Bremerhaven, Germany

This morning we docked in the incredibly huge and busy German port of Bremerhaven.  It is bustling with enormous cargo cranes, freighters, oilers, cruise ships, tug boats, trucks, and activity of all kinds.

For some reason, we didn't book a tour today, so we are taking the opportunity to get some laundry done, and start the packing process (we will be disembarking our ship in three days.)  This picture gives some idea of how busy it is here.  I took this from the stern of our ship, and you can see the German cruise ship Astor berthed directly behind us. The large ship in the background is the Crystal Symphony being maneuvered into position by a brace of tugs.  She is almost double the size of our cozy Navigator!

We are trying to get to the bottom of a bit of a mystery ... last night, we had made plans to have dinner with one of the Destination Services crew -- Gabriella.  We got to know her last year when we were sailing around South America, and were delighted to see her aboard this ship this year.  We were ready and waiting for her yesterday evening at the restaurant she said she'd like to dine at, but she never showed up.  We tried to locate her, but all attempts to contact her proved fruitless, and we ended up having dinner by ourselves.  When we got back to our cabin, there was a strange, garbled message on our phone from some male crew member who didn't speak very clear English.  We listened to the message several times over, but still couldn't make out what he was saying ... something about Gaby "being no more" and "leaving the ship" ... all very odd.  We are trying to find someone who can tell us what happened ...