Journey back in time with us now to the SS Mariposa as she embarks on a south seas cruise, photographed in glorious 16mm Kodachrome by Mildred and Harry Brown of Glendale, California between February 25th and April 3, 1963. See leisurely, voyeuristic shots of a lithe woman sunning herself with a tiny folding canopy to shield her face from the sun! See the bloody and messy Neptune Ritual as passengers are carved up with a meat cleaver and left to stagger, bloody away, only to be doused in foam and tossed into the pool! See a woman possessed by the mood of the afternoon as she bursts into a spontaneous twist in front of King Neptune’s Court! See exotic dancers galore! But above all… please have a good time! Courtesy of SHIPGEEK.

Cruise and Liner History – SS MARIPOSA – LAST OF THE U.S. FLAG CRUISE SHIPS…

The elegant all first class liner SS MARIPOSA – sailing in the South Pacific of Pago Pago on a Matson Line Cruise in the 1950s.

If you can find a copy on Ebay or Amazon, rush to buy Nothing Can Go Wrong By Capt. John H. Kilpack with John D. MacDonald. Here is a vacation post card, a valentine and a lament. Captain Kilpack was the skipper of the S. S. Mariposa when, in May 1977, it undertook one of its last long cruises – in this case a 77-day voyage from San Francisco to Leningrad and back again, with two transits of the Panama Canal and a dozen stops in between. The former Matson Line ship would be sold later in the year to a Chinese company. These were the last two passenger liners sailing under the American flag operated by American companies. This book is wonderful… amusing and touching.

The New York Times book review follows.

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