|
LEAVING & RETURNING TO ARUBA
WHEN ON
VACATION
|
| Foreign staff employees went to Aruba with a two year contract. After
the first year they received two week local leave. The Company did not pay
for them to leave the island.
Most of them remained on the island, however some managed side trips.
SEE LAKE TANKER TRIP. |
| At the end of the contract, two years, the foreign staff employees received three months leave and the
Company paid for them and their families to return to their point of
origin. As each contract to work at Lago was for two years their contracts
were renewed at this time. When they returned the Company paid to have
their car shipped to Aruba via Esso tanker and in later years on the Grace Line. |
| In the early years the only way to get to Aruba was on a tanker. Later
plane service was started by KLM between Aruba and the US and still later the
Grace Line began to serve Aruba. In later years the trips to the US on the
tankers declined and the employees and their families either flew or took the
Grace Line to and from Aruba when they returned to the United States. |
| This is a view of a tanker in route to the States, note even in a fairly
moderate sea the deck is awash, thus the cat walk to go from aft to mid-ship. |
C.jpg) |
|
Below is a photo of the Esso Bayonne, running empty, as well as a dinner menu from a tanker trip
on the Esso Bolivar. |
 |
 |
|
To get an idea of how many families traveled to and from the US on
tankers see the INS & OUTS SECTION of the Pan Aruban found on
Steve Kiebler's Scrapbook.
|
|
|
Many foreign staff employees chose to fly to and from Aruba which the Company
also paid for in connection with your three month furlough. The trip on a
DC-6 to Miami took about 6 hours with stops in Kingston, Jamaica and Havana,
Cuba.
|
|
CLICK ON NEXT PHOTO OF KLM PLANE TO GO TO KLM BROCHURE |
 |
| THE PHOTO ABOVE SHOWS A DC-6 PARKED IN
FRONT OF THE "NEW" AIRPORT TERMINAL, THE PHOTO BELOW SHOWS THE "OLD"
TERMINAL AS WELL AS A DC-3 WHICH OFFERED DAILY SERVICE BETWEEN ARUBA AND
CURACAO |
 |
|
The photo below is from the Aruba Esso News
and shows Aruba's first terminal building. |
 |
|
| Many families made the trip to or from Aruba on the Grace
Line. This was long before Caribbean cruises became as popular as they are
now. |
 |
| And of course the Grace Line
always made sure you had a good time on your trip. The following
invitation was submitted by Dick Faunce, he said he was pretty sure it was from
a trip in
September of 1954, on the Santa Rosa, to New York. |
 |
|
The following Passenger List from the Grace Line was submitted by Stan
Norcom. |
 |
 |
|
This is the menu for the final farewell dinner on
the Grace Line's Santa Sofia. Submitted by Bill Moyer. |
 |
|
TO SEE OTHER
PASSENGER LISTS CLICK HERE |
|
| And if you went to Miami you stayed at the Columbus Hotel,
complements of Standard Oil. The photo on the right shows the Columbus
before the restaurant, Top O' The Columbus, was added. |
  |
|
Or if you went to New York you stayed at the Hotel Abbey at 51st
Street at Seventh Avenue
|
.jpg) |
|
EARLY DAYS OF TANKER TRAVEL TO ARUBA |
|
This story from Vic Lopez. |
Mom said in those early days of tanker
travel,
she
had to sign on as a seaman on the U.S. Mail & Passenger
M/V Canadolite, registered out
of Montreal, Canada. Somehow, her discharge papers, given to her upon
disembarkation, have survived all these years.
M/V Canadolite was an Imperial
Oil tanker. During World War II she was a lynch-pin in the supply of crude
oil for Canadian refineries, in particular the ones in Montreal. In 1941
the ship was captured by the Germans.
You’ll hopefully enlarge the image on screen and
see the comments at the bottom, particularly the one that says “see Jimmy.”
Can anybody top that tale (a more elaborate version hopefully will appear in
Don Gray’s next U-156 newsletter)?
|
 |
|
TED
GIBBONS REMEMBERS HIS VACATION |
|
RETURN TO LAGO COLONY DIRECTORY |
|
RETURN TO THE
SCRAPBOOK
PAGE
|