TRANSITIONING PASSENGERS AND CREW ABOARD THE "PACIFIC PRINCESS"
By Bob Van Leer

  (AT SEA, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2001) - After leaving Luderitz we set a course southeast to Cape Town, South Africa. This will be the last stop on our cruise and we then begin the 34-hour trip home.

  On our cruise ship, Pacific Princess, we will have sailed 7760 nautical miles or 8924 statute miles. We will have visited 12 ports in 10 countries and have been on the ship a total of 25 days.

   The ship is not large, as cruise ships go these days. It is 553 feet long with a displacement of 16,270 tons and has a loaded draft of 25 feet, three inches. It is propelled by four Fiat 10 cylinder Diesel engines producing 18,000 horsepower. It travels 147 feet per gallon of fuel at 19 knots speed. its maximum (21.85 m.p.h.).

  We will arrive at Cape Town in the morning, but our bags have to be packed (which includes my computer) and set outside our cabin tonight. Tomorrow the remarkable transformation takes place. In the space of a few hours almost all the 569 passengers and their baggage leave the ship and an equal number of new passengers come aboard. The ship continues on through the Indian Ocean with stops in East Africa. About 50 passengers are continuing on for the next leg. There is a constant transition among the crew of 357 as some fulfill their contracts and go home and new ones come aboard.

  It has been an enjoyable cruise and we have learned a lot. One lesson is that the problems of West Africa appear at this point to be intractable. We will have been gone from home for a month and are ready to get back, but are not looking forward to the long trip home. We will take a half-day tour of Cape Town before boarding a British Airways night flight to London. From there we fly to Seattle and finally back to Medford. At Cape Town we are very close to being on the other side of the globe from Gold Beach. Part of the "jet lag" this time will be to go from the long, lazy days of mid-summer back to mid-winter in just a few hours.