Many thanks to Capt. Justin Zizes for this series of shots, morning shots of  a workaholic tug and a fairly recent addition to the  “flying dutchman” vessels aka cruise ships.

Less than two years old, Seabourn Sojourn‘s already logged one complete round the world cruise.   The Seabourn company has its own blog here.

No doubt she’s been pushed around, or assisted, by some of the best.  I count Miriam Moran (1979, 3000 hp)  as among those, based on her non-stop work in the sixth boro.

I hope a few of the passengers that morning paid attention  . . .

which, thanks to the convolutions of my mind, brings us to the USS Quaker City (1854), which happens to be only six years before Michael Moran founded his towing company in New York harbor.    The convoluted connection is this:  USS Quaker City was the vessel that served as setting for Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad–not really a bestseller today–but a book worth a try.  (Truth:  I read and enjoyed  it about 15 years ago but don’t have a copy on my bookshelf for quick reference.)    Innocents Abroad  is Twain’s irreverent account of a shipboard voyage from New York harbor through the Mediterranean and Black Sea.

So my question:  besides bloggers (of course I of all folks won’t criticize them), are there contemporary mainstream writers aboard vessels like Seabourn Sojourn doing the “Mark Twain” thing?

I hope so, given the exotic stops.  For a mere $49,640, you could have an updated Mark Twain platform, 142 years after Innocents Abroad.  Might that have been a typo . . .  for innocents aboard?

Many thanks to Justin Zizes for these fotos.