We arrived early morning in to the port of Osaka in Japan. The weather was overcast, but it wasn’t raining, which was a good sign. The port authorities seemed please to see us. Different coloured water jets from a local tug boat. I’d checked the cost of the ship’s tours and found them to be […]

To read too many books is harmful’ according to Mau Tse-Tung. Yokohama, in Tokyo Bay, was our first port of call of our Japanese coastal trip. If I thought Singapore and Hong Kong were foreign, Yokohama was really ‘foreign’ The people were different from Chinese, very friendly, but different. Fortunately at that time the exchange […]

I was fortunate to attend HMS Conway, which was a training ship (see picture below) to supply officers for the merchant and Royal Navy – most us went in to the merchant service. The college began in 1859, and I attended ‘Conway’ between 1960 and 1962. During my time we lived in barracks because the […]

We visited Sachsenhausen concentration camp after meeting our ‘walking’ guide at the Berlin Zoo suburban station. He escorted us to the main Berlin station to catch the train for the fifty minute trip to Oranienburg, which is the nearest station to the camp. On arrival this guide handed us over to a camp guide. From […]

Earlier this week my son & I went to the latest Hollywood effort of the Seven Samurai. Seven Samurai (1954) AKA The Magnificent Seven (1960) Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966) Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) The Magnificent Seven Ride (1972) The Magnificent Seven (2016) The latest version for me is so politically correct […]

Our next port of call was Tauranga – the above is of the sunrise as was we entered Tauranga harbour, which is a beautiful place to visit. Entering the harbour. Maureen & I were fortunate because our daughter in law’s parents live in Tauranga and had offered to be our guides for the day, and to […]

We flew with KLM’s Boeing 777-300ER (ER = Extended range) from Buenos Aires to Santiago in Chile, so as to connect with the Qantas B 747 to Sydney. All went well until we reached the Andes when I realised that I’d left my camera in the overhead bag, and I was sitting in the centre […]

I’ve always loved North & Mid Wales, perhaps because my mother was Welsh and only when the family moved from Caernarvon (Carnarfon to be PC) to Birkenhead, when she was thirteen, did she start to learn English. When my mother spoke of the move she would comment that she moved to England, which sounded strange to me as […]

Chakdara – launched 1951, 7,132 gt The first Chakdara (3,035 gt) was launched in 1914 and was named after an important trading town in northern India, which was on the main trading route to Afghanistan.In 1933 she was sold to Burma Steam Nav Co., but she foundered off Burma in 1935. After partition the town of Chakdara was […]

At 122, 000 gt, I thought that perhaps Celebrity Silhouette was too large to berth in Stockholm, and this was the reason why we berthed at Nynashamn, which is forty five minutes, by coach, from Stockholm. I have since found out the Emerald Princess (113,561 gt) was able to berth in Stockholm during her visit, and […]

There comes a time that when you are offered something and it sounds great, you should be careful – but I wasn’t careful and agreed. As MV Juna reached Fremantle in Western Australia I agreed to supervise the loading of freezer and chiller cargo, on the understanding that once is had been completed I was […]

Yorkeys Knob George Lawson was from Yorkshire in the UK but by 1886 he was a well-known as a beche-de-mer (sea cucumbers, but aka sea slug) fisherman. During the off-fishing season he farmed a plot of land on a area known as the Knob where he raised pumpkins, sweet potatoes and paddy melons, which the […]

We sailed from Thailand for Vietnam’s southern main port of Ho Cha Minh (used to be called Saigon), and once again we couldn’t get too close to Ho Cha Minh city because of our size. We berthed at Phu My, which is a 90 minute drive from Ho Cha Minh city via the fleet of buses waiting for […]

Thanks to Covid Maureen and I were unable to spend our Emirates frequent flyer points, which we had saved for a trip from Singapore to Sydney after cruising to Singapore.We were keen to spend the points before they were cancelled by the airline. After considering several options we finally decided to spend them on accommodation, […]