Captain Mercer sent us this picture from Grand Turk of Friendship 7, astronaut John Glenn’s space capsule from the Mercury Space Program. Glenn, the first American to orbit earth, splashed down in Grand Turk waters Feb. 20, 1962 — back in the days when spacecraft returned to earth via parachute. In those days Grand Turk had a strong NASA and Air Force presence and he was brought to the island for a medical checkup and post flight debriefing.

In the early years of the space program Grand Turk was a major missile and space tracking station supporting the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs. Glenn’s three orbits of the earth were tracked from Grand Turk, and information was sent to Cape Canaveral, Fla. The Grand Turk Island tracking station officially closed down Feb. 29, 1984, becoming obsolete due to advances in space technology — something the station actually helped to achieve — and was replaced by data-gathering satellites.

Although Eurodam was supposed to call at Grand Turk today, we just heard from Captain Mercer that the ship was unable to dock there due to 40-knot-plus winds and a Force 8 gale.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Mercer

Our vacation is all about Jeroen tackling “The Honey-Do List,” as Captain Mercer calls it. These are all of the retrofit home enhancements that need to be done in the house but not necessarily all projects are at the request of “the honey.”

Moreover, in a house less than a year old, we are attempting to get it ready for the Dutch family members that are flying over for Christmas. I am so fortunate that Jeroen is not only a navigator, he is the electrician, the plumber, the tile setter and the IT techie with about five projects going on simultaneously.

Jeroen took a break from his tools to help with a project that was not on his Honey-Do List and not something that he was overly excited about, unlike myself. Carving pumpkins has always been a fun family project for me growing up, but for a Dutchman who has hardly ever carved pumpkins, the thought of removing pumpkins seeds and stringy pumpkin guts was not his idea of a fun pre-Halloween evening.

I started carving using a traditional knife, cutting out the top, then the eyes, etc. Then I heard what sounded like a drill noise coming up from the basement and becoming louder as he approached upstairs where I was pumpkin carving. With a revving electric drill in hand he started to “drill-carve” his own unique pumpkins! I exclaimed he was a “cheater,” albeit I have to admit it was far less arduous than my manual work and safer, too, as six small knife cuts on my hands testified.

When we finished carving and drilling, we placed the finished jack-o-lanterns on the front porch and lit them up with flameless candles that have the same effect as real candles, flickering and all. They were quite a hit with the trick-or-treaters and the neighborhood kids.

As a Dutchman living in the U.S., and celebrating traditions he is not accustomed to, I really admire Jeroen for approaching our strange customs with his Dutch gusto and his American drill!

Jan and Janet van Laer

I watched the christening ceremony with great interest. It was very nicely done.

I have a warm spot in my heart for the Holland America Line, going back almost 80 years. In 1931 our family sailed on a HAL vessel from Holland to America to our new home in Yonkers, N.Y. I don’t remember much about this trip, but, if memory serves me right, I believe the captain’s name was Bijl.

Thereafter, we returned on Holland America Line vessels every two or three years until the war came and interrupted those visits.

In June of 1950 I met my future wife, Janet, on board the Veendam. She boarded at Southampton on our trip to Holland and was a guest of Mrs. van den Toorn, the wife of the then president of HAL. We had dinner with them that night. This was right around the time the U.S. entered the Korean War. We married the following year.

In the summer 1960 we again sailed via HAL to Holland to attend the 60th wedding anniversary of my mother’s parents. In 1989 we cruised aboard the New Amsterdam to Alaska, taking our son and daughter-in-law with us.

This coming November we have signed up for a Thanksgiving cruise aboard the Eurodam and are taking our son, Eric, daughter-in-law Stella, and grandson Piet, along with us. Needless to say, we are looking forward to this trip with great pleasure.

The van Laers live in a retirement community in Florida where Holland America Line is promoting the Thanksgiving sailing, so there’s a good chance that they will be surrounded by both family and friends on their holiday cruise.

If you have a Holland America Line story or memory you would like to share with our readers, send us an e-mail and photo to roland@eurodamnews.com.