update #1

Date: Thur,

15 May 1997

14.35:47  (PDT)

Subject: Update Number One - VALENCIA

RTW Travels

first of all, I¥m skipping the caps because Iím using a spanish keyboard that is a bit different and I keep getting a weird symbol (<) every time I go for the cap key, so bear with me!!

We're in the third week and this is written about 600 n.m. off   the coast of Cape Hatteras. Seas have been relatively calm so far, no seasickness yet. By far the most remarkable thing of the voyage has been the color of the ocean. It is an incredible deep, violet blue that we have never seen before. Churned in the wake, it becomes a wonderful Caribbean light blue.  

We were supposed to leave Savannah on Wed, Apr. 30. That was changed to Friday the 2nd around 11pm, then 2 am. We finally sailed at 7 am Saturday morning. It felt like we were on a press check at Buchanan Printing.

We checked on board around noon, had drinks in the loungewith the master, Kapitan Gunther, where we met Antoon von Breda, from the Netherlands. Antoon is travelling for a year also, but in the other direction. (Patti, we gave him your phone number in case he goes through Dallas. “von” means hunk in Dutch I believe). We had made happy hour arrangements in Savannah with some people we'd met the night before (2 ladies from New York and a local Savannahite journalist / cocktail waitress) so we asked Antoon to join us. We went to Hannah's Bar and listened to Emma Kelly, a 78 year old lounge singer who was written about in the book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”. After a remarkable performance from her, we moved to Club One to see Chablis, a 6 ft. tall black cross dressing transsexual, also mentioned in the book. We think Antoon had a good time and the night was certainly a good send off for us.