Porthole at Sea

There isn't much to do on a smaller ocean liner for a teen-ager. My family traveled to and from  Europe by sea, but the ships were not the vast floating entertainment cities that barge around the globe these days. The reason we went by sea was so we could pick up or transport our car, a Volkswagen Campmobile bus which was our family car touring and camping through Europe. The cars were stored in the hold of the ship, tied down like the other cargo.

In 1969 I was a junior in high school age 16 and we had designated the summer of '69 as a European trip so we were there for three months. We sailed on a Norwegian ship, the "Sagafjord," which stopped at Copenhagen, where we disembarked and went to stay with friends. We didn't have the car until it was delivered to us at the Danish home of our friends: a red Volkswagen bus with a white top that popped up to become a mini-tent. 

I didn't stay idle on the Sagafjord, since there was always something to eat. But I spent a lot of the week-long voyage reading ("Wuthering Heights," which I hated) and drawing, since of course I had my colored pencils with me. I made this drawing of the porthole in our cabin. It was right near the water line so I could observe all the colors of the sea. It looks like it was a cloudy day when I did this porthole portrait. The bright red color is rust, and you can see some damage around the frame of the port. The Sagafjord may not have been in the best of shape, but the smorgasbord was great. The ship is long gone and very few liners make the transatlantic journey any more.

Colored pencil on sketchbook page, 8 1/2" x 11", some restoration in Photoshop, June 1969.