As I will be leaving for a Scandinavian capital city within a few hours, this week’s Throwback Thursday is posted as early as technically possible. As you may or may not remember, last week, I took you along to the frozen continent of Antarctica and this week, we set sail for another continent.
Today, I’m going to bring you along to South America on a tender ride in one of the Chilean Fjords.
So what can I remember from this event in my life? I don’t remember the exact name of the fjord, but at least I do remember the name of the ship! The image was taken during my time working on board the Royal Viking Sun, most likely 1991 or perhaps even 1992.
Looking back at Royal Viking Sun’s cruise schedules, this could possibly have been in November 1992. On November 12th that year, we departed from Valparaiso, Chile, bound for Buenos Aires. Argentina. This image would therefore have been from that first week on the way down to Ushuaia, where we arrived on November 20th.
What else can I say about this image? Why are we cruising the fjords in a tender? It wasn’t because of a port visit but because the hired photographer of Royal Viking Line, Sir Harvey Lloyd, was going to do some images for the line’s next cruise calendar. I remember Sir Lloyd as a passionate and extremely talented photographer that occationally joined us to do exotic images of the ship in many various parts of the world.
The deck-hand with me on board the ship’s tender is Martin Mabansag from the Philippines. Martin and me used to be in “charge” of all the repairs of tenders and lifeboats, especially all fiber-glass work. Not to brag, but I was an expert at repairing the finer-glass damages to these boats. At least, that is how I remember it. Please let me have that memory. LOL.
Martin was a great colleague, and is one of those that I wonder what happened to after I left, and I also wonder if he still remembers the skinny Norwegian boy.
The image is as you can see torn and water/moist damaged, after having been kept in various storages over time, but is now digitalized as it is, in order to preserve it further.
Even though the Royal Viking Sun is still in active service as the Prinsendam, Royal Viking Line is unfortunately history. The closest you will be able to come to Royal Viking Line today, is on board any of the Viking Ocean Cruises' ships.
