For our wanderings, we are sailing aboard the Sea Cloud, a beautiful 4 masted sailing ship. She was built in Germany in 1931 by EF Hutton for his wife Marjorie Merriweather Post. Originally named the Hussar V (the name Hutton gave to all his sail boats) she started life as home to the Hutton Posts. After the Lindberg kidnapping living on board ship seemed a safer choice to protect their daughter Dina.
After their divorce, Marjorie painted the ship white and renamed it the Sea Cloud. Beginning with service with the US Navy in WW II (she was IX 99), she has been owned by a dictator, the Dominican Republic’s Trujillo, a floating brothel – his son kept her moored near Los Angeles and held orgies on her, abandoned in the mud near Colon Panama and then finally reoutfitted, 20 guest cabins added and reintroduced to the world as a glorious cruise ship. The original 10 cabins were also refurbished, so it is possible to stay in an owner’s cabin or be a butler for the cruise.
There are 52 guests on board as well as expedition staff and crew. The food is wonderful, the shore excursions well done, cabins comfortable and just a pleasant place to hang out and watch. The world go by. It will be an adjustment to go home and take care of ourselves as well as missing the wonderful warm Mediterranean weather.
