To break the trip a bit, we made a brief stop in Amsterdam. We were just a bit too early for the tulips, but we did see some cheese being made.

 

At about 6pm on the evening we were to leave Saudi, the airline called to confirm that we were scheduled for that night’s flight.  We said we were, and reminded the clerk that we had reservations for our dog, Sandy. The airline clerk said he didn’t show that as a confirmed reservation, and it would have to be worked out with the cargo office — which was closed for the day.

Of course, this led to ranting and raving, but the matter was resolved by our travel agent, although we wound up paying almost double what we’d been told it would cost. It was “take it or leave it” at the airport, so we paid, and hoped to get a refund after we got back (scilicet, “fat chance”).

  

Getting ready for retirement

Moving from the Middle East was a necessary step in early retirement. The first step was to recruit some help for packing all our stuff. We found a ready supply of labor.

Once everything was packed, it needed to be hauled away. Our first efforts ran into some problems… First, we got the cart before the horse…

Then we determined that we had a capacity problem . . .

But we soon got everything fixed, and we were off and running!

(Getting all this stuff on the boat was a bit of a challenge.)

We cruised aboard the Fantome on our 25^th anniversary, in May, 1996. We had a great time, and the trip perhaps whetted our appetite for cruising in a more serious way.

We were saddened to hear of Fantome’s loss with all hands, two years later, in Hurricane Mitch.

Here Sue and Bill prepare to board, May 6, 1996:

We took this on 5/6/96 in Antigua. This is English Harbor, from the mountain above:

Here is the Fantome herself. We took the photo from a launch, on the way to shore. This was the first week of May, 1996, and was probably off of St. Maarten.

Here, Bill III takes part in one of the games aboard. This was called the “Boat Race” and involved either drinking a bottle of Guiness Stout, or pouring the bottle over your head, as Bill demonstrates.

It was pretty messy, and to our delight, the Captain led the charge to leap overboard afterwards.