We are in Northeast England and crew of the Africa Mercy!

Greetings from Northeast England! We arrived on 29Nov2005 and were greeted at the Newcastle Airport by our friends and crewmates, Mark Biddell and Yvonne Riddick! It's great to be here and we are settling in, however the internet connection is only at the office! We will have a phone at the flat on 22Dec and are looking forward to be able to communicate more through the internet on the blog and website. We enjoyed our time with friends and family, the week of Thanksgiving and loved seeing everyone! It was too short a time...but when we got to the Africa Mercy...we found out why they needed us here so quickly! The crew is still small in numbers and lots of work to do! In the next few days and weeks, I'll try to get the pictures of the ship out on the blog. I took several pictures of the ship this past week and I'll try to keep you updated on the progress.

I'm having trouble getting to the website to update it...so I'll keep going on the blog. Today, we took a ride on the Metro up to Tynemouth. It's a beautiful seaside town with an old abbey on the shore. We took some pictures, so we'll get them out this coming week. The sea is the North Sea...so it was very cold and windy! Big waves and beautiful scenery! Wow...a photograph can just not capture the beauty! This town is at the mouth of the Tyne River and the ship is docked up the river in Hebburn at the A&P shipyard.