Hi,
I know that it is possible to travel in commercial boats as "one more member of the crew". Apparently it seems to be very interesting when time is not an issue. I've been trying to get some informations on the web but have not find yet any serious datas. Does anybody have ever used this way of traveling recently? I've heard very good experiences from writters, painters, photographers etc...but they are all from the 70's...(the golden age as Rob says).
Now, I'm tired of airports hassles, planes unconfort and I'm looking for a different philosophy for my trips.
Any experience/reliable information very welcome.
Thank you.
Fred, my first experience of that was just after WW2 when we went out to India, but it was on passenger boats; I returned to the UK and then made another double journey. It took about twenty or so days each way and was absolutely lovely. On the last trip I was just fifteen and fell in love with a woman in her twenties. She was so kind and even wrote back to me once or twice when the trip was over. How much grace and kindness there lies in the soul of some ladies; how simple it would have been just to shatter the illusions of a dumb kid!
Oh - Russ: on the last voyage from Bombay I met a young guy called John Cunningham who was on his way to Britain and then the US, where he joined the air force and was stationed in Biloxi. We wrote back and forth for a while and he used to send me his old US Camera and Popular Photography mags... the more I think about it, the more and more people turn out to have had a share in the responsibility for my becoming a snapper. I would be happy to contact him again but have no idea if that is possible. Is there any way that one might trace a guy who was in Biloxi around '53 - '54?
Fred; you have the answer to your travel desires at your elbow: just get into a car and head back to France! It is damn hard to beat for everything that the traveller photographer could seek. Forget long boat journeys - great for kids, but as a thinking adult you become a prisoner of the environment and the group. Imagine breakfast in the face of somebody you have learned to hate! Every day! I'd rather take a boat along one of the canals... Of course, it probably affects you (France) just as Scotland does me: I can no longer see it for what it is, just for what ticks away under the surface or lies on the city streets. Pity, really, it is quite beautiful. In around thirty years I even saw Loch Lomond in sunshine twice.
Rob C
