04 December 2001
a really cute cute story that made me happy despire the crap i'm going through with schoolwork. so there!
from cnn.com
SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- Colins the stowaway cat was finally reunited with her New Zealand master this week, 18 days after she took a catnap on a South Korea-bound tanker that took to sea.
The saga of the sleepy stowaway began on November 15, when the nine-year-old white, black and gold cat curled up with a South Korean sailor who had taken her aboard a methane tanker for a meal at New Zealand's Port Taranaki.
It ended 9,600 km (5,965 miles) later at the South Korean port of Yosu on Tuesday, when a thankful James Gordon MacPherson embraced the cat that he and his fellow dockworkers had raised at Port Taranaki since the early 1990s.
The New Zealand dockworkers had tried to arrange a mid-sea ship-to-ship cat transfer that was abandoned as too risky.
To calm the New Zealanders' worries, South Korean captain Chang Seong-mo sent email photos of Colins back to the port.
"Many people have been involved in getting Colins back to New Zealand and we're very grateful for that," MacPherson told South Korea's YTN television network.
He thanked the crew of the tanker Tomikawa for their care, Whiskas pet food and Korea Airlines for airfare and quarantine officers in South Korea and New Zealand for speeding the return of a cat he said "kept us company for many long nights."
"We'll have to give her a talking to -- not to talk to strange men," he said.
dandlioneyes at 6:15 pm