I’ve paid as much as $4 to mail a postcard from a foreign country. That is one reason why (take notice, family and friends …) I don’t send many postcards. The exception … my young nieces and nephews to whom I’ll often send a postcard with the suggestion that they find me on a world map or globe. A geography lesson – courtesy of their favorite Aunt Marilyn.

I thought it peculiar when the staff of our Galapagos cruise ship passed out free postcards and encouraged us to write and address as many postcards as we wanted. No postage necessary.

Huh?

Nevertheless, I wrote out several cards to family and friends at places all over the world.

It was late afternoon of our last day when our 40-passenger ship, Isabela, anchored off Floreana Island. We went ashore on a zodiak, landing on a beautiful stretch of brown sand dotted with sea lions soaking the last rays of afternoon sun. Walking a short distance inland we discovered “Post Office Bay” – a jumble of driftwood signs and traveler’s memorabilia. After days of visiting naturally pristine islands with practically no evidence of human visitation, this scene was particularly garish.

But it’s not new. More than 200 years ago, the Captain of a whaling ship set out an empty wine barrel at this spot and started a tradition. Whalers would drop off packages and letters they wanted sent home. Sailors on passing ships would check the barrel for mail addressed to people living near their home and take it back to deliver in person.

Whaling ships were gone for two years at a time, so can you imagine the thrill someone would get from receiving correspondence from a long-lost mariner?

Fast-forward to 2009, our guide, Socrates, pulled out a stack of postcards from a weathered wooden barrel, covered with stickers and graffiti.  He began calling out addresses. “North Carolina? Tallahassee?”

Another passenger grabbed a handful of cards. “Seattle? Edinburgh? Tarzana?”

“I’ll take that one!” I shouted. Tarzana is just a stone’s throw down the Ventura Freeway from my office. I was disappointed to see that it was addressed to a post office box. Unless I was prepared to camp out at the post office, it was unlikely that I would ever meet the intended recipient.

Within about 15 minutes, there were a couple dozen postcards claimed with promises to deliver them in person to the mailing address.

I wasn’t home last weekend when Rocky, my cat, received his postcard. It pictured a goofy-looking seabird and read, “Hi Rocky! This blue-footed booby is cute – but not nearly as cute as you! Love, Mom”

My husband told me that Rocky was very indifferent when the young woman from Malibu stopped by to deliver it. All the way from the Galapagos – and he could have cared less! Sometimes he acts like such a cat! Good thing I didn’t waste a stamp.

At my office a few days later, I overheard a visitor announce herself to my assistant, saying something about “Galapagos … postcard …” and I rushed out to meet her. Sure enough, the postcard of a giant tortoise I had addressed to my staff had made its way to California – sans postage!

I invited the young woman into my office, where we had a lively conversation. She had been on a cruise with her grandmother just a few weeks before, and in the tradition of those long-lost mariners of centuries ago, offered to hand deliver my news as I had done only a few months prior. Our conversation was natural and easy, as if we had known each other for years. We chatted about our Ecuador itineraries, compared notes about our respective cruise ships, favorite Galapagos experiences and about our shared love of travel and adventure.

And quite the adventuress was she. Among other talents, she has her pilot’s license and had been a bush pilot in Alaska.

“Now that’s a coincidence,” I said. “My husband is training to get his pilot’s license.”

Her next statement nearly floored me. “Do you have a cat named Rocky?”

My synapses could not fire fast enough. What did being a bush pilot have to do with my cat? Did we know somebody in common? Was she clairvoyant?  “Why, yes” I stammered. “But how could you possibly know that?”

In the next moment, it all became clear. She was the same good samaritan who had delivered Rocky’s postcard just a few days earlier!

And in the simplicity of this time-honored tradition, of this personal exchange of written words from one voyager to another, a connection was made, bonding two fellow travelers as tightly as the string around the stacks of colorful postcards sitting in an old wine barrel in Post Office Bay, awaiting a connection of their own.