QE2 Final Voyage Blog

[Karanja]

The QE2 blog continues on http://www.worldshipny.com with some new text and photos added yesterday and today. The liner is now en route from Malta to Alexandria.

Ted In NYC

[safarigal]

The QE2 blog continues on www.worldshipny.com with some new text and photos added yesterday and today. The liner is now en route from Malta to Alexandria.

Ted In NYC

 

Thank you for posting the link. It makes wonderful reading, as does reading your blog of the last Westbound. We did enjoy hearing your presentations on that voyage, and being on the World Ship Society farewell trip, watching her slip into the darkness under the Verrazano Bridge.

 

One of the first ships I travelled on was the BI Karanja. Is your screen name in any way related to that wonderful vessel?

 

Lesley

[Karanja]

Thank you for posting the link. It makes wonderful reading, as does reading your blog of the last Westbound. We did enjoy hearing your presentations on that voyage, and being on the World Ship Society farewell trip, watching her slip into the darkness under the Verrazano Bridge.

 

One of the first ships I travelled on was the BI Karanja. Is your screen name in any way related to that wonderful vessel?

 

Lesley

 

Lesley

Thank you for the compliments.

 

Yes indeed. I sailed in BI's Karanja from Mombasa to Durban 27 April-7 May 1968 and her sister BI Kampala from Bombay to the Seychelles 24-29 March 1968 where I stayed two weeks before sailing in the State of Haryana from there to Mombasa.

 

Karanja's saloon class was full of Europeans leaving East Africa for the last time and Asians who had embarked At Bombay for Durban.

 

I wrote these sailings up in a book about passenger voyages called Ocean Liner Twilight published just last year. I love every minute of being on this pair, sea travel at its very best.

 

What is your connection to BI Karanja?

Ted

[safarigal]

Lesley

Thank you for the compliments.

 

Yes indeed. I sailed in BI's Karanja from Mombasa to Durban 27 April-7 May 1968 and her sister BI Kampala from Bombay to the Seychelles 24-29 March 1968 where I stayed two weeks before sailing in the State of Haryana from there to Mombasa.

 

Karanja's saloon class was full of Europeans leaving East Africa for the last time and Asians who had embarked At Bombay for Durban.

 

I wrote these sailings up in a book about passenger voyages called Ocean Liner Twilight published just last year. I love every minute of being on this pair, sea travel at its very best.

 

What is your connection to BI Karanja?

Ted

 

I was born and brought up in Kenya, and as my mother would not fly, we always went "home" to the UK by sea. Thus a lot of my childhood was spent on those lovely BI, Union Castle, Lloyd Triestino, and City ships. I do enjoy some of the newer ships, but there was something very special about those old ones! Too true, it was "sea travel at its very best". The QE2 also did that exceptionally well. Reading the blogs helps keep her alive somehow.

 

Thanks again for the link.

[FranKes2000]

The QE2 blog continues on www.worldshipny.com with some new text and photos added yesterday and today. The liner is now en route from Malta to Alexandria.

Ted In NYC

Thank you for the link.

My first crossing on the QE2 was in 1984 and my last 3 were this year, with too few between.

Another Lesley :)

[Karanja]

I was born and brought up in Kenya, and as my mother would not fly, we always went "home" to the UK by sea. Thus a lot of my childhood was spent on those lovely BI, Union Castle, Lloyd Triestino, and City ships. I do enjoy some of the newer ships, but there was something very special about those old ones! Too true, it was "sea travel at its very best". The QE2 also did that exceptionally well. Reading the blogs helps keep her alive somehow.

 

Thanks again for the link.

 

Lesley

Lucky you living in Kenya and traveling on those lovely ships.

 

I worked for a medical missionary in the Handeni District, Tanganyika, in 1962, and I also traveled on Lake Victoria's SS Usoga, a coal burner built in 1916.

 

Yes, I agree, the QE2 fits right in there.

Ted in NYC

[guernseyguy]

While not quite East African memories, my first cruise at the age of 11 was on the SS Uganda after she had been converted into a School Cruise ship. We never got to see the passenger accommodation, kept severely apart by ferocious Quartermasters who could spot a schoolboy queuing for seconds of breakfast at 100 paces.....We had great fun in Stanley Dorm - about 22 of us....so contemporary discussions about 'steerage' on Cunarders is hilarious!

[Karanja]

While not quite East African memories, my first cruise at the age of 11 was on the SS Uganda after she had been converted into a School Cruise ship. We never got to see the passenger accommodation, kept severely apart by ferocious Quartermasters who could spot a schoolboy queuing for seconds of breakfast at 100 paces.....We had great fun in Stanley Dorm - about 22 of us....so contemporary discussions about 'steerage' on Cunarders is hilarious!

 

Peter

It is good to hear that you were kept under control; I had always heard that. But it would have been educational to have had a carefully monitored tour of first class. Her decor so well reflected the service for which she was designed.

 

I visited Uganda before boarding Canberra in about 1980. What a treat. The first class dining room, two decks high, had a mural of London and one end and Fort Jesus (Mombasa) at the other.

 

The main lounge was furnished with blue leather chairs, and a pair of elephant tusks given by the Kabaka of Uganda bracketed the electiric fire place. There was also a fanciful rain forest mural packed with animals.

 

I had a trip booked and the Falklands War came along....

Ted in NYC