The view as we walked across the gangplank.

The first thing we entered was this enormous, warehouse-sized area. I took a picture of it, and immediately some guards came over and said that I should not be taking pictures here! (By the way, these little pieces of machinery in the foreground are some of the things Ray does maintenance and repairs on.)

Thyda took us all over the ship, up and down many flights of narrow, steep stairs and through many corriders in which we had to step up over a doorway about every 12 feet. She is small, but mighty, let me tell you. She carries heavy supplies up those many flights of stairs for hours at a time. Here she let me take a picture of her in her "bedroom", a berthing where about 50 girls sleep on triple bunkbeds. Her bed is on the third layer behind the blue curtain. When the ship goes out to sea there are 5000 crew members aboard!

I was also allowed to take a picture of this statue of Theodore Roosevelt.