The portrait studios may mill out family art, cool and professional with calculated warmth from much practiced methods, but it may be the humble snapshot, the impromptu recording, that turns out the more truly intimate artifact.  For that reason, and much apart from family but laden nonetheless with memory and knowledge, I’ll provide a glimpse here but nothing more about those with whom I sailed, for their stories are their own and the tabloids have no interest.

I’ve not selected or scanned the “people pictures” from my time with these friends, and I’ve no idea if I or anyone else ever will look again through those old slides — funny how a mere 12 years or more passed qualifies as “old” — and digitize them.

Looking back, I’d say of the captain and the crews and the many paths crossed and voyages made: ordinary lives — extraordinary life stories.

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