Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas March 13, 2011

We have been almost entirely out of contact since we left Harbour Island. My wifi hasn’t worked since we left Harbour Is., and I can’t send or receive email or get on the internet. And I haven’t had access to wifi anywhere. Our stay on the island was relaxing, and we came to be recognized by a number of people there. We became friends with our inn keeper, Rosie, and we enjoyed talking with her and her mother, Stephanie, and daughter Wongechi. Rosie’s situation is rather interesting. She is married to a Kenyan who runs a tea and coffee plantation in Kenya. Obviously, they don’t live together for much of the year. He is 20 years older than she is. Curiously, both her husband and mother are my age, 64. She was quite interested to hear of our 2006 experiences in Ethiopia and wants us to see her and her Kenyan family in Kenya. We enjoyed our dinners on the island and on Sunday went to the Anglican Church with Rosie. Her daughter had a dance performance during the service. I was asked to introduce us to the congregation, which I did standing by stating my name and that I am from NJ, and this is my wife Pinky and she is from NJ, too. For some reason, everybody laughed at that. There was a lot of hymn singing, and the service was not unlike that of a Roman Catholic Church. Father Russell gave a memorial sermon about going to the mountain and then into the valley. This service ran about 2 hours, the longest regular church service I’ve ever been to. For the remainder of our stay we ran into people who recognized us in one way or another. For instance, our waitress at Sip Sip recognized us from church. At dinner Sunday we ran into Father Russell and his wife and exchanged cordialities with them. Later, at Valentines Marina where they had a great Bahaman band that played Shout, we had the running lady, who I encouraged earlier while she was jogging along a street, speak with us, and a man from Richmond who sat behind us at the church service stopped by, too. The beach was a short ride from Rosie’s B&B. It faced the Atlantic Ocean, was flat and covered with fine white sand. The water was refreshing and relatively calm due to a reef off shore. I was in frequent contact via email with Jerry Brown. On Monday morning Jerry advised that they were docked at Spanish Wells, at the north end of Eleuthera Island, and were waiting for a mechanic to attend to their inoperative generator. On her instruction, after bidding farewell to Rosie and her family, we boarded the 3:40 ferry for Spanish Wells. The Browns met us there with a golf cart, but not without a little drama. The gang plank was raised before we got off, and we almost didn’t disembark with our luggage before the ferry left. It was a close call. Since then we have been cruising around in the 46’ trawler in beautiful Bahamian waters, brilliant sun, continuous breezes (heavier at times) and moderate temperatures that haven’t risen above 80 degrees. Their trawler is a wonderful craft with quarters aft (ours) and for (Browns). The two are separated by a living/dining area, complete with reading lamps and Sirius radio. Above is the bridge, where Capt. Andy directs our passage. The boat is equipped with a rubber dingy that we use to get to landfall when moored. We even had a pretty neat toilet that we flushed with a hand pump.

Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Bahamas March 12, 2011

We have been almost entirely out of contact since we left Harbour Island. My mifi hasn’t worked, and I can’t send or receive email or get on the internet. Our stay on the island was relaxing, and we came to be recognized by a number of people there. We became friends with our inn keeper, Rosie, and we enjoyed talking with her and her mother, Stephanie, and daughter. Rosie’s situation is rather interesting. She is married to a Kenyan who runs a tea and coffee plantation in Kenya. Obviously, they don’t live together for much of the year. He is 20 years older than she is. Curiously, both her husband and mother are my age, 64. She was quite interested to hear of our 2006 experiences in Ethiopia and wants us to see her and her Kenyan family in Kenya. We enjoyed our dinners on the island and on Sunday went to the Anglican church with Rosie. Her daughter had a dance performance during the service. I was asked to introduce us to the congregation, which I did standing by stating my name and that I am from NJ, and this is my wife Pinky and she is from NJ, too. For some reason, everybody laughed at that. There was a lot of hymn singing, and the service was not unlike that of a Roman Catholic Church. Father Russell gave a memorial sermon about going to the mountain and then into the valley. This service ran about 2 hours, the longest regular church service I’ve ever been to. For the remainder of our stay we ran into people who recognized us in one way or another. Our waitress at Sip Sip recognized us from church. For instance, at dinner we ran into Father Russell and his wife and exchanged cordialities with them. At Valentines Marina Sunday night where they had a great Bahaman band that played Shout we had the running lady, who I encouraged earlier while she was jogging along a street, speak with us, and a man from Richmond who sat behind us at the church service stopped by, too.

Dunmore Town, Eleutera Bahamas Friday, March 4, 1011

Pinky and I embarked on another of our adventures today. This all started after I had a couple beers and dinner with Princeton classmate Andy Brown on February 2 after a class Community Service Fund board meeting and Andy told me he and his wife Jerry were leaving the following Monday for the Bahamas to cruise around the islands on their troller. He then asked if Pinky and I would be interested in meeting them in the Bahamas and cruising with them for a few days. My first question, of course, was, “Just what is a troller?” Well, it is an engine driven boat that does not depend on wind power. After following up with Pinky about this we enthusiastically said yes! Andy said they would pick up us up on the island of Eleuthera on or about March 7, and we would all fly back to NJ on Sunday the 13th. All we had to do was get ourselves to Eleuthera! I booked a flight to North Eleuthera airport and a return from Great Abaco. I confess to having to look both islands up on the world atlas, as I really didn’t know where any Bahamas island is except Nassau (a key place given that I was born on Nassau Road in High Bridge and have a particular soft spot in my heart for Nassau Hall.) So, we left on a flight from Newark today, after having an unpleasant incident with TASA. We brought with us 16 oz. containers of sun block and daily moisture lotion, along with a prescription for these needed applications from Dr. Jim Johnson (’69). The TASA agent confiscated these two dangerous substances at security, advising that they each exceeded the maximum permitted 3 oz. and that they were merely over the counter crèmes, not perscriptions. Despite my protests to the contrary, he grabbed them and dumped them in the garbage. Needless to say, I was pissed and also concerned about spending 9 days in the Bahamas without these much needed skin conditioners. Adding insult to this is that when we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale en route to Eleuthera, upon inquiry the TASA agent there told me that the Newark agent was wrong in confiscating the crèmes and that Dr. Jim’s scribbled prescription should have sufficed. (This is where we are today compared to the ‘60’s, less liberty and freedom, more inflexible government imposition, less common sense….) Our flight to Eleuthera was a 10 seater, but I handled it pretty well. We settled into our home for 3 days – the Sugar Maple, a modest 7-room B&B on Harbour Island, a 10 minute water taxi ride east of Eleuthera. Harbour Island is a tiny 3-mile long by 1-mile wide island with lots of restaurants and doll-house like architecture. The best way to get around here is by golf cart, and we have already reasonably mastered the island’s traffic patterns - no traffic lights, no tour buses, no trucks, narrow paved roads with lots of pot holes, no traffic police, people actually wave to you when you drive by and they drive on the left side of the road. I imagine it is like Nassau was 50 years ago before the big hotels and cruise ships. This is a far cry from our usual stays at places like Marriott Vacation Club but looks to be an ideal get away for a few days before we join the Browns on their troller. Our dinner tonight was at a local restaurant and consisted of “Bahamas lobster” - superb!

Sunday, June 27, 2010, St. Petersburg, Russia

When I left off in my earlier dispatch, we were assembled at the Atlantic Hotel in St. Petersburg, Russia, waiting to disembark for the wedding celebration of Jamie Blackburn and Victoria Leontieva, which was to include getting there as well as being there. None of us knew what to expect, including the groom. The 43 of us that traveled from the US were all smiles and anxious talk, particularly the mother of the groom, Cyndy Blackburn. We knew we were about to have a good and memorable time, but we didn’t know the half of it. Three days before when Pinky and I arrived in St. Petersburg, time lagged and exhausted as we were, we had dragged ourselves to the ballet for a presentation of Swan Lake at the Majiinski Theater, part of St. Petersburg’s Stars of the White Nights Music Festival. At the time we didn’t think anything could top what we experienced. For those not familiar with Swan Lake, and I confess to not having been, this is the quintessential of ballets, with music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and performances by artists with long and complicated Russian names On top of it the theater is historically magnificent, with impeccable acoustics. Swan Lake proved to be merely an introduction to The Wedding Celebration We Will All Remember! Each of the guests had been provided with an invitation in Russian, but with enough English that we should have at least some sense of what was coming: Dear passengers, have a good trip! Don’t be late on the ship of contemporaneity, which will be waiting for you at Moyka Nab. 96 at 18.00 o’clock and leave, when two wedding dabble phial banged and one is simple (18:30) All hands on deck, there, when marriages are concluded! Now, I confess that I read this invitation at least a half a dozen times and had no idea what it said, so along with everyone else I anxiously boarded one of the two buses and left @ 5:30 PM for the waterways, looking forward to having a vodka toast to the bride and groom with Jimmy! Once on board the canal boats, we enjoyed oeuvre deuves, chilled vodka, entertainment and sights of St. Petersburg from the canal (or river, I’m not sure which.) We had music and a hilarious magician. The boat ride was an event in itself and went on for quite some time. In Russia, it is thought that if the bride and groom see angels on their wedding day, it will bring them luck. Well, along the way a group of white angels caught up with us and kept up along the way riding bicycles and letting us all know their presence by blowing whistles and saluting us all from the walkways lining the waterway and from bridges overhead. We eventually got to more open water, when the white pigeons appeared. Out they came, and many of the family took them and raised them into the air on signal for an incredible aerial display. White doves apparently also bring good luck to the bride and groom, who were sailing in their own boat with the maid of honor and best man and who looked like they were having the time of their lives! We arrived where we were to have the wedding feast and disembarked to the greetings of various angels, two of which were young women elevated high above the ground with enormous white dresses. Needless to say, I was snapping away with my Canon TiII digital SLR camera. Everyone was smiling and obviously pleased with the unfolding of events. The assembled, which looked to be between 125 and 150, greeted the bride and groom. Victoria’s dress was stunning, and her father had to be beside himself with pride and happiness. (I relate better to the father since I am the father of a recent bride but realize well that Victoria’s mother had to be equally inspired.) Both parents, Rosteslav and Marionella Leontiev, proved to be most wonderful of hosts. The bride and groom danced briefly on an outside patio, framed on one side by the river and two enormous semicircular montages of the bride and groom, and on the other side by the restaurant. We were entertained by a series of performances, including American Indian dancing led by the father of the groom, complete with chief’s headdress; bluegrass band Sundown, complete with 5-string banjo, all Russian (VERY impressive): Irish dancers; Irish bagpipers; Russian folk dancers; a special video wherein US President Barak Obama and Russia President Dmitry Medvedev greeted the newlyweds and spoke to their hopes for a happy and productive marriage. The US President told the assembled that this alliance by marriage is very symbolic and as Russian character, cheerful disposition of Moldovia and endurance of Yakutia are wonderfully mixed in Victoria; ballroom dancing brilliantly performed by a child couple; cooking contest between the bride’s and groom’s families; more folk dancing where the wedding guests jumped in and showed their stuff; three red-clad strong men who performed incredible feats of strength, and a finale of an assemblage of dancers doing a Broadway-like number outside in the rain, topped off by a Reunions-like fireworks display! When it came time for Victoria to toss her flowers, I told Olga that she should be sure to catch it, and she dutifully did! Back on the boats, the wedding guests were treated to White Nights on the St. Petersburg waterways, including raising of the many drawbridges, fully lit and visible during the brief period of darkness. Still more vodka and fellowship, great conversation, and the American contingent were by now great friends sharing in an experience we all knew was really special. Jimmy was so taken (either by the events but more probably by vodka or Champaign) that he took a header down the stairs in the bow, but suffered only a minor abrasion on his head after I helped to break his fall. Soon thereafter we docked, and Pinky and I smartly elected to walk back to the Atlantic Hotel. Thank goodness we went with Bart and Mary Jane Stuck. Bart is Jimmy’s boyhood buddy from Detroit. He helped us find our way with nary a mishap, and we made it back just as daybreak emerged at 3:30 AM.

Saturday, June 26, 2010, St. Petersburg, Russia

It is now 3 PM St Petersburg time at the Atlantic Hotel, St Petersburg, Russia, and I have a few moments before THE WEDDING CEREMONY. Pinky and I left NJ last Tuesday evening for Russia to witness the Russian wedding ceremony of Jamie Blackburn and Victoria Leontieva. For those who don't know, the two met during Victoria's PG year at Mersersburg Academy. We have joined a group of 43 which traveled from the US to be here with Jamie and Victoria and meet her family here in St Petersburg. The past few days have been non stop. Victoria arranged for us to take a series of tours with Olga, who had been her English teacher and who has an uncommon command of Russian history, particurly St Petersburg. With her we've had to move "bistro," or quickly. Here in St Petersburg there is much to see. Most of the sights involve what developed before the Bolsheik revolution, with the various Peters, Nicholas', and Catherines. We learned about "Catherine the Spender, " and it is no wonder that the people revolted against them all and their excesses. It is hard to imagine the resources of the people that were directed to support the opulence and lavish lifestyle of the Romanoff family. However, the cultureal remnanta of that time are priceless. The Hermitage in St Petersburg served as the Winter POuralace and has endless rooms filled with priceless art and gildted trimmings. The Summer Palace is located in Pushkin, 15 miles south of the city. It contains a long line of amazing rooms decorated as you couldn't believe, with the crown being the Amber Room, fully restored, paid for by the German government and opened to the public in just 2007. Much of the Summer Palace was destroyed by the Nazi's during WWII, and it has been meticulously restored at great cost to what it is today. Both palaces are very popular with tourists, and they are important to Russia's emerging tourist industry. In fact, tourism is second only to shipbuilding in economic importance to St Petersburg. Our ride back from the Summer palace was highlighted by an incredible lunch at a nearby Russian restaurant, complete with numerous vodka toasts, a Russian band with accordian and great singing, and great food. Olga has been an incredibly informative and pleasant tour director. Her knowledge of the history is boundless. A highlight was near the end of our tour of the Youssoupov Palace, where she recounted the killing of Rasputin right where the shootings actually took place in the basement of the Youssoupov family residence, including how he survived two gunshot wounds to the chest and one to the head before being dumped in the frozen river. She shared with us some of her experiences living in Russia. Most memorable is the invasive corruption that is everywhere. The Traffic Officials command payoffs just to get a drivers license. Without paying a bribe. you cannot pass the driving or written test. Pay enough and you don't need to take the test at all. Between 40 and 50 per cent of the population works for the government (not much different than it is in NJ). In the election when Vladmir Putin was "elected" prime minister and president, those who worked for the government were required to prove that they cast their votes for Putin by taking a photo of their votes on their cell phones and texting it. I suppose that bridges are now being designed and supervised in Russia where the responsible Professional Engineers received their accreditation this way, and this doesn't lend itself to generating a lot of confidence in the integrity of the infrastructure. The WWII St Petersburg Siege Memorable was incredibly moving. The memorial commerates the bravery and unimaginable experiences of the St Petersburg military and citizenry during the 900 day siege that the Nazi's imposed on the city. About one million military perished and another one million citizens died during this incredible time. People were reduced to eating saw dust and rats. Ultimaltely, the Nazi's failed in their attempt to take the city, and the war front contributed to the Nazi loss of the war. Victoria's family invited us all to dinner last evening at a wonderful place just off the river in the city. We enjoyed a variety of Russian fare, including beer. We got to meet Victoria's parents, who served as gracious hosts, and other family members. After dinner our tour of the gardens was abruptly interrupted by a drenching downpour, which caused us ride back to our hotel in our bus drenched to the skin. A great time and adventure all the way around! Needless to say, I've been taking a lot of pix with my new Canon TiII digital camera. Thus far they look great. I'll be pooling them with pix that other wedding guests have been taking, and we'll post them on the net for all to see. Soon we will change and leave for the ceremony. We don't know too much of what is to take place. Even Jamie appears to be clueless. What we do know is that we leave the hotel at 5:30 PM on two buses and travel to one of the many canals in the city. From there we continue to be split in two groups and disembark on two boats to an as yet unknown destination. I suspect this will go on until late in the night.......

Monday, March 1, 2010, Hong Kong

We are finishing up our adventure in Hong Kong. Since we arrived, the weather has been characterized by moderate temps (mid 70's) and fog, quite a contrast to when we started in Singapore. In fact, the fog has gotten thicker since we arived on Saturday. Our hotel is right off Victoria Harbor in Kowloom, just north of Hong Kong Is. We've enjoyed taking a cable car up to the Big Buddah on Lantau Is, which was shrouded in fog - which made photographing it difficult. The cable car ride was terrifying, however, at least to me. It went on for endless kilometers up over a couple mountains. After we got there and photoed the foggy Buddah, we had to return to the bottom! We've maneuvered the MTR (subway system) expertly, with Jeff Marston just about taking the lead. Stanley market was amazing, and we picked up several Christmas presents there and a coupe cool dragon boxer underware shorts for me. Our Asian meals have been memorable, except that I have no idea what I have been eating most of the time. They don't have chop sui in Hong Kong as it turns out. At least I couldn't find it anywhere on the menu. We spent quite some time in the Hong Kong History Museum today. One could spend days there, tracing the areas's history from the beginning through the return to The Peoples Republic of China. The Brits really but the Chinese through the ringer as they did the Americans back in the 1800's. We leave Asia tomorrow on Japan Air Lines to Tokyo, then to Kennedy Airport. Total journey should take 24 hours with stop overs, but NY is 13 hours earlier than Hong Kong, so it shouldn't seem to take so long.....well, at least I am hopeful of that. I am returning with more than 500 pictures I've taken, and I know you all can't wait to see them all! -- H. Clay McEldowney Hong Kong March 1, 2010 About 6 PM local time

Sunday, February 28, 2010, 8:30 AM Local Time

Hong Kong

It seems we have missed another bullet - we learned of Friday's snowstorm in NJ, bad enough to cancel the Rotary club meeting. Other bullets missed include earthquakes and tusamis, neither of which have occurred in the South China Sea during our voyage. Thanks goodness for that! We have been really busy, which accounts for my infrequent dispatches, and only this morning have I found s few minutes to spend at a hotel computer to compose this. Also, for a while cruising up the China coast we couldn't access email providers, and I suspect that the Chinese somehow were blocking Google, AOL, and others. (The Chinese version of the Fairness Doctrine.)

On the Pride we were kept up with current events with CNN International and Fox News. Interestingly, right in the middle of the US Health Insurance debate the a Canadian equivalent of a governor was reported to have gone to the US for heart surgery - he didn't want to have to wait for his procedure. Ironic to be sure! Anyway, going back to last Tuesday we moored in Da Nang, located on the coast and just south of the 17th parallel, which divided North and South Viet Nam. Concurrently, I've been reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and can't shake the history that transpired 40 years ago. The Viet Nam (or the American, depending on whether you're Viet Namese or American) War is a long past memory here, and the people welcome the Americans and other westerners with open arms. Half the population of Viet Nam wasn't even alive during the war. Those who were have apparently put it behind them and now appreciate the value of the tourist dollar.

In Da Nang we visited an incredible embroidery factory, where young women patiently and meticulously pour over their work creating beautiful works of art. Pinky attempted to shy me away from a superb Tiger embroidery, but I found a couple others and couldn't resist adding one to our tiger collection. I paid many dong for the piece, including the disassembled frame which I've been carrying around ever since, and can't wait to find a suitable place for it at home. On the streets the hawkers were unrelenting, trying to sell us whatever they had to sell. I settled for a cup of Viet Namese coffee - strong and flavorful.

We discovered that Viet Nam is the 2nd largest exporter of coffee - behind only Brazil. Who would have guessed! Our tour guide took us to a pagoda with more Buddahs and then to China Beach, a 25 mile long stretch of sand which the American troops used as a major base camp during the war. Now it is an up and coming vacation spot, with hotels being built and much construction under way.

That night we sailed in the Bay of Tonkin, where the whole Viet Nam war started for the USA, for Halong Bay - a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing 1969 islands of incredible beauty. There are huge karst limestone formations bursting out of the sea, covered with fog in the AM and presenting eerie apparitions. 22 of us form the Pride took a junk out to the islands, toured an incredible cave carved from the bowels of one of the islands, kayaked for an hour and a half out and around a few of the islands, and finishing at a beach and a 404 step path to the top of one of the islands.

After a day at sea, we docked in Hong Kong Saturday morning in a dense fog which lifted as we sailed along Hong Kong Is to the port. It is something to see in person the sandwiched in buildings that we've all seen in pictures! After extending goodbys to all the friends we made of the staff and passengers, we taxiied to the Shangra-La Hotel, right on the harbor. As if the hotel isn't luxurious enough, we somehow got a free upgrade to the Heritage Floor, where we enjoy incredible views of Hong Kong, complimentary cocktails in the evening and breakfast in the morning, and an grand room! This is really easy to get used to!