Travel Tips

In Portsmouth Harbour (U.K) two years ago the queen held a fleet review where ships from all over the world sailed to England to be inspected. There were tall ships from Bulgaria, Italy, Serbia, Brazil, Indonesia,Uraguay, France, Colombia (only a few of the many) small battleships from Russia, Norway and Oman ( to name a few of the many) and aircraft carriers from places like Romania, Turkey, Lithuania, Poland and South Korea aswell as a hudred or so small merchant boats. It was a spectacular day ,even though it rained, and the three days that followed the ships were open for the British public to see. I didn't miss this opportunity and rushed over. I arrived early and left late but still didn't see all the boats. Shame. I enjoyed it never the less.

The Indonesian Navy saw the Serbian ship Jadran and was intrigued so commisioned the same builder to replicate that ship thirty years later. It is now a training ship of the Indonesian Naval Academy at Surabaya. As I stepped on board I was surprised by the welcome matt and a welcoming young sailor who spoke good English. I was then also surprised to see tables laid out with things for sail like the Javanese shadow puppets even if they were at a high cost.

The Serbian ship (as pictured) used to be called the Marco Polo and was used by the Italian navy during the second world war. It was built in Hamburg Germany. It is now in Serbian and Montenegrin hands ( i do know about the split between the two but then it was Serbia and Montenegro).

The Gloria was built in Bilbao, in Spain. She entered the Colombian Navy in 1968 where she still is used as a sail-training barque. When I boarded her I was saluted by the crew and given a warm welcome. They did this to all who boarded.

P.S I do have a better picture of the Gloria but I took it on a disposable camera so I need to scan it onto the computer using a freinds scanner. The other photo will come soon.

The tallship Mir and the warship Admiral Levchenko made up the Russian contingent for the fleet review. Mir was built along with six other ships in Poland between 1982 and 1992. Mir was built in 1988, today she is owned by the Admiral Makarov State Maritime Academy in St. Petersburg and can take up to 96 cadets under instruction and 55 permanent crew. Mir translates from Russian as "peace". I din't stay too long on the Mir as I had waited along time already to cross to the Polish ship anchored next to it.

The sad thing is that the next fleet review will probably be in around 50 years time.