It is Saturday morning, February 7, 2009 here. I just finished talking with a very good friend, Lefteris P., a chemical engineer as well, who lives in Wilmington, Delaware but was born and raised in Alexandroupolis. He has exceptional memories about this route and I am trying to convince him to register in nautilia.gr and give us all his memories...

So, he remembers taking the boat from Piraeus (not Kymi, not Rafina, etc) to Skyros, Lemnos, Alexandroupolis, Porto Lago, Kavalla and then back to Aghios Eustrations, Lemnos, Piraeus.

Until 1964, the ship doing this was Haralambos Typaldos' Ionion!!!

Ionion is one of the most graceful Greek ships and I will have a special article on it today. She is one of the Norwegian-Greek ships. Built in 1893 for Arendals, she was named Dronningen (queen in Norwegian) and graced the northern seas for many years. Here is a picture of her as a wonderful white ship

Ionion3.jpg

According to Laurence Dunn's Mediterranean Shipping (page 73) she was acquired by Typaldos in 1948. She was 811 tons. Typaldos painted her black (Dunn has an exceptional photo).

Lefteris P. remembers this wonderful black ship very well as his grand father was the agent of the ship.... He remembers in the 1960s (he was a teenager) that he had to carry with him in his suitcase a suit and a bow tie for the dinner with the captain! Lefteris remembers the ship was withdrawn in 1964, which almost agrees with Dunn's statement that "she lasted over 60 years".

I will be talking about Ionion's history (with lots of pictures) but as I said, she was a great Norwegian ship and she has been included in many sites. See http://www.ads.no/fleet_old.html (this site mentions scrapping in 1962)

Also http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/DS_%C2%ABDronningen%C2%BB

Dronningen (Ionion) in 1919

Dronningen in 1919.jpg

Dronningen (Ionion) in 1929

Dronningen in 1929.jpg