Here is a quick overview of our travels while not cruising on Mantra. Along with our kids, Katya and Matthew, we went on the annual Rodgers Family Beach Vacation, a tradition started about 65 years ago. All 35 members of the clan gathered in Ocean City, Maryland, from July 18-25, to relax, play games, eat too much food and enjoy the beach and the ocean.
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| Sherri, Matthew, Peter and Katya at the beach |
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| The Rodgers family in Ocean City, Maryland |
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| Sherri and Lori together |
My friend Lori was the only one of her family able to be with us (She and her family have been part of the tradition for a couple decades) and she only had the weekend because she and her husband have just bought a condo in Boca Raton, Florida.
This was not planned far in advance, and we expected to spend time with her in Washington, D.C. after a pleasant, sun-filled vacation on the shore. Even though she was not home in D.C., we went to stay at her place for a week, enjoying time with her two adult children and the museums and sights of Washington.
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| Sherri on a sculpture by Gillie and Marc in the "Wild Race Against Time" installation |
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| Peter enjoying a jazz performance in the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden |
On August 2, we flew to Brussels, where we were picked up by our former exchange student Sam who, with his wife Emi, recently became proud parents of Marius. They live near Lìege. We spent a couple days visiting with the three of them as well as Sam's family and Emi's family, whom we have become friends with over the years.
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| Peter with Bigo and Marius |
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| Peter, Emi, Sam, Marius and Sherri |
Next, it was off to London on August 5, where we stayed with our friend Liz and had dinner with Matthew at her place in Wapping. Liz, Peter and I flew the next day to Gibraltar for a weekend of celebration of the marriage of our niece Immie and Miguel. The ceremony on Saturday was lovely, and the meals and parties before and after were amazing. It was nice to be able to spend time with Peter's brothers and sisters-in-law as well as British friends, Immie's family on Susie's side, and Miguel's Spanish family and friends.
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| Peter's brother Mike and Peter on the Windsor Bridge, Rock of Gibraltar |
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| Miguel and Immie |
Monday, August 10, we returned to London, spent another night with Liz and then flew to Stockholm the next morning. Arriving at our boat at 3 p.m., we just had time to clean, fire up systems and make a run for provisions before 7 p.m., when a new local friend, Johan, stopped by for drinks and conversation.
On the morning of August 11, we motored into the city of Stockholm and docked at Wasahamnen on the island of Djurgården, where we were met on the dock by Peter's cousin Desmond and his partner Cindy, who were with us until noon today. After settling them in on board, the four of us walked the short distance to the Vasa Museum, a place we were told we must visit by nearly everyone we met in Europe when we mentioned we were going to be in Stockholm. The museum houses the recovered warship Vasa, which sunk 1,300 meters (1,400 yards) into her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. After spending 333 years on the seabed in Stockholm Harbor, she was salvaged in 1961. She has been displayed in the museum since 1990 along with artifacts, reproductions of carvings, preserved skeletons and clothing of some of the people on board who could not escape and other displays. The size of the ship is almost overwhelming; the hull is 156 feet in length and the beam is 38 feet, and her mainmast is estimated to have been 172 feet in height from the keel. Almost 98% of the ship, including the the hull, the four decks, rigging, cabins, and elaborate decorations, is intact.
One of the main features of the Vasa is the customary decorations with sculptures meant to glorify the authority, wisdom and martial prowess of the monarch and deride, taunt and intimidate the enemy. Imagery reflects Greek and Roman mythology as idealized during the Renaissance and Biblical stories and characters. Many of the figures are in Dutch grotesque style, including fantastic and frightening creatures, mermaids, wild men, sea monsters and tritons. All the decorations were painted in vivid, guady colors and accented in gold leaf.
The Vasa was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus, who wanted total control of the Baltic, during a war with Poland-Lithuania (1621-29). Designed by the Dutch master shipbuilder Henrik Hybertsson, and built in Stockholm by private contractors in 1626-28, primarily by Dutch shipbuilders, she was armed with 58 bronze cannons and 6 howitzers cast specifically for the ship and richly decorated to show the power and ambition of the Swedish monarch and the nation. A great deal of attention was given to details, but, unfortunately, not as much scrutiny was placed on the seaworthiness of the vessel. She was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure and insufficient ballast in the keel, causing her to list and then sink when hit by a light breeze. Contributing to the disaster was the fact that the gun ports were open to allow for a salute to be fired. Two mild gusts caused the ship to heel to port. Righting herself after the first one, she began to take on water through the lower gun ports when the second hit. The incoming, gushing water quickly exceeded the Vasa's minimal righting ability and she sank with up to 30 people perishing on board.
The king was impatient to have her launched and stationed as the flagship of the Swedish navy in the Stockholm Archipelago, and the king's subordinates lacked the political courage to inform him of the instability of the ship and ask for a postponement. With great fanfare and people lining the waterfronts of the islands of Stockholm to see her, the Vasa set off with the only wind being a light breeze from the southwest. She departed from the Royal Palace and sunk 20 minutes later near the bluffs of Tegelviken across from the island Beckholmen, coming to rest in 32 meters of water.
Early efforts to raise the Vasa were unsuccessful. In 1663-65, a team of Swedish and Finnish divers retrieved more than 50 of the guns. Further attempts at salvage were minimal until in 1956, an amateur archaeologist, Anders Franzén, using a home-made, gravity-powered coring probe, located a large wooden object off Beckholmen, leading to the recovery of the ship in 1961. Although thousands of iron bolts decomposed within a few years of sinking, much of the organic material was preserved in the anaerobic conditions of the Baltic Sea, including wood, cloth, leather and human bones held together by clothing. Many of the sculptures still retain areas of paint and gilding. The preserved materials offer much detail about life in the early 17th century in Sweden.
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| Stern decorations |
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| Model of the ship as she would have looked when launched |
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| Model and the actual Vasa |
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Vasa with only partial mast height
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The history of the Vasa and of Sweden at the time is fascinating, and the museum is one of the best we have ever visited. There is much more that I could write about, but it's very late for dinner, so I will add a few photos and write more about our time in the Stockholm Archipelago tomorrow.
