This year it was Central America again and visits to Costa Rica (twice, both coasts), Nicaragua, Panama (including a transit of the canal — the third one by the MV Explorer during the month of May), Honduras (Roatan), Guatemala and Belize. Plus we zipped across the Caribbean to visit Jamaica before finishing the two-week voyage in Fort Lauderdale on Friday, June 5.
Getting home was an adventure. We cleared customs quickly. They have a great system at Fort Lauderdale. They unload the luggage directly from the ship into large metal containers with wire mesh all around them. Then the forklift driver takes it over to a place on the dock where a handler and his dog do a quick run around of the cube.
One presumes that if the dog gets a "hit," the luggage in that cube is set aside for a closer look. No problems for us, Judy had filled out the declaration and we were sent through quickly to the sidewalk and the cab line.But the cab station was chaos (there was no order at all), however Judy managed to flag one down and as we started loading our stuff in it it suddenly occurred to me that there would be room for two more in the cab, so I turned and yelled out "anyone else going to the airport?" One of the members of the Happiness Emporium (the barbershop quartet that entertained on the ship) and his wife (oh lord, she is one funny lady) were the first to jump at it.
Away we went, with the cab drive talking and texting on the cell phone and steering the car with his knees. The barbershop guy (who had hopped in the front seat) starting having a meltdown. You could almost sense that the cab driver was going to take us to some nearby swamp and drop us off on a side road, "here's the airport, mon," but he grudgingly put the cell phone away and deposited us in front of American Airlines a few minutes later.
Our flight was not for five hours, so we gambled on stand-by on the first flight to Dallas, and got lucky. 45 minutes later we were in the air and thinking that we'd be home in time for dinner. Dallas had other plans — we spent our five hours waiting there instead.
It didn't matter. The travel hassles. The work hassles. Being back on the ship again for two weeks made it all worthwhile.
Back in 1965 I was working at Airways Rent-a-Car in the Burbank Airport and going to junior college without any real plans. I was just getting the prerequisites knocked down. You know, Health, Speech, Art History and the like. I didn't really care much about the grades — just B's and C's would do as long as I passed these courses and got them out of the way. I had a vague plan of transferring to Cal State Northridge once I got my AA.
All of that changed one Sunday night as I left Burbank Airport after the last flight in that evening (usually Lockheed guys from Sunnyvale looking to get an early start on the work week by flying in Sunday evening instead of waiting for the rush on Monday morning). I hopped in the car and headed back across the valley to my parent's home in Northridge (about 30 minutes or so) and much to my chagrin the rock and roll output on KRLA was down to accommodate the required FCC "public service" programming. In this case it was Sunday night talk. Almost turned it off. Glad I didn't.
It is amazing how a single little event like not turning the radio off on an otherwise uneventful Sunday evening can turn out to be a life-changing event.
As I rolled along the familiar path home I got caught-up in what was being said on the radio. It was these kids who had finished a semester at sea for a program called The University of the Seven Seas. It caught my imagination as they talked about going to class on the ship while going around the world — what a concept!!!
That had just finished the Fall of 1964 voyage around the world.
I pulled into the driveway, shut the engine down and listened to the rest of the program in the dark. I scrounged around for something to write on and managed to jot down a coherent address to get more information on the program. Little did I know at the time, but the dream of going to college on a ship — while seeing the world — was on its last legs.
The Spring of 1965 voyage was launched with just 80 students, who "dead-headed" the ship back to Europe (stopping in Alcapulco, Mexico, a transit of the Panama Canal, Kingston, Jamaica, Porta Delgata in the Azores and Lisbon before docking in South Hampton — four weeks at sea). They then spent the next two months at the Institute of North American Studies in Barcelona before taking a six-week bus tour of Europe. If you could say "dead in the water," that would be the standing on that winter night for a program that had caught my imagination ... just my luck.
Unaware of the status and the struggles to keep the idea of a floating university alive, I hastily sent off a request for more information to Holland American Lines the next day. A week or so later I received a brochure that described how the University of the Seven Seas was an uncredited program — you could attend classes, but would not get any college credits for your trouble.
Let me repeat that. No credit!
They had plans for Fall of 1965 and Spring of 1966 semesters. The cost was $1,690 for passage on the ship and $550 for "tuition." That seemed like a deal — five months at sea. Around the world. For just $2,240 — what difference did it make if I didn't get credit for the class work ... I was just drifting through junior college courses anyway.
I thought about it. Kicked the idea around for a few weeks and then figured that I could save the money necessary to finance it if I shot for the Spring of 1966 semester at sea. I made the request and on May 5, 1965 I was accepted into the program with the words "we are hold a reservation for you." Interesting.
Away we go, even if the students currently enrolled in the program were just leaving for that six-week bus tour of Europe. That jaunt behind the Iron Curtain would take them from Barcelona to Moscow and then to Berlin (complete with wall) and finally to Rotterdam where they boarded a passenger ship for the return trip to New York City.
No ship. No credits. But I had a "reservation" for a Feb. 10, 1966 round the world voyage. I felt like that old Groucho Marx joke, "I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member." What had I done? I might well be the only member in the club on that May date in 1965 — ignorance was bliss.
But luck and fate and a little college in Orange, California with a very big vision announced on May 14, 1965 that they were taking over the program and would be giving it full accreditation. I scrambled to find out exactly where Chapman College was — founded in 1861. Disciples of Christ. Small. Private.
On July 9, I was informed that my application was accepted and that I needed to get $500.00 to the nearest branch office of Holland American Lines within 14 days if I wished to proceed with the voyage. I drove to downtown Los Angeles the next day and handed them a check in person. I was now a student at Chapman College and their Seven Seas Division.
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