Let's also not forget the crossing on the 74-75 cruise, along with the Saigon evac., featuring Bruce bigger than big Benton cast as the royal baby! (ah.. Christmas of 74 in Bangkok... What a beautiful town!)

Edited by - Marc Tuton on 02/10/2002 07:57:34

I became a shellback on Cochrane in November 1988. That might have been her last crossing, I'm not sure.

Bill Genereux
FC2(SW) 1987-89

Hey Ed when we crossed in 1971 it was on the 20th of July and
Adrian Ledaux was Davy Jones and R.L.Dudas was Neptunus Rex.
I had to dig in my albums and look at the shellback card. What
great memories those days are now.

Mike i remember that 79 southpac what a rare treat! tonga.samoa,fiji,new caladonia,fiji,2ports new zealand,4 ports australia,indonisia,philiphines,gaum, midway and back to pearl......its been 23 years and i still think about it...............bt3 jim cooper

GREETINGS ALL;
I too was on the '79 crossing and I remember being very scared and the funny part was that the fear turned out to be nothing but a bunch of gross groceries and a couple of really tender knees. I can recall the firehoses on the forecastle and thinking, I am crossing the equater and freezing my hiny off, I thought they were never going to stop squirting us with water. The whippuns from the guys with the hand held pieces of fire hose wasn't even close to what I had thought they were going to be so just about the time I thought I had this thing whipped with just a couple of skinned up knees that hurt like hell all of the sudden this guy grabs my face and before I had any idea what was going on my face was in this great big guys belly and I still don't have any idea what was on it but I know at that time it was the foulest thing I had ever come across in my whole entire life and then to top it off I hear this guy saying "KISS THE BABY" and I thought I was gonna die, I couldn't catch my breath I thought I was gonna pass out blowing chunks at everybodybut was that the end of it, no way I can't see, catch my breath, gonna spew at any minute, so what do they do, they grab me up and put me in these mid evil stocks that god only knows where they got, so now I can't wipe my face off and there laughing at me calling me a wog and whipping me like some piece of meat they were trying to tenderize. After they let me out I recall some kind off tube with lots of slick mushey stuff, but I was in kind of a daze just trying to figure out what had just happened. I recall their not being enough fresh water so ya stripped down butt naked and took a salt water shower right theere on the fantail, but as I recall it was a very much needed one and felt great too. What a fantastic time it is one of those memories I will charish for a life time, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Thanks for letting me have a little of your valuable time for my silly story but it sure was alot of fun. GOODNIGHT ALL AND GOD BLESS. RUSSELL SEAMAN

Hey RST39 the story is great, it was avery special time in all our
lives and a lot of us would love to be able to live those days
again and the many travels that we went on.