Star Flyer in the Eastern Med

Julie | July 28, 2009

Michael Pal sent us some nice photos from his Mediterranean sailing, along with this note:

My wife and I had the most memorable experience on Star Flyer on an Australian Charter of the vessel from Istanbul to Athens back in June 2006. The first four photos were taken at the harbour in Kusadasi. The monster next to the Star Flyer is the HAL ship Noordam. The last photo is taken from the cliffs of Santorini.

It was actually an amazing incident, as the Noordam was stuck in Kusadasi. As we were sailing into Kusadasi on the Star Flyer, the cruise director, Peter, came over the PA saying that there had been an alert for a “man overboard.” As we were sailing towards the area, the alert was called off because the Noordam had gotten there first and picked “them” up. It turned out there were a number of people overboard, apparently refugees. The Noordam was unable to leave Kusadasi that night because of the regulations requiring the situation to be clarified before they could leave. That was my understanding as to why the Noordam was still there next to the Star Flyer at that hour of night.

All the best,
Michael Pal
Perth, Australia