Dear Cynthia, It was your wonderful piece of write up I came across, and I relived my childhood days, as if, it was just in the past.
In the days when the Bombay - Goa road was almost non exixtent, it was the steamer service on < Goa Line >, that catered to the masses from the costal area of Maharashtra, south of and including Ratnagiri. To the north of Ratnagiri, it was mailnly the <Harnai line>, with comparitively smaller steamers. Myself being from Devgad in the Ratnagiri district, ( now part of Sindhurgdurg district,) steamers were very convenient, to and from Mumbai. As you described the minutest details of the steamer travel to Panajim, I could not keep quiet, and rushed for some old Photo albums, to make some digital snaps of the < Old Beauty > taken in those good old days using Agfa < Click III >, ultimate gift to a obidient child, by middle class parents. The dates appearing on the snaps are a gentle reminder of the fact that, many monsoons have drenched my beautiful land, from the time the Click III, clicked the originals, and technogy has enabled me to share these memories in digital form with you, via this mail. I trust you may find yourselves sitting on the open deck enjoying the breeze, just above the transom of this childhod love, < Konkan Shakti > Warm regards, Avinash Patankar