The Mate

We were on a 7 day cruise out of San Juan which returned on 9/9/2001 to San Juan, and we had an early evening flight that evening to return to Philadelphia. I believe we were standing in line with other passengers to go through the metal detector [ I don't think they scanned hand luggage back then] when I was asked by a security person to come over to the side, to another area,for a baggage check. [This gave my wife quite a chuckle as I am of East Indian descent, and had 'attracted attention' on previous occasions, in airports, over the years.] I accompanied the security person over to a table, was asked to put my shoulder bag on the table, and asked what its contents were. I explained it was my camera bag with my video camera, still camera and equipment, and was about to open it, and was told not to do so. Another security person at the table had a pair of forceps, into which he clamped a 'piece of fabric' about 4 inches square, and rubbed it all over my camera bag, he then removed the fabric from the forceps and inserted it into a large piece of equipment behind him. I had never seen this done before, and asked if he was searching for drugs, and he replied,'no, explosives'.

Were they on 'high alert' for something about to happen, and desperately searching at ports of entry into the US?

We returned to Philly and our home on the Jersey shore, early in the morning of 9/10/2001, and was awakened the next morning by my distraught wife and the TV News that the Towers had fallen............................

Pol Acker is to champagne what Carnival is to cruises.

 

Matthew

And Carnival owns Cunard!