Prologue

"Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty 
the drama of human life would be destroyed." -Winston Churchill

In the summer of 2019, my wife Ellen and I travelled from Baltimore, Maryland to Hamburg, Germany on a cargo ship.  During the planning and preparations for this voyage, I found there was not a lot of of information of the sort I would like to have had  available.  At the start, almost every aspect of the prospective voyage was fraught with uncertainties.

This travelogue is meant to document some of the things we learned before and during the voyage that might help others plan and prepare for similar trips.  As such, it is meant primarily to be informative and to reduce some of the uncertainties that we faced, while hopefully not destroying too much of the dramatic fun of such a trip.  

With that in mind, if you are interested in planning such a trip, I suggest starting with the next post and reading all the way through. On the other hand, if you're only interested in reading about the voyage, you might skip ahead and begin with "Nautical Terminology" (that's where the photos and fun begin).

Finally, one of our fellow passengers -- Sebastien -- kept a blog (and provided some photos to this travelogue).  If you would like to see and read more about this voyage, you might consider checking out his blog: Sebastien's blog.