FROM GOLD BEACH TO TURKEY TO MALTA
By Bob Van Leer

  (ISTANBUL, TURKEY, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2001) - We boarded our cruise ship, Pacific Princess, this afternoon after a long trip from Gold Beach. Betty and I are on a cruise that will take us from Istanbul through the Mediterranean and out Gibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean. We then turn south and cruise along the west African coast to Cape Town at the southern tip of the continent for a total voyage of 7760 nautical miles.

  Betty and I started New Year's Eve day and drove to Medford to catch a plane Jan. 1 to New York. Our flight was at 6:40 a.m. Jan 1 so we rang in the new year asleep. We flew to John F. Kennedy airport in New York from Medford via Los Angeles. We were surprised by the number of people traveling Jan. 1. The planes were packed.

  New York was covered with a foot of snow but the airport was open for business. We stayed in New York at an airport hotel overnight. Our room was on the sixth floor and in the morning light the landscape was white. We caught a charter flight from JFK to Istanbul Jan. 2. This flight will not be a highlight of the trip. We were jammed in like cattle and it was not a comfortable trip. A plane crew member said the plane, a Boeing 757, was the campaign plane for new Pres. George Bush for several months.

  We made one stop from New York to Istanbul at Shannon, Ireland, for refueling. Total time in the air was about 10 hours. The airport at Istanbul is new and pleasant. We were at the airport 14 years ago and remembered officers with machine guns all over the place. This time none were in sight.

  Istanbul is 10 hours ahead of Gold Beach time. As I write this at 10 p.m. it is noon at home.

  Our stay in Turkey is brief and we leave tonight for Malta. We have been to Turkey a couple of times before and would have liked an opportunity to tour more of Istanbul, an old and fascinating city located on the Bosporus, the link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, and one of the busiest waterways on earth. Istanbul has a population of 9.2 million.

  Turkey is twice the size of California and a population of 65.5 million (1999). Most Turks are Muslim (98%), but the government is secular.

  Our cruise ship, the Pacific Princess, is the original "Love Boat" and the TV series was shot on here. But that was a long time ago and the ship is now outmoded by larger cruise ships. Instead of the glamour runs, she is assigned the African run.

  The Pacific Princess was built in 1970 and is small by current-day cruise ship standards. Passenger capacity is 658 and cruise ships are entering service now that carry 3000 passengers.

  Political problems have already intruded into the cruise. A letter delivered to our stateroom says, "The u.s. Department of State has issued a warning cautioning U. S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to the Cote d'lvoire (Ivory Coast). This is due to political and ethnic tensions in the country". So our scheduled stop there at Abidjan is canceled and replaced by a stop at Agadir, Morocco.

  Tomorrow will be a day at sea, as will the day after. Our first port of call is Valletta, Malta, on Saturday, Jan. 6, 794 nautical miles from Istanbul. (A nautical mile is 1.15 regular miles.