T. S. S. Stefan Batory, to Canada

In July 1985, in the campsite in Strasbourg, France, a man camped nearby saw our USA sticker, and came over to talk. He had shipped his VW camper, his girlfriend and himself, from Montreal, Canada, to Rotterdam, Netherlands, on a Polish ship. He and his friend planned to camp in Europe for a year, expecting to spend the winter in Portugal. I got the names and phone numbers needed to find out more about the ship.

We telephoned Daughter Linda, gave her the information, and asked her to book us on the ship, sometime in late summer, early fall. A perfect answer to our problem. We wanted to take the Dodge camper home with us, and we wanted to sail right on the Atlantic on a ship, rather than in a 747, miles above the Ocean. We had asked in more than one place for just such information, and Cousin Monika’s husband, Henri, a harbor master in La Havre, France, had asked, but found no ship available to take us and the RV to the USA.

We wrote a letter to Electrolux in Hamburg, Germany, and asked if we could convert the refrigerator, (that we bought and had installed in Luxembourg in 1983), from the European 220 Volt, to the US 110 Volt electricity. They sent the needed $20 part, and I spent a hour replacing the 220 V part. When we arrived in the US, the refrigerator worked great.

We packed a couple of very large boxes, five suitcases, a huge Army duffel bag, a large hanging clothes bag, several miscellaneous boxes and bags, and “a partridge in a pear tree,” then left Mettlach, Germany, drove across Luxembourg and Belgium, to Rotterdam. Usually we had a lot of heavy luggage on the airplane, and a large postage bill to mail home what we couldn’t carry. But now it all fit in the camper, and on the ship.

We watched the Dodge swing at the end of a cable, as they loaded it into the hold of the ship, then on October 21, 1985 we left Rotterdam and sailed to London. From there we continued across the Atlantic Ocean (nine nights) to Montreal, Canada, on the TSS Stefan Batory, then we drove home to California.

At the dock in Rotterdam, we saw a VW camper that looked familiar. Sure enough, the man, and girlfriend, who had told us about this ship, were on their way home. Instead of the one-year camping trip, they had been sick and tired of camping after a couple of weeks. I can do this forever. Emmy? Maybe.