Chapter 12

Yes! It was a better finish than Dal ... and we didn't completely wreck it ... we finished.

I'll say one thing for Triumph ... they used quality metal in the top ... and the sides ... and the front. The rear bumper looked ... well ... a vague resemblance of the original equipment.

"It's just a little crease, Dal. It's not as bad as the 544 Volvo."

The 544 was a ball of sliced and diced metal by the time they got it out of the canal. Dal did mention that. Actually, what he said, "It couldn't be as bad as the 544, there wasn't 3 inches of straight metal on it."

He did have a point. The picturesque barge that the car hit wasn't the only barge ... the rest were heavily loaded scrap carriers.

"I already bought a spare ... for the parts," I said.

"That bad?"

"I'm having Thorolf load it in the lorry. He'll be driving it home, the spare is on the trailer."

"We don't have a trailer," Dal said.

"We do now," I said. "Umh ... Wendy and I are coming home by boat ... she's always wanted to see New Zealand."

"That's a great idea," Dal said. "You might consider settling there."

"I'll mention that to Wendy," I said.

"When?" Dal asked.

"When do you suggest?"

"I wouldn't mention it until the Red Sea," he said.

"Why that far?"

"Big sharks. Lots and lots of big hungry sharks." He started laughing and hung up.

I hate it when he does that.

The Gabriella was weeks old when we purchased passage from Monte Carlo to New Zealand. A center castle vessel of the times, she carried general cargo and had a schedule of stops at some exotic places.

The scheduled stops were La Spezia, Naples, and Gioia Tauro, Italy.

Damietta, Egypt, and transited the Suez Canal.

Valmaat is a common name in Finland, and we're not necessarily related.

My passport had Uusikaupunki as my home and place of birth and Wendy's said Kuopio. Even though we had both been born in Vehmersalmi. Some countries in this iteration don't understand or accept transferees. We swore to Captain Scofield that we weren't related and he married us just before I told Wendy that Dal had suggested we stay in New Zealand.

I didn't "Meet the Sharks." It wouldn't be sporting.

Reunion and Mauritius are islands near Madascar.

Not necessarily listed in order, we saw and visited Singapore, Port Kelang, Malay, Chennai, India; Colombo, Sri Lanka; Cochin, India; Andaman Islands; Singapore; Jakarta; Bali. A few places we saw out the porthole of our cabin ... we had better things to do. Newlyweds!

The Gabriella made stops in Darwin, Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide, Fremantle and Sydney, all in Australia.

Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill, were all in New Zealand.

The unscheduled stops were little islands along the way. Anyone who had ordered something delivered or had something to ship the Gabriella was there. At least once, a deckhand discovered a missed shipment so we went back. I'm sure that there were more, but we might have been on the wrong side of the ship when it happened.

They had to steam out of their normal route to pick us up in Monte Carlo.

The layover in Invercargill almost convinced us to stay. We went camping instead.

At Invercargill, we missed the boat and had to go all the way to Wellington as distressed tourists. That was fun. Finland had no Consulate in New Zealand. They did have one in Melbourne in the wonderful land of Oz.

"Why are you here?" the Finnish Consul asked.

"We missed the boat," Wendy said.

"We went camping," I said ... before he could ask.

"This isn't my problem ... this is a Kiwi problem." He sent us back to New Zealand.

I asked the authorities in Wellington if I could cash a cheque. So they ran us to a major bank.

Everything was fine ... we weren't distressed tourists any longer. We just had to live until the next boat home. Wendy was mighty pregnant by the time we got back to Finland.

Dal laughed.