It was a beautiful day when we boarded Majestic Princess for a thirteen-night cruise to New Zealand. It had been six years since our previous cruise to New Zealand and thanks to Covid we now hoped to renew our relationship with the land of the long white cloud. ‘Aeoteroa’ or the land of the long […]
Ceylon did not become Sri Lanka until 1972. The country has had a chequered history, from the Portuguese arriving in 1505, followed by the Dutch, when the king of Sri Lanka signed a treaty with the Dutch East India Company, in the hope that the Dutch would get rid of the Portuguese. It was during […]
There comes a time when all this gender neutral rubbish has to be laughed out of sight. We now have ‘neutral’ Mother’s Day cards, so that a very small minority are not ‘offended’. How about the rest of who might be offended? What happened to the child celebrating their own mother’s special day? In the […]
Ushuaia on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, is considered the most southerly city in the world – also known as the end of the world. We arrived in Ushusia at 6.00 pm and immediately went alongside. We were all looking forward to the excursion the next day, which was a trip on the End of […]
I’d been out East for just over a year and the Company decided that I should start making my way home. I signed off the Chanda (black & white picture above) and made my way to a hotel in Karachi called the Beach Luxury Hotel. This hotel was much better than the Bristol Hotel in […]
It was getting close to Christmas 1981 so what to do about a staff Christmas party? Christmas in Australia is our summertime, so we would not be interested in a log fire, hot mead and Ho Ho Ho.Ideas were bounced around from restaurants (very expensive) to a cash outlay to allow the staff to do […]
Two and a half times around the deck equals one mile (1.66 km) Yesterday we thought we’d do the mile before breakfast, only to find that the deck we wished to use was ‘closed’ due to the crew washing down and they didn’t want anyone to slip and hurt themselves. We climbed to various other […]
Our third and final promo was with Aer Lingus – the above shows Aer Lingus B 707 at Manchester Airport.We picked New York again, but this time we didn’t fly direct, but via Dublin and Shannon. The memorable thing about this flight for me was at Dublin Airport while we were in transit. I visited […]
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, […]
In 1788 Thomas Gilbert was the Captain of the Charlotte, which had sailed to Australia as part of the first fleet carrying convicts. After discharging his convict passengers Captain Gilbert sailed for China and passed through a group of islands that we now know as The Gilbert Islands. He made sketches of the islands and […]
A friend of mine commented on an old post, (which I posted in 2015), about cooking a Christmas turkey that doesn’t dry out, so I thought I’d post the recipe again, because Christmas is only a few weeks away. Christmas comes but once and year, & this is the only time my wife and I […]
Our third and final promo was with Aer Lingus – the above shows Aer Lingus B 707 at Manchester Airport.We picked New York again, but this time we didn’t fly direct, but via Dublin and Shannon. The memorable thing about this flight for me was at Dublin Airport while we were in transit. I visited […]
The holiday has started for some . . . the beginning of another cruise for us. In addition to our normal duties on board, plus ferrying passengers ashore in the lifeboats, we were expected to help entertain the students in the afternoons, during sea days. Most afternoons were free for the students, lessons being held […]
American Samoa is the only area south of the Equator controlled by the USA, not counting the Antarctic. The above is the flag of American Samoa and Pag Pago (pro Pango Pango) is the capital, which is located on the island of Tutuila. The US had been interested in this part of Samoa from as […]
