March 15, 2 p.m., Caribbean Sea — Clad in a purple swimsuit, broad-rimmed hat and polarized sunglasses, Raelyn Lucklow is enjoying yet another sunny day at sea. One of 700 passengers on Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Mariner, the Dana Point, California, resident appears totally at ease. But something is amiss. Instead of reaching for sunscreen or a tropical cocktail, Lucklow reaches for her laptop. “If I knew the ship didn’t have internet, I wouldn’t go,” says the design consultant for Preserved Treescapes International. “I can only take time off if I can continue to work through my computer. There’s no one who can take my place. There’s no one who does what I do. So if I’m down for a week it’s basically horrible.”
For years I’ve followed the career of Jerry Zape, a bar manager for Windstar Cruises who fulfilled a dream to give his wife and three children a better life with earnings he sent home from his job on a cruise ship.
What wasn’t reported in that story was that Jerry was one of three ship staff that I met in 1999 and wrote about in a story called “A Few Good Men.”
Whether by coincidence or luck, I recently ran into the “second” of the three good men, Bagus Gunawan, who was working in Tamarind, the Asian restaurant on Holland America Line’s Eurodam.
I asked Bagus if he had fulfilled his dream to return to Bali to open a restaurant and bed and breakfast. He had, but his story has a tragic turn. In 1999, Bagus returned home to begin the business he had dreamed about.
I remembered him too. I had talked with him about his family in the Philippines and about how he supported his wife and three children on the salary and tips he earned at sea. In his early 40s then, he had managed to pay off his home and even buy a small convenience store.
When I met Jerry five years later, life was treating him even better. He told me that two of his children had just finished college and that a third will graduate soon. How Jerry managed his family from afar is a remarkable story, but first let me tell you about Jerry.
Jerry started work with Holland America Line in 1987, five years into his marriage. He and his wife agonized over whether Jerry should go to sea, but they knew they could not make the life they wanted for their family on Filipino wages. “I could earn double on a ship what I could earn at home,” he told me.
In 1999, I talked with three Windstar Cruises’ staff members about their dreams and ambitions. Five years later, I caught up with two of those ship staff, Jerry Zape, who put his three kids through university, and Bagus Gunawan. Following is the original story from 1999.
IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK — near midnight, in fact, when our ship entered Norway’s Troll Fjord. The day before, we had crossed the Arctic Circle, entering the mysterious “Land of the Midnight Sun.” At these latitudes the sun only lingers, then slides across the horizon, never dipping below during most of July. So even a late-night arrival at Troll Fjord greets passengers with sunlight.
The tiny fjord forms a basin ?anked by walls of rock covered with snow, greenery and cascading waterfalls. There is only one way in and one way out. A highlight on most Norwegian Coastal Voyages’ itineraries, Troll Fjord is home to the mythical trolls of Scandinavian folklore. We saw none, but we did sip cups of Troll Soup, a tradition on NCV.
Billed as “The World’s Most Beautiful Voyage,” NCV began making coastal voyages more than 100 years ago to serve essentially as a mail boat. Today, the year-round cruises still serve as a lifeline along Norway’s spectacular coast.
Editor’s Note: This interview (recently updated) originally appeared in the winter 2006 issue of The Avid Cruiser.
On the day before Valentine’s Day, during staff introductions to an audience of Holland America Line passengers, the 39-year-old captain of the Oosterdam went down on his knee to propose to the ship’s guest relations manager, the soon-to-be Pam van Donselaar.
In a true “Love Boat” moment, the captain says, “I compared myself to Captain Stubing and compared Pam with Julie (McCoy, the ‘Love Boat’s’ Cruise Director) and said that because officers and crew spend so much of their year on a ship that this was very likely the environment where they would meet their future partners in life.”
She said yes, the audience applauded, and in July the couple married in Vancouver. Ah, “Love … exciting and new.”
Now at the helm of Holland America Line’s new Eurodam, Jeroen van Donselaar is one of the cruise industry’s youngest captains. Continue Reading »
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For years I’ve followed the career of 
A familiar face greeted me as I boarded the Wind Surf on a recent sailing from Venice to Malta. Jerry Zape remembered me from 
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