He was hoping to get a ride out on the USS Iwo Jima.
The Iwo Jima must be getting a bit old, I was on it in 1976!
Hmmm. Good luck with that. I believe they are just going to be an escort - they're the big warship. They are two days behind the Nashville, which got in sometime late night or early morning Thursday.
They have boarded or may still be ferrying evacuees from the landing craft to the Nashville, 300 at a time. They may be underway to Cyprus, but wouldn't have arrived there yet. It seems to be taking 8 hours instead of the 5 hours we heard originally. It's only 100 miles and takes very little time in the military choppers - but they're for really sick people or those with small children and people who can't stand in line for health reasons.
Last he wrote, he expected to be gone by Wednesday morning (yesterday). He said Tuesday evening "tomorrow" which would have been Wednesday.
All he could've done was jump ahead (if he didn't get a call) of the callees and go on the Orient Queen, which means he's already in Cyprus and will be in Baltimore sometime this afternoon or evening - which arrival we will see on TV, unless he makes his own arrangements to fly to Chicago.
The next opportunity he had to be leaving on Wednesday would've been if he were picked up by the landing craft to go out to the Nashville, but that was really Thursday. (That's the one I'm kinda thinking he might be on, just an educated hunch.)
Otherwise, he might get the Orient Queen again on the re-run later today, then the Nashville again, even later, most likely tomorrow, Friday. The Iwo Jima might be there Saturday, but like I said, I'm kind of thinking it's not going to be taking on any passengers.
The Vittoria something, Italian cruise ship, has also been chartered by US, but doesn't get there until Friday sometime. That one carries up to 1,400, I believe. There is also a smaller vessel due in on Friday that can carry 300.
Oh, sorry - I've been reading and reading, back and forth. When I answered you above, I forgot you had posted in response to my question of whether "they" had found rebel_yell2 yet.
I was asking, jokingly, if the TV person with the Nashville had "found" RY2 yet - hoping that's where he might be. I had posted earlier that if he *had* made the Orient Queen evac - and we don't know whether he did or didn't - that I was "waving" to him with the others they were showing on TV disembarking in Cyprus.
If he was on the Nashville, instead, I had teased about his making up a sign to say "Hello FReepers" and to wave to us, lol.