Leif - NCL Caribbean Cruise - August 1993 - Age 18

We just came home from a three night cruise to the Bahamas. We were remembering each day how much Leif enjoyed the two cruises we took him on when he was a teenager and how we wanted to take him again. I had asked him about a year ago whether he still had a passport and whether he had any vacation time at work, because I wanted to schedule a cruise (but I didn't tell him that part because I wanted it to be a surprise). He never answered me about the passport, and I didn't find one among his belongings after his death, but he said he had no vacation. I'm sad that we weren't able to take him on another cruise, or find a way for him to go on one with his friend Michael. I think it would have been a great time for the two of them.

These photos were taken on the cruise we took the summer after Leif graduated from Manhattan High School. He was eighteen, tall and handsome with very long hair. He looked like Tarzan and could have graced the cover of romance novels or been a model.

Leif had a great time on the cruise and had a shipboard romance with a lovely young woman from England who was a dealer in the casino. Her name was Jacquie and he was quite enamored of her. He had quite a few photos he took of the two of them together. After the cruise, she wrote to him a few times, but he didn't answer. I used to think that Leif didn't answer people because he was either to lazy to write back or didn't care, but at some point he made it clear that it was too hard emotionally for him to try to keep contact with someone he cared about who was so far away he would likely never see them again. When he was older and email became established, he did keep contact with people, but not in 1993.

Two of these photos were taken during the "formal" night on board ship, at our dinner table. The one at the top, with him in his purple silk shirt, was taken at Playa del Carmen on the "Mayan Riviera" near Cancun and Cozumel. He was fascinated by the Mayan Ruins and he loved Cozumel.