Travel

In the end, it was a bit of an anticlimax, as we slid slowly and very neatly into the small port of Poti. Small the port maybe, but it is a hive of activity, with a miscellany of the …

Well, this morning I received a note from my contact at the ferry company in Odessa:

From: VLADLEN [mailto:wave_vyt@mail.ru]
Sent: Mon 11/23/2009 1:34 AM
To: Max Johnson
Subject: Re: Help!

DEAR MR.MAX,

THE SITUATION WITH M/V “GREIFSWALD”:

1/.DELAY BECAUSE OF …

Tension on board the MS Griefswald mounting, and I would not entirely rule out the possibility of mutiny.

The Georgian coastlineWe are in a very strange position. Lying idle in the eastern end of the Black Sea, from the …

Now don’t get me wrong; the hours pass on board The MS Griefswald at precisely the same rate as they do elsewhere, and I don’t begrudge the UKR Ferry Company the additional eighty or so hours of my life that …

The problem seems to be that of small ports and big ships.

It is Friday afternoon, and we have been advised that we can’t land today because there is a large gas tanker blocking our path to the single …

At the rate that we are travelling, we may never arrive, although I am led to believe that we will be there within four or five hours. I am not sure that I will be too disappointed to see the …

Ah, the miracles of modern technology; the internet on the high seas.

Loading the GriefswaldWe slipped almost silently away from the dock in Illychevsk at about midnight, some fifteen hours after I had been urged to be at the …

It is now officially time to roll. I have my ticket in hand, the weather forecast is good and today was a simply gorgeous fall day here on the Black Sea coast.

Which was a good thing, because I was …

Odessa is a great place; in small doses, or possibly large ones in the summer, I would imagine. It is vibrant, down at heel, slightly seedy with great architecture and a fantastic variety of restaurants. It has the curious feel …