update #1

Date: Thur,

15 May 1997

14.35:47  (PDT)

Subject: Update Number One - VALENCIA

RTW Travels

The Savannah ship yard container berth was eye opening. Picture the warehouse scene at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where the Army stashes away the Arc. Now think of 40 ft long, 10 ft high, 60,000 lb metal containers stacked like that for hundreds of yards. Our ship, the “Palermo Senator,” is capable of carrying 1300 of these monster crates-equivalent to 2000 tractor trailer loads.

After a solid two weeks of almost non-stop visiting and sight seeing, we now have plenty of time to kick back and absorb our surroundings. Our ship is 720 ft. long and over seven stories tall. We have a crew of twenty from all over the world. There are four East German officers, four Russian officers, an Estonian cook and seamen (huh huh, huh huh) from Fiji, the Tuvalu islands and the Kiribati islands (Gary get out your atlas). After a BBQ on deck last night, we now have names and addresses of people to visit in the Kiribatis, St. Petersburg and Rostock, Germany.

We were glad we were travelling on a commercial wessel vs. a cruise ship. Besides ourselves, the only other passenger was a 75 year old Italian American whose English is not much better than the crews'. We were guests of honor. ML liked the odds: 22 men and 1 woman!! We saw photos of homes, wives and kids, discussed Russian politics, sang along with the Kiribati islanders, cheered our favorites in a transAtlantic tabletennis tournament (for which ML deisgned the winner's certificate), had all the electronics on the bridge explained, drove the ship manually in a 5 mile long zig zag pattern and were frightened by the free fall lifeboat drill.