ship – the crew hosed down the decks and all rubbish was thrown overboard (well before it became un pc), the smell of the land fell away and we could unlock our windows and doors, we were free of petty thieving and the smell of industry, our destination was […]
For the last twelve years my wife and I have hoarded our frequent flyer points by doing our best to only use airlines in the same ‘group’ as Virgin Atlantic. In May of 2014 Virgin Atlantic stopped flying to / from Australia. Our aim was to have enough points to ‘buy’ a business class round trip […]
This blog is a follow on from my earlier blog, ‘The Silver Grey Sea’ on the 30th September. In addition to tank cleaning we were expected to keep up with our studies, via a correspondence course, for the examination for a 2nd Mates ‘ticket’. Certain certificates were required before we would be allowed to sit the examination […]
Sunrise as we approached the island. Dravuni Island is part of the Kadavu Group of islands, which are part of Fiji. It is a small island of about 0.8 sq km (0.3 sq miles) and the population is about 200 living in one village. It is one of the smallest populated islands in the Fijian […]
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 […]
