January 30th 2004:

Email from the Ship: I arrived in London on Jan 19 and discovered my travel agent had me booked in for Jan 18 so I had to pay for the night I wasn't there.The next day I went sightseeing on "the original bus" where you can get off and on all day.I saw Big Ben, London bridge, Westminister Abbey,Buckingham Palace, St Paul's Cathedral, and a boat trip on the Thames River. In the evening I saw Les Miserable at the palace theatre which was a wonderful experience.

On Jan 21 I went to Andrew Wier shipping office and met the 4 other passengers. Florence is 70 year old retired social worker from Spokane Wash. She has been on many freighter trips. She also does yearly volunteer work in Zambia. She is a nice,pleasant friendly person. Ron and Daphne are semi-retired, in their mid 60's. They are both fun-loving and enjoyable to chat with. David is a retired sea captain from Plymouth, England. He has done a lot of sea traveling. We left London 21st and traveled the English country side on our way to Dover where we boarded "Le Shuttle" van and all. We went under the English channel via euro tunnel for 35 min. What an experience!

From Calais we drove to the dock in Dunkirk and boarded the ship M V Foylebank @2 pm. The purser Valentina met us and escorted us to our cabins, 5 decks up. Climbing up the curving ladder, holding on to ropes for balance is how we got from the deck to the ship. To my surprise we got a double cabin with twin beds, dresser,closet,desk and a bathroom,with sink and a shower.I also have a living room with a couch, desk, frig, vcr player, and an electric tea kettle. The ship is an old rusty cargo ship and has clean comfortable rooms.On the coffee table was a beautiful bouquet of flowers and fruit and a can of cookies. At 5:15 we had a champagne welcome party in the lounge. We met the captain who is friendly humorous fellow, cheif engineer 1st mate, 4 cadets, and the purser. We laughed and listened to stories. The chief engineer told us about the filming of "The Castaway" where they used this ship but all one could see was the black bottom passing by. He said he never did see Tom Hanks. Then we went to dinner which consisted of wine, bread, cheese, salad, baked chicken, cauliflower, carrots, potato balls and dessert. I watched on video "The Castaway" and went to bed.I didn't wake up until 8:30 so I missed breakfast. Everbody was concerned because I had told them I was an early riser. Later we had an inside tour of the ship. There are 6 decks so we are getting our exercise. There are a group of us who meet in the lounge for a drink before dinner I spent the afternoon reading, writing,watching the loading of the ship from the dock. We were told we would not be leaving until the 23rd.

What an experience I'm having. We set sail from Dunkirk @6pm Jan23.It was dark and we all went to bridge to watch. When we left our "berth" tugboats took us to the lock and a pilot came on board to direct us out of the harbor. We passed several ships co9 of the city and the shipsming in and saw many lighthouses. It was awesome with all thelights. We sailed to Le Harve and had to anchor off shore until a berth opens up. Rumor has it that we will get berth soon. I'm learning so much about cargo ships and how they operate.