Telling Our Stories:

    "Lexlexey'em"

Once I had decided to take the trip to encounter Christopher Columbus, the planning started in full. First I had to contact Gordon Sabastian to get all the details of the trip – the location where I would meet the ship, when, What I needed to take and so many other details. One must remember that there was no email or texting back then, so communicating was very tedious to say the least.

So, I had to find a flight to Nassau, The Bahamas. There I would meet up with the rest of the people who would be going on the excursion. I got all those arrangements done and luckily back then there was no problem travelling to the States without a passport. I drove to Seattle where I would catch my flight to the Bahamas. At Seatac airport, I ran into a trio from Williams Lake who just happened to going to the same destination as I was. They were Stan Stump, Francis Laceese, and David Quilt. Apparently, they had been invited on the same trip by Gordon. They had their flight on a different airline and would be leaving earlier than I would, so we agreed to meet up at the Nassau Airport. Although I left over an hour later then them, I arrived in Nassau before they did. We met up then found our way to Nassau and eventually locating the dock where The Sea Shephard was docked. Upon arrival, the ship crew informed us that we would not be able to board until the next day as the ship was still being prepared for the trip. Some ship, I was surprised at what we were told was, “The ship”. It was an old 100 foot fishing trawler painted all black. Kind of ominous looking really. I later found that it was one of the boats that the GreenPeace people used to harass the giant whaling trawlers from Japan.  There was scars on the boat to prove that they were in direct contact with the whalers. We were ready for our adventure.