Ship passage across the Pacific with the Britanis

The Britanis arrived and I was soon able to go on board. I was assigned a cabin, quite deep in the ship, without windows. It had four bunks, a toilet, a shower and a fan. There were four of us in it: Gaston, the Bolivian who was going back to Bolivia, Klaus, the Austrian (he had studied at ETH Zurich and worked in Australia building railroads to mine natural resources), Rolf and me.

The food was very good: breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. The drinks were ridiculously cheap.

In 1974, I left New Zealand on a Chandris Line liner. The crossing from Wellington to Panama (Colón) took around fourteen days and led across the Pacific with a stopover of one and a half days in Tahiti. It was a long journey without haste - a form of travel that was still common at the time.

The ship was not a cruise ship, but a real liner. It carried people, not entertainment. On board were travelers, workers, emigrants and a few adventurers like us. Everyone had their own reason for being on board. People met at meals, on the decks or in the corridors. Conversations started and sometimes lasted a few days or just a few minutes.

Everyday life on board was simply structured. Meals set the pace, with plenty of time in between - time to walk, to sit, to watch the sea. The Pacific was mostly calm, steady and endless. The days hardly differed from one another. That's what made this passage so special: Time became less important.

There were also some themed evenings. In the afternoon, a steward came and advised us to dress a little smartly in the evening - which we did.

Swiss waitress on board

When Rolf and I were standing at the bar one early afternoon to get a drink for the pool, we were speaking Swiss German. Suddenly a woman's voice called out: "Hey, not so loud, please!" We looked around and saw a waitress from the ship. She was from Thun and said this was her last trip. She had done the whole route three times as a waitress.

She asked, "Are you going home?"

"No, to South America."

She suggested: "Give me your parents' phone number. When I'm in Switzerland, I'll call them and tell them you're okay."

That's exactly what we did. Afterwards I asked my father - she really did call. If you see this website: thank you for that!

I often spent time on deck at night. The sky was clear, the stars numerous - but not as overwhelming as back in the outback of Papunya. I have never seen such a starry sky again. The steady sound of the engines accompanied everything. There were no distractions, nothing to do. You were simply on the road.

There were always great parties on board too. And these were particularly good and exuberant.

Stopover in Tahiti

The stopover in Tahiti interrupted this calm rhythm for a short time. We went ashore, saw colors, lush vegetation, people and felt the heat. The stay was short and superficial, but left lasting impressions.

We visited a club in the evening. Before nightfall, nothing was really visible - just lots of hands scanning us. Rolf and I looked at each other and left the club immediately, saying: "We're in the wrong movie here."

It was clear from the start that there was no staying put. After a day and a half, the ship set sail again. Four people stayed behind because they had arrived too late.

Back at sea, calm immediately returned. The Pacific picked us up again. The days became long and monotonous again. Thoughts wandered ahead. Central America was getting closer - Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil ... began to loom in our minds, even though it was still a long way off.