Dear friends, ship-mates, sods and nods.
First I like to welcome you to Marholmen and� our reunion party, and to you whom have travelled a long way, from Australia, South and North America, Tonga and from many countries in Europe, welcome to Sweden.
�When we first� started planning this last summer we thought maybe 30 to 40 old-timers would turn up, but here we are � 110 LEXPLORERS� from all around the world� --unbelievable.
It hasn�t been easy to find all of you and Lena and Talofa have done a fantastic job!� Not only in communicating with all of you but also making all the arrangements. Please give them a big hand.
We haven�t been able to find all persons and when I quote Lyall Watson�s e-mail to me it describes the bad luck:
�Dear
Hasse
Nobody seems to have any contact with Jim Snyder.
We are beginning to suspect that he was an alien put on this planet for our
amusement. There is no other explanation. No ordinary human being
could possibly get into all the trouble and scrapes that he did. But it would
be good to see him again.�
Well, it�s the little red ship that has made us get together again and she is the main thread in all these years.�
She has served us well and given us so many good times, adventures and memories, which we now can share with each other again.
It all started when Lars Eric Lindblad and his wife Sonja had their dream come through;� to build a ship suitable for a small number of passengers and constructed to travel to all parts of the world.
The ship was built and launched 1969 and I am very glad that you, Sonja, are with us today. You are the Godmother of the ship you named� �Lindblad Explorer�, and wished her good luck on all her coming voyages.
We couldn�t have got a better ship owner, leader and tour operator than Lars Eric Lindblad.
His appetite for finding new areas and places was unlimited. Whenever someone came up with new ideas of places to visit his standing answer was:� yes, let�s do it!!!�
Some of you here joined the ship already from the beginning but myself and most of you came onboard from 1972� when Swedish American Line became a part owner of the ship.
�
I have put all ships distance books into the computer and I like you to follow the little red ship through the time and what she have done over these 12 years.
From August 1972 until October 1984 the ship travelled 724 537 nautical miles. This equals to 33,5 times around the world along the equator.
During this time she made about 2900 stops in ports, places and anchorages. She visited some 120 countries with about 663 ports. She have a record of visiting 961 different islands, the most remote islands being Bouvet island belonging to Norway and located in the South Atlantic ocean and Peter the 1st island outside Ellsworth Land in Antarctica and belonging to no one.
Another remote island was Beverage reef, a sunken atoll south of Tahiti and belonging to New Zealand. There was no beer but magnificent snorkelling. The nearest island visited was Gr�s� Island, my own home place.
Already 1966 Lars Eric was the first tour operator to take tourists to Antarctica in a chartered Chilean navy ship. Not too comfortable.
Since Lindblad Explorer was built she has made 37 cruises from Ushuaia or Punta Arenas to Falkland Islands and Antarctica and 5-semi circum navigation cruises from Argentina to New Zealand each covering 7 700 nautical miles and 31 days. In the first years Explorer was alone in these waters. Today we would not be able to experience the same serene nature among the icebergs and animal life.�
There are over 35 big cruise ships cruising in these waters now.
Another area opened up by the little red ship was the Amazonas in Brazil. She cruised up the Amazon River 2 000 miles from Belem via Manaus to Iquitos Peru.
Galapagos islands were next to be explored. In 1974 Ecuador had hardly any restrictions into these waters and we were free to visit all the islands in the archipelago.� It was fantastic, we swam and snorkelled together with the sea lions.
Other areas new to tourism were Alaska, Aleutians islands and Bering sea and also the North West Territory, Greenland and Arctic. Do you remember when we had a polar bear as guest for dinner in Spitzbergen?
During cocktail hour he had peanuts and then he was served pepper steak together with two buckets of coca cola to get it down.
Seychelles islands were also an attractive area in those days as there were no airport in Victoria on� Mahe island and hardly any tourists on these tropical islands.
In 1973 we made a South Pacific cruise from east to west stopping at Easter Island, which had no airport at this time, Robinson Crusoe Island, Sala y Gomez, Henderson and Pitcairn as the first tourist ship ever. We anchored outside Bounty bay and all 90 passengers were taken ashore by the islander�s long boats. The 74 inhabitants, most of them descendents from the Bounty mutineers, were very hospitable and happy and later declared this Thursday the 22nd of March as a holiday.
In Papeete, Tahiti, we managed to shanghai the Swedish consul Bengt Danielsson. He was very reluctant in the beginning but finally could not resist the little red ship and an invitation onboard with Swedish sm�rg�sbord� and aquavit. He became our adviser and very popular lecturer for several cruises in this area. Bold, but with a long beard, he was called the �upside-down man� among the natives.
In April 1979 the ship became the first tourist vessel after Second World War to make cruises in to China, now Peoples Republic of China. We made seven cruises that year and in almost each port the passengers and some officers were invited by the Vice-Mayor for banquets, they were very lengthy. The Mao-tai, the local spirit - must be named after chairman Mao, tasted awful. The Vice-Mayors always got very drunk and the ship had to pay for the banquets.
The ship became popular among the Chinese and I am sure the red paint helped.
A remarkable cruise took place in November 1980. It started in Singapore to the sub Antarctic islands in Indian and South Atlantic oceans. We stopped at Christmas islands, Amsterdam, St. Paul and Herd islands. Our most important stop was in Kerguelen Islands where we had arranged for refuelling and were able to get fresh water from a glacial stream. We had to fight the weather from west but surprisingly very few got seasick.
South Sandwich islands, very seldom visited, offered interesting stops. Zavodovski Island was the most inhabited island, 4 million penguins estimated by the experts. We could navigate there by the smell.� A few years later, when I met Roger Tory Petersen, he reminded me of the 8 million penguins on Zavodovski island and when I said: �you counted 4 million when we were there�, he replied: �pairs, Hasse, pairs!!�
This voyage covered 10 735 miles and lasted 46 days.
In 1984 Lindblad Explorer was the first commercial ship transiting the Northwest Passage from New Found land over the American continent and via Bering Strait to Yokohama, Japan.
At one stage we thought we had to prepare for wintering over but luckily we had a strong vessel under our feet and were able to get through the ice barriers.
Finally we were through and could anchor in Point Barrow and Don Perignon was served on the bridge and as promised all bearded nods and together with the chief officer had their beards shaved off.
The voyage took 40 days and a distance of 8 920 miles and the adventure was covered by most newspaper in North America and Europe.
The Explorer had a skilled crew of about 60 who could make the repair when �the machine was broken�. We hade a team of ships doctors who kept us healthy with the secret green miracle medicine. If that didn�t help they often prescribed a shot of whisky in the bar. The ship also had a group of very knowledgeable naturalist, scientists and lecturers onboard whom educated both passengers and crew in behaviour towards nature and how to behave when you meet a polar bear. After long training they also became members of SODS and NODS. For you who are not familiar with these exclusive clubs, SODS stands for �Southern Oceans Drivers Society� and NODS for �Northern Oceans Drivers Society�.
�At one time we were 21 different nationalities onboard. A united group of intrepid Explorers.
Apart from Swedish American Line, represented here by Tom Wethje, the ship had two more part owners. 1980 the Swire group in Hong Kong represented here by Geoffrey Havilland and his wife Mary and 1982 by the Sal�n group in Sweden represented by Rolf Bergkvist, who unfortunately had an accident and couldn�t come.
I can confirm that all three have been very good and caring owners.
My friends, I think we have been very privileged to serve on this little red ship whom has taken us almost everywhere without making any harm to nature or wildlife, only, as Keith Shackleton once said, leaving behind a little red paint on the edges of the ice floes.
She has conquered bad weather and heavy seas and all-onboard was always feeling safe.
I am sure we will hear and share many stories during these days we are together.
So let�s celebrate and please join me in a toast to the
�Little Red Ship� � LINDBLAD EXPLORER.