World cruise 12

January 26 (Happy Australia Day)

I made sure that both M and I were up and out on the balcony at 6:45 a.m. in time to see us come through the reef and get situated in the lagoon at Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Even with its top edge covered by cloud, Mt. Otemanu is impressive.

Then the ship swiveled around so that we had a good view of the island Motu Toopua which is part of the ring around Bora Bora.

The Oceana Marina is also here at Bora Bora today. That means even more tourists ashore in this tiny village of Vaitape. I decided that I was just not in the mood to expend the energy to go sit on a smaller boat while more agile people snorkel. So I skipped my early morning tour for today.

By lunchtime the clouds had thinned so the whole mountain was visible. Much more impressive! I even made M get dressed and take her camera upstairs to see it. Judging by the number of photos she took, she liked it. Then by the time we sailed in the afternoon, the clouds and showers were back.

No photo to prove it, but M was there and saw it also. I SAW DOLPHINS WHILE ON A SHIP!! Until now, I have always been on the other side of the ship whenever any ocean life was spotted. Today as we watched our departure from the lagoon at Bora Bora, a whole group of dolphins saw us off in fine style. Very exciting!

M got her appetite back and went to dinner this evening, so we think she's turned the corner on this bug. The cough killer stuff from Medical is helping also. Tomorrow is a sea day so she can rest up some more before we get to Rarotonga, Cook Islands. Even then, depending on weather and currents, sometimes they have to cancel the Rarotonga stop as there is not a good protected harbor there big enough for the Amsterdam. So they have 2 places to try to see if conditions are calm enough to use the tenders...Plans A & B...and Plan C is to wave at the island as we sail away.

January 27

A sea day full of crocheting, cards and dominoes. Just about everybody was happy to relax for a day. I turned my finished blanket, but forgot to get a photo.

M is feeling better and went to see both of the new guest speakers who came aboard in Papeete to replace the first two. This evening was another formal night at dinner. The ship's photographer came around. I can no longer say he was wasting film because it's all digital these days, but he was wasting battery power on me as I almost never buy ship's photos.

I understand from those who actually follow the news and weather that the northeast is getting some nasty winter weather. I hope everyone is safe and warm.

January 28

Up at 6:00 a.m. to see if we can go ashore at Rarotonga, Cook Islands. Our friends Penny and Ginger say that the ship winds up with Plan C (sailing away) more often than not. Ginger says that in all her world cruises, this one hasn't worked yet. Penny says she spent a week here about 20 years ago and there isn't much to it and it's only about 3 miles around.

Plan A on the north side of the island near the town of Avarua got scrapped pretty quickly.

So we moved around to the west side near Arorangi which was Plan B. Then the Captain came on the PA system and said that on this side there are two competing sets of swells so he was canceling this stop...Plan C wins again. After a few minutes for those who wanted to take photos, we sailed away to spend an extra day at sea leaving Rarotonga in our wake.

Bulletin! The Captain just announced a major change in schedule and route due to a tropical storm brewing west of us with a full roster of high winds and seas and lots of rain. As the scheduled stop of Alofi, Niue would be a tender port right in the middle of the storm, we are skipping that one also. Now we are heading straight for Nuku'alofa, Tonga where we should arrive late tomorrow and stay 2+ days until we're back on schedule leaving Tonga on February 2. If that doesn't match your calendar, it's because we will have crossed the International Date Line and lost a day.

World cruise 11 - Margaret

From Margaret
Tahiti
Papeete
Papenoo River Valley

Off we went in the back of a 4-wheel drive truck for whatever "wilds" there were in the interior of Tahiti – or at least in the Papenoo River valley. The headwaters of the Papenoo are high in the volcanic mountains of Tahiti. According to our guide, it used to be a completely wild river in which the Tahitians would fly fish for trout. The valley also contains a lot of archaeological remains as the original Polynesians lived along the ridge tops and any other little patch of relatively level land they could carve out.

In the 1990s the French government dammed the Papanoo river high in the mountains creating a huge lake, and installed 7 hydroelectric dams along its length to the sea. Today, it provides half of the electricity used in Tahiti. The cost, however, was a major change in the river eco-system. The river itself has been channeled and the land along the banks opened for farming. The trout are gone – something about access to the sea being lost. That part wasn't quite clear.

The road leading up into the Papenoo River turns right off the main circum-island highway and is paved. Deceptive beginnings!! It turned to a dirt road fairly quickly that was well rutted and pot-holed. Some of the pot-holes seemed big enough to almost swallow the truck. Our guide, who had quite a sense of humor, negotiated his way through these rather skillfully. It definitely lived up to the promise of a "jolting" ride.

The name Papenoo means "valley of a thousand waterfalls". Due to the recent heavy rains there were more waterfalls than usual. We could have stopped every few yards to photograph another one. Once we were well into the valley, we had to cross the Papenoo. Use the bridge? Oh no, that would be too easy. We crossed on a concrete strip just under the surface of the water. Whether or not our guide really had a bit of trouble getting out of the river and up the far bank is open to question – given his sense of humor. On the plus side, the river is really beautiful at eye level from within its middle.

On up the potholed road and around sharp curves, we passed waterfall after waterfall not to mention bananas, palms, and a huge variety of other trees and plants Maybe halfway into our trip we stopped at a partially restored Polynesian "religious" site. The Tikis have all been removed to a museum, but the stone platform has been restored and a tall marker put where the main Tiki would have stood. The area surrounding the Tiki platform had the appearance of having been paved with cut blocks of volcanic stone (although the grass had grown up through them).

The mountains on either side of this valley were huge and very vertical. It seemed almost impossible that vegetation of any kind could even grow on them, they were so steep. One part of this valley wall belonged to the original volcanic crater wall – it was particularly vertical.

We passed by at least three of the hydroelectric generators. The most interesting one had a larger dam than the others with a long spillway. This spillway also served as a segment of the valley road. So, once again, we drove through several inches of running water – made a really good splash for anyone watching.

The last stop we made was a sharp knoll on the edge of the ocean. On top of the knoll was an ancient pine which our guide told us one would find only along the ocean shores as it requires salt water. Interesting tree, the needles were long and fine enough to be lacy. The view of the ocean from this point was spectacular. It was not a good swimming area, however. No beach and the underwater surface seemed to be mostly coral and volcanic rock against which the ocean crashed.

The homes in Tahiti, as with the other Polynesian islands, so far, were colorful with every inch planted to fruits and flowers. Haven't yet mentioned the ubiquitous Polynesian chickens. They are small like bantams and are everywhere. Apparently they are "protected" – at least they aren't eaten, except for their eggs. Their job is to eat the poisonous centipedes (ugly creatures – saw one on Nuku Hiva).

On to the next adventure ….

World cruise 11

January 24

We are at Papeete, Tahiti which is one of the Society Islands and also part of French Polynesia. We didn't arrive until noon, and the morning was rainy with just enough roll to the ship to make you want to hold onto something once in a while. After we docked, there were a couple of rain showers, then increasing sunshine until the clouds sat back down on the tops of the mountains in late afternoon.. Otherwise, it was just hot and humid.

Through the mid- to late morning still en route, we sat with the usual group in the Explorers' Lounge on Deck 5. That gave us excellent seats to watch our passage through the reef to the harbor at Papeete. There's this wide band of breaking waves and white water, then it suddenly stops for a wide enough hole (obviously man-made) for ships to get through.

There are 2 other cruise ships in port: the Paul Gaugin which mostly runs one week trips in the vicinity, and Oceana's Marina. The other interesting thing about this harbor is that ship traffic must coordinate with air traffic because the runway location makes planes take off and land right through the air space over that gap in the reef.
We are here overnight until late tomorrow afternoon. I want to see if the city looks anything like the nightscape I remember from 1988 when Connie and I and 2 other friends came here to board a ship to Sydney. We were standing on the back deck of the old Sitmar/Princess Fairsea watching the lights come on as the sun went down. I said, "I can't believe we're really here!" A man's voice right behind me said, "I can't believe it either!" That's how I met my cruising friend Mark and his friend Bob. We met a bunch of other great folks on that cruise, some of whom we're still in touch with today. (Yes, there are still lights coming on at sunset, but lots more of them now than in 1988.)

Margaret (and Mike also, I believe) has gone off on a rugged 4x4 trip billed as "Not suitable for pregnant women or those with back problems, motion sickness or vertigo." I'm sure they will see interesting things, but I saw the vehicles they left in, and I'm perfectly happy to not be on that tour.

Actually, they had a good time as you will eventually read in Margaret's post about it. Margaret then went out to dinner with a group headed to various food trucks in a nearby parking lot while Mike and I bypassed the Polynesian barbecue up on deck and chose to go to our regular table in a mostly empty dining room.

After dinner, I headed toward the Queen's Lounge to watch the evening's entertainment. En route I met Margaret just back from her dinner expedition. The entertainment was a troupe of Polynesian dancers who were very good, but very loud. Just about everything in the Queen's Lounge is painfully loud, and even ear plugs only bring it down to a tolerable level. I think they set it loud for all the deaf, elderly people in the audience. That's no help to those of us who have not yet lost our hearing.

January 25

Rain off and on all day. M and I were on a long tour that went all the way around the big part of the island, aka Tahiti Nui. The smaller part joined by a narrow isthmus on the southern side is called Tahiti Iti. "Nui" means big, and "iti" means little.

First stop was the John Norman Hall House. He was originally a farm boy from Iowa who was with the Lafayette Escadrille and other aviation pursuits, moved to Tahiti, got interested in the event and wrote "Mutiny on the Bounty" and lots of other novels.

The second stop was supposed to be at Matavai Bay where the Europeans first landed along with a lighthouse and handcrafts shop, but it was flooded out from the storm a couple days ago. Third would have been a walk to see a waterfall...rained out. So onward around the island.

Our lunch stop was at the Paul Gaugin Restaurant. It was a delightful spot with lots of big glass doors along the outside wall that folded back when the rain stopped for a bit. There was a nice buffet, however the only unusual-to-me item I tasted was some sort of plantain dish which was mostly just sweet.

There was a group of men sitting on a low wall playing and singing Polynesian music near our table. They were quite good. One of the passengers from another bus accompanied them very nicely on the spoons (he's sitting on the wall across from them).


By this time M's cold was back full force. So we stayed on the bus instead of visiting the Vaipahi Gardens, although they looked nice from where we sat.The last stop was at the Museum of Tahiti and Her Islands. The Museum was lovely, even though neither one of us saw all the displays of Polynesian history and archeology. It is laid out in separate one-story buildings connected by covered walkways surrounded by lush gardens. I spent part of our visit sitting outside listening to bird calls and the roar of the ocean waves. Very peaceful.

When we got back to the ship, I made M go immediately to the Medical Center. She was running a low fever, and of course, still had the cough. She got some cough killer stuff and orders to push fluids and stay in bed for a day or two. So I'll just hope the water is calm enough in Bora Bora tomorrow for me to tender ashore and back for my tour so I can report on this island for both of us.

World cruise 10 - Margaret

From Margaret
Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia
Taiohae
Taipaival Valley

Relatively early this morning we were assaulted by an announcement from the cruise director telling us that we should not go swimming or even wade in the ocean once we got to Taiohae, Nuku Hiva, because he had been informed that there were sharks in the waters. Oh Lovely!! – had I been one who wanted to play in the water. When I got to the pier in Taiohae later on that morning it was obvious why there were sharks. The local fishermen were cleaning their catch and feeding the offal to the sharks. Perfect clean-up crew.

At the pier we were met by enthusiastic drummers, chanters, a cacophony of local craft artisans, and what seemed to be a wall of banana bunches. The town of Taiohae is lovely. Colorful houses with fruits, flowers, and boats in every yard. It is the capital city of Nuku Hiva and home to around 2000 people. Although I did not see it, there is even a real hotel perched on the mountainside at the far end of town.

The craft and artisans area near the dock has several impressive stone carvings – monstrous gargoyles might be a good analogy. Further on around the bay (on into town) there is a park with more of this type of carving.

A number of them were gifts from the other Polynesian countries when Nuku Hiva hosted the first pan-Polynesia gathering in the 1990s. These gatherings have been held every 5 years since then. It is also something of an archaeological site – partly original, partly recreated. The large stone bowl (an original artifact) in which mashed and mildly fermented breadfruit was served to all, was intriguing. The stuff was apparently a bit like poi, not alcoholic, and eaten by dipping one's fingers into the mush. It was not clear from our guide's description but it sounded like the bowl was part of a communal sharing ceremony.

The tour to Taipaival Valley was an adventure in roads that literally snaked up and down the steep mountainsides with enough hairpin turns for said snake to have swallowed its tail. However, sharp curves aren't the only thing the driver has to watch out for. Horses! The local practice seems to be to turn the horses loose to graze along the roadside at will. (Well, it is the only level land around, so maybe the horses prefer to take their chances with autos rather than falling down the steep mountainsides). We kept coming across small herds of horses, including foals, who figured they owned the road – a couple of whom were sprawled out asleep.

Once we got to the tops of the ridges, the views were breathtaking. The small community of around 300 people in Taipaival valley is composed of colorful, neat homes ranged along a small river. According to our guide, Taipaival Valley's claim to fame is that Herman Melville spent time there in the 1800s and based his novel Taipai on his experiences with the then residents of the valley. Today, its main enterprise is coconuts for the coconut oil industry. They have planted the surrounding hillsides with a forest of coconuts. The horses mentioned above are used for riding but most importantly for transporting coconuts.

Most intriguing to me were the square or rectangular stone platforms (some appeared intact if overgrown, some in serious disrepair) that we kept passing as we snaked our way through the valley. When I asked what they were, our guide told us that they were built by ancient peoples and had not yet had any kind of archaeological work done on them. Wish I could have really looked at one of them.

The final place that we visited was the Cathedral in Taiohae. Stunning! It is a mixture of old and new, and very Polynesian. The stone entranceway to the Cathedral courtyard was built by the original French priests who settled in Nuku Hiva in the 1800s. As one enters, the building on the right is the original school and is also old. A new, modern, and much larger school has been built behind the old one and is in active use. Children stay on Nuka Hiva through middle school and then go to Tahiti for high school.

The Cathedral (because the Bishop for Nuku Hiva is resident there) is on the left. This building is totally open to the air and light. The building feels gracious, spacious, and uplifting. There is nothing confining about it. It is a mixture of stone (from all over the island, and includes stones sacred to the ancient Polynesian gods) as well as woods from all over the island. The exterior carvings are sandalwood because of its weather resistance. The statues of Jesus, Mary, and other saints are all in a Polynesian cast and style. The carving is impressive. The animals carved around the base and into the pedestal of the pulpit give the sense of the lion lying down with the lamb.

The acoustics are incredible – we got an unexpected demonstration. The Alley Cats, who had been performing on the Amsterdam during the previous week, were in the cathedral just prior to our arrival and had been singing to see what the acoustics were like. They agreed to do a song for us. Their choice was "Let there be peace on earth" and was sung from the step up to the sanctuary. Exquisite!!

What an ending for the afternoon ....

World cruise 10

January 22

Nuku Hiva is one of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. They are some of the most remote islands on earth. In fact, the "Survivor Marquesas" series was filmed here. Only about 2,000 to 3,000 people live on this island, and only about 20,000 on all of the Marquesas.

This island is mostly vertical, and the majority of it is inaccessible by road. Our ship anchored in Taiohae Bay, and the tenders took passengers ashore to the town of Taiohae which is the capital. This first photo shows the majority of the town. The following photo shows one of the several volcanic plugs that form the island's mountains.

This photo of Taiohea from the top of the mountain was taken by our friend Mike who went on the morning version of the tour that Margaret took in the afternooon. That white dot in the blue circle is our ship.

I did not go ashore on advice from Penny who has been here before and uses a walker similar to mine. According to her, and attested to by Margaret, the steps from the tender location are steep with no handrails at all. Instead, I spent much of the day being taught and playing Kings in the Corner with Ginger and Penny who are part of the crocheting group.

The small ships small world struck again today. I met Lynn and Charles who are the couple who were on the Prinsendam Grand South America trip with me in 2007, and it turned out they were also on the Amsterdam's Grand Asia and Pacific in 2008 that I was on.

Margaret did go ashore and on a tour in a 4x4 truck caravan. She described the ride up and over some of the mountains quite graphically. There were flocks of chickens and herds of small horses running loose in and alongside the road. The drivers spoke very little English which rather frustrated her desire to know all about the plants, flowers and ecology of the place. She'll give you more details in the next post.

January 23

Back at sea en route to Tahiti under gray skies that are leftovers from a tropical storm far to the south of us several days ago. Some wave motion, but the stabilizers took care of it.

The day's activities were about the same as other sea days. Margaret is feeling a lot better today although the cough from her cold is hanging on. She did get out and about to lectures as usual. I hung out with the knitting/crocheting group and actually finally finished crocheting the last square for the afghan I was working on, except for sewing the squares together.

World cruise 9

January 20

Seventh day at sea. So far the weather and sea conditions have been excellent (thank you, Jill).

I'm still having major trouble getting photos uploaded. I'm also having trouble editing text in blogger. I'm going to go back to the only way that sort of works which involves multiple uploads of text and photos and merging the two in HTML which is not something I understand at all. This is probably as frustrating to those of you who are trying to follow my trip as it is to me. At least I can write about it even if I can't get it posted for you to read.

I met a woman this morning who was on the same cruise with me in 2010 in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. And I've heard there's a couple on board who were on the same South America trip in 2007. It's a small ships small world.

We went to a program on pareo (aka sarong or lava lava) tying in the morning. The group who have been holding sessions on Polynesian culture did it. They are attractive and talented people teaching the dances of several cultures and a series of ukulele lessons (which I did not attend).

Then we had lunch out by the pool to the musical accompaniment of a solo guitarist doing mostly soft rock that's now considered "oldies," but is the music of my prime years. Yes, that's a life-sized sculpture of a grizzly bear and cub in the pool.

This evening was a formal night, and we were invited to the Captain's Dinner with cocktails before hand and dinner in the Pinnacle Grill. Wow! They went all out on this one! A three and a half hour, six course event (not counting the cocktails and hors d'oevres), fixed menu with each 2 courses of the menu presented on a card before the dish was served. I tasted so many new things to add to my list that I can't even put them all down here! My favorites were the green apple and mint sorbet and the duet of beef. For my food-oriented friends, here is what we had...each course a work of art on a plate.

Course 1: Seared Diver Scallop, Lemon Grass Citrus Gelee, Nori Powder, Sesame, Caviar
Course 2: Tomato Essence, Concasse, Vegetable Brunoise, Basil
Course 3: Lobster, Citrus Foam, Curry Creme, Cucumber Tapanade
Course 4: Green Apple and Mint Sorbet, Raspberry Pearls
Course 5: Duet of Beef Double "R" Tenderloin and Short Rib, Roasted Parsnip Puree, Shallot Jam, Petite Vegetables
Course 6: Chef's Chocolate Nougat Dream

We had an officer at our table along with 3 other passengers: a couple from Tampa and a man from northern New Jersey. The couple were pleasant, but the guy from New Jersey was just plain nutty (apologies to my friends from New Jersey who are not nutty). The interesting person was the Dutch woman officer who is a mechanical engineer. She was a little shy at first, but had a good sense of humor and was willing to answer stupid-tourist-type-questions about both herself and the ship.

I finally got blog installments 5-7 posted, but it took over an hour. I also posted a website Mike shared with me where you can track just about any cruise ship anywhere in the world in real time.

January 21

Eighth day at sea. I'm ready to see any land, even a small island. I probably won't go ashore as it's a tender port with some question of where the ship will anchor. Evidently there are 2 possibilities, and if neither works, we just wave as we sail away.

Margaret has been fighting the ship's cold for several days, so today she stayed in and slept almost all day. I came in every so often and made her call room service to eat something.

I did go to the show after dinner because it was the Alley Cats again. This show was just as much fun as the first one. Too bad they're getting off tomorrow at Nuku Hiva.

Tonight our bedtime present was a hefty folding umbrella. Maybe someone's expecting rain tomorrow?

World cruise 8

January 17

Fourth day at sea. I was going to go to a session on "Using your iPad" or some such. When I got there, it looked like about half the ship's passengers were lined up for it, and the room holds around 2 dozen ... 3 at most. Better luck next time.

The Mexican Train dominoes group is beginning to settle toward a consistent set of combined rules. Today we had two people stop by to watch and even sit in on the game when someone had to leave. "I think we're gonna need a bigger table."

Our social life is getting complex to the point where we had to cancel a dinner engagement with a group of Helen's travelers at one of the ship's fancy restaurants tomorrow for an invitation to the other one. And as I was returning to the cabin a young woman handed me an envelope that proved to contain an invitation to the Captain's Dinner on our next formal night. Althea might get her wish to see a photo of us with the Captain although I'm not sure about "schmoozing." We've already met the Captain's wife who often stops by the crocheting group (the Happy Hookers?) to schmooze.

This evening after dinner (I added beets and cucumber to my list) M and I went to the show in the main Queen's Lounge again. It was an a capella quartet called the Alley Cats who specialize in '50s and '60s Doo-Wop music. They were really great. Both of us hope they will do another show before they get off at Nuku Hiva.

January 18

Fifth day upon the briny deep, aka the Pacific Ocean. Weather is still calm and mild with temperatures in the 70s.

Nothing much of note during the day. I spent a bunch of online minutes (when the satellite connection was working) trying to solve some of my posting problems. I think I got one part solved, but not the photos yet. I'll see if I can catch the "Techspert" tomorrow about uploading photos.

In the evening Margaret and I were treated to a lovely, leisurely dinner at the Pinnacle Grill by our table mate Mike. As you can see, we elected to dress Hawaiian as that was the theme elsewhere on board today. It was wonderful food elegantly served. This is a place where they still prepare the Caesar salad at table side, and the stemware is so thin and fine that you're almost afraid to pick it up. Every item of food, including each side dish, is served on its own individual shape of plate. Margaret and Mike chose a halibut entree while I had a small filet mignon that was perfectly cooked and a baked potato about the size of its home state of Idaho. A meal to remember in excellent company.

January 19

Sixth day at sea. It was pretty much the same as the others. I did get some advice from the "Techspert" (a Windows 8 kinda guy) about photos, but waited until late to try to upload anything as what access we had today was snail slow. If you can see this, you'll know I was, in some measure, successful.

The shop on board was doing the old cruise ship standard "Gold by the Inch" today. I got 2 new glasses leashes, one in sterling silver and one in gold plate over silver. It took both M and I several damaged fingernails to get the clasps working, but now I can be more stylish with my glasses slung about my neck.

World cruise 7

Go down to World cruise 5 to catch up from Panama on.

January 15

Second day at sea...6 more to Nuku Hiva. Weather and ocean conditions about the same as yesterday. Mike was supposed to show me how easily he uploads photos to blogger, but the internet service was down. We are traveling at the edge or even out of range of the satellites for both internet and tv reception, but things should pick back up as we near Nuku Hiva. I hope.

I took it pretty easy today reading, crocheting and napping. Margaret was off at the knitting/crocheting group and various lectures most of the day. This evening was "The Black and Silver Ball" so everyone was all gussied up for it.

It occurred to me that I haven't mentioned much of anything about the food. For breakfasts, we usually go upstairs to the Lido buffet which has just about everything you can imagine for an international clientele. But on early tour days, we tend to have room service deliver a small breakfast. So far we haven't gone to the Dining Room for breakfast, but that will change soon...maybe tomorrow.

For lunch we have, again, mostly gone to the Lido buffet. The Lido has full course meals, pizza, pasta (meat sauce almost as good as friend Tom's), sushi, salads, made-to-order sandwiches, etc. So far we have not tried the hamburger and taco place out on deck. Several days we have eaten lunch in the Dining Room. One day we each had a delicious tuna melt, and their french fries are excellent. As I was leaving to go on tour at Manta, they were just bringing crates of fresh tuna aboard, so that's what Margaret and Mike had that night.

For dinners, we always go to the Dining Room where Yohat and his assisstant, Hery, take care of us in great style. Tonight all the chairs were covered in black or white and there were bunches of silver star-shaped balloons on every table. We had a new table mate named Andy from Calgary. Well, he lives in Calgary except when it's cold there, then he cruises in warmer climes. In the photo, left to right are Margaret, Andy, Mike and me.

What did we eat? Margaret had trout, Mike had crab cakes (and grits), Andy had escargot, and both Andy and I had Surf 'n' Turf. Mine came with basmati rice and grilled vegetables. And, yes, friends, Didi ate both carrots and zucchini. I'm going to have to get Margaret and Mike to sign a notarized statement to the new things I've eaten this trip. The carrots were okay. The zucchini was pretty good, but I had doused it well in garlic butter which will improve just about anything.

January 16

Third day at sea. It feels like we've been sailing for a week! I can't imagine how anyone from explorers in old, tiny sailing ships to today's fishermen or navy's sailors can tolerate really long voyages. Don't get me wrong, we are enjoying our sea days, it's just that it's somewhat hard to keep track of what day it is. In fact, I had managed to lose a day of this narrative, and it took some effort to figure out which one. Then on rereading, I had one too many days...I think it's fixed now.

Here is a photo of the scenery. Our wake is the most exciting thing around, and it's pretty hypnotic. The good news is that at this latitude (4◦15.74 south, also called the doldrums) the ocean is pretty calm.

I found 3 other ladies who want to play Mexican Train Dominoes. Each of us brought our own double twelve set. So this afternoon we met to play with just one set of dominoes but 4 different sets of rules! It was extremely confusing at times trying to blend and/or bend the sets of rules. I don't think we've actually managed it yet, but we will keep trying. I do think our "Buffalo Betty" rules are the most fun, but hey, at least I found some folks to play with.

We decided to go to the show after dinner. It was a stage magician named Jeff McBride. Part of his act was done with Kabuki masks and quick costume changes some of which were very interesting and others fairly obvious, at least to a former amateur costumer. Most of his act was sleight-of-hand card tricks which I don't think do well in a stage performance. He was entertaining, but like many acts on cruise ships, I wouldn't pay big bucks to see them on shore.

World cruise 6

January 13

Wow! We've been on board for over a week now! That's one sixteenth of the trip that has already zipped by! And we crossed the equator at 1:00 a.m. this morning. (Neither M nor I were awake for it.)

Today we are at Manta, Ecuador. Margaret went off to a bird sanctuary on an island somewhere, while I took a tour of the city. South American tour buses are great because they have fat lady size seat belts. And tour bus drivers all over the world are great at maneuvering their vehicles into and out of very tight places. I sit in awe of them. This bus in Manta was the bumpiest ride I've had since Batumi, Georgia in 2010. Batumi was flat. Manta is steep in all directions. But I'm not complaining about the bumpy ride because I was in the front seat and could see the size of the bumps and potholes the driver was avoiding!

Manta is the tuna capital of the world...mostly yellow fin. They also farm shrimp, and those two items are their second biggest export. The biggest is oil, and the third biggest is buttons of all shapes, sizes and colors (or at least so our guide said). In just a few years a road will be completed between Manta and Manaus, Brazil. That's one of the reasons that Manta is growing so fast. There is construction everywhere, much of it a result of foreign investments. For example, Hyundai is building a huge facctory here, and until it gets going, is importing cars at a huge rate. That pretty much explains the absolute swarm of tiny yellow taxis here as well as in Colombia.

Our first stop was at an anthropological museum. It was small but very nicely done with lovely murals showing the early native peoples with the most amazing large Roman noses. The museum was on the fifth floor and was accessed by a small, somewhat cranky elevator. It seemed to take several security guards to operate it, and took a number of trips to get all 29 of us up there.

We stopped at several places where different things are made. First was one that carves things out of tagua nuts. The tagua is a type of palm tree found in upland rain forests. The nuts are brown on the outside and ivory white sometimes veined with brown on the inside. Carved versions include small animals, jewelry, and of course, buttons.

Then we stopped at a village where there is a factory that makes bags for coffee beans out of agave fiber. Our guide told us that here in Ecuador, they don't use agave for tequila, but for its fiber. Outside were a number of little stalls selling stuff like "Panama" hats, leather belts, stoles, and bath mitts made of the agave fiber. I was sitting on my walker looking at some stoles when a young woman came up and tried to sell me a bath mitt which she demonstrated on my back. Then a few other women joined in trying to sell me hats, trying them on me almost like a comedy jugglig act (they were all too small and sat way up on my head). All of us had a good laugh out of this, I got a nice back rub, and I eventually bought an agave fiber back scrubber. The photo here is the rest of our busload being swarmed by hat and belt salespeople.

Next stop was a Civic Center way up on the mountain where they had a demonstration museum place with people actually weaving the Montichristi version of the "Panama" hats. They are mostly woven by women who work standing up and bent over a hat form doing the intricate weaving with fine fibers on the side away from them. These hats are much finer and fancier in appearance than most other styles. Now M has a Montichristi hat.

At the Civic Center there was a live band waiting to play for the various tour buses. I should have taken a photo, but didn't. There were 6 of them, all in matching purple shirts. There was a bass drum, snare drums, two other percussion instruments that sounded like maracas but looked like cheese graters, one trumpet and one saxaphone. The music was repetitive with the trumpet and sax taking turns playing the same short phrase, almost drowned out by the others, but it was enthusiastic. I did, however, get a nice view of the town of Montichristi as you can see.

There was one last stop for a quick group hike through a cathedral (I stayed on the bus) and then back to the ship. So far I have been impressed that the people on my tours have been the on-time-back-on-the-bus kind of folks. I only hope that trend continues.

January 14

We are definitely on our merry way across the South Pacific about 2 degrees south of the equator headed for Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia. We should get there in another 7 days. Today the weather is quite nice: partly cloudy, 75◦F, and smooth sailing. According to the Captain at noon, we should expect about the same tomorrow.

I spent some time this morning working on the crocheted blanket I'm doing for Project Linus and chatting with other ladies doing the same while M went off to one of the lecture series. She said this was a very interesting one about the socio-economic differences between the cultures of Latin America and North America. After lunch we went to yet another lecture which was on Polynesian culture before Captain Cook. Both lecturers on board at present do an entertaining job. I expect that we will get a new set of lecturers at either Papeete or Sydney.

I consulted some more with Kiki of the Shore Excursion staff. I'm having to reconsider and rework some of my shore excursion plans due to inaccessibility for my walker and myself. Most of the ones I really regret having to cancel are ones where M is also going, so I will have to rely on her reports and photos of those places. Ah well, such is life.

Then we happened to meet a woman named Jackie Herndon who is traveling by herself and who has ties to Charlottesville, UVa, The Plains, the University of Georgia, and who actually taught Bobbi Pancake at Albemarle High School (although I've never personally met Bobbi). The small world phenomenon strikes again.

At dinner Mike regaled us with tales of his marathon excursion to Quito yesterday. His tour left the ship at 5:30 a.m. and got back right at 8:30 p.m. which was the all aboard time for sailing at 9:00.

World cruise 5.1

Here's a website for you to follow us even when I can't post. Just choose Holland America Line and MS Amsterdam.

http://www.thecruisevillage.com/live-cruise-ship-tracker.phtml

World cruise 5

Not really back in business, but we'll make a start doing it the long, hard way.

January 11

We spent the majority of the day transiting the Panama Canal. The first photo is of the gates at the Gatun locks closing behind us as a another cruise ship (which never got close enough to identify, but someone said it was one of the Silver Seas ships) approaches the locks on the other side.

Next is a photo as we move into the third lock with Gatun Lake in the background. The locks are only 4 feet wider than our ship which leaves literally very little rom for error. They are building new locks at each end of the canal which will serve much bigger ships and be much more efficient in using and reusing the vast amounts of water it takes to raise and lower big ships 85 feet.

We spent a long time almost inching through Gatun Lake. I suspect that was due to heavy traffic through the canal. I wonder whether that will change when they open the new locks in a couple of years.

The third photo is of the mystery ship and our escort tug following us through the Culebra Cut. To me, this is the most interesting portion of the canal as it is where they had to dig the canal through the backbone of the isthmus.

The last photo is the Pan American Bridge over the canal at Panama City. The Pan American Highway goes from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. I've been to the southern end, but not the northern one.

Although we were past the Panama Canal, at dinner everyone, including the waiters and other dining room staff were given Panama hats (made in China) to wear. I have promised M that I will get her a real Panama hat while we are at Manta, Ecuador since that's where the real ones are made. She's going on some sort of wildlife tour there while my tour will visit an area where I should be able to find her a hat.

January 12

Chugging along off the South American coast...way off. At noon we were 120 miles north of the (west) coast of Colombia. The weather has been mostly cloudy, hazy and quite warm with an occasional shower. The ocean has been very smooth.

I am hoping that Mike can show me a better way to upload photos to my blog because I spent a frustrating hour trying to get yesterday's post and photos done with no success. He says it's easy...we'll see.

Oh, by the way, for those of you who know me in person, the other evening at dinner I actually ate some cauliflower and have two witnesses, maybe three if the waiter happened to be looking. I was not impressed.

Another apology

We are in the middle of the South Pacific where satellite connection is pretty iffy. Today we've een zigging and zagging to try to keep connection to the South American satellite which, if we were going straight would be blocked by the ship's funnel. I'm still working on the photo problem and hope to start "real" posts again soon.

Apology

Sorry for the hiatus. I'm having trouble up-loading photos again. Hope to get it working better soon.

World cruise 4

January 8

The ship developed some "ocean motion" last night. Not a whole lot of moving around, but enough to know that you are at sea. Also enough to make for very good sleeping. The old phrase "rocked in the cradle of the deep" has some truth behind it. Fortunately, this morning I was up before the ship's alarm went off for a Crew Emergency Drill.

The rest of the day was much like yesterday except for continuing motion as we are out in the middle of the Caribbean away from the protection of any islands. I do like days at sea, and there are lots of them on this trip. So far, my only problem is that I seem to have forgotten to pack my sea legs in all those suitcases I brought. I do realize that our cabin at the far aft end of the ship so will be bouncier than elsewhere on board. I finally did get some photos of the cabin so here they are.

We did go meet Helen who is the representative of a travel group called vacations.com with which my travel agent is affiliated. As members of her group on board (along with 50 or 60 others) we get several free tours, a party, etc. Plus she can organize things like tours, dinners, or lunches ashore etc. for small groups of us. At a meeting this afternoon, it became apparent that many in the group have been around the world on this ship before and have good advice to offer.

January 9

Up early, just in time to see us come in to the harbor at Santa Marta in bright sunshine. This is evidently a freight terminal rather than a cruise terminal. I later found out the Holland America only began stopping at Santa Marta this past year.

I had a nice tour of the city with the usual obligatory stops at a cathedral, a restored manor house, a modern hotel for a folkloric show on the beach and a museum. The folkloric show was loud drumming which I listened to from as far away as I could. I was more interested in the plaza at the cathedral than in the building itself. At the manor house, there was a great deal of walking involved, so I opted out of some of it and found a lovely shady spot with a nice breeze under a huge tree which I think was a banyan. I got out my crocheting and several local people stopped to ask what I was making. I did manage to get the idea of a string shopping bag across even with my very limited Spanish.

The stop I enjoyed the most was the Museo del Oro Tairona (the Gold Museum). It was very nicely done and featured pre-Colombian gold pieces and pottery from the Tairona area near Santa Marta. Interestingly, there were 4 previously unknown groups of natives in the Tairona Forests discovered in 1975. Evidently, after their initial exposure to the Spaniards' violent ways, they just determined to hide from white men. However, some of their tribe's burial sites had been discovered quite a while back. The gold piece here is a bat man from te group that has the bat as their totem. The pottery piece is also a bat man, but rather more ferocious looking. Many  of the other pottery pieces were extremely graceful and beautiful.

M

January 10

Half day at sea, and half at the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama. This is a tender port with about 20 miutes' ride in one of the ship's small boats to get to the island. As much as I have always loved seeing the molas and the fine sewing of the women who make them, I'm skipping it this time. I still have a number of molas at home and don't really need more. However, M has gone to look around.

As we approached San Blas, we were passed by the Thor Heyerdahl which is a 3-masted barque. Here is a photo of her with sails set just perking along.

World cruise 3

January 5

There were another 5 ships docked at the port when we got up ths morning. We headed over to the passener terminal about 11:30 or so arriving at the same time as several hundred other passengers. That just meant an exercise in "hurry up and wait," but it didn't take more than about an hour until we were in our cabin. We were originally supposed to sail at 5:00 p.m., but didn't actually sail until about 10:00 p.m.

We had some lunch then wandered around a bit. I enjoyed seeing the ship agan, but I probably thoroughly confused Margaret since it is all new to her. Back at the cabin, we spent most of the afternoon until dinnertime unpacking our suitcases. Everything including the ones we shipped back on December 19th arrived in good order, although some things were pretty wrinkled after being packed for 3 weeks.

I'm sorry I don't have any good photos of the cabin, but there isn't really a good view point to do it justice. The cabin is pretty good size with more closet space than I expected and a reasonable amount of drawer space. However, I am glad that we brought along a shoe bag thing to hang over the bathroon door for more storage in there. I picked up that tip from someone on the Facebook group for this voyage. It really helps keep things controlled...especially with all the stuff two women want to have available. One of the best parts of having a handicapped accessible cabin is that you don't have to step up to get into the bahroom...no cracking your toe in the middle of the night because you forgot to step up.

We have the cabin's beds set up as twins with both nightstands in between. That makes things a little tight in the entry area, but generally gives us more moving around space and less claustophobia. The portion of the cabin toward the windows has a desk with tv set and dvd player, a lot of drawers, and a bar area. There is a partial wall and curtain between that area and the sleeping area. Also there is a love-seat-sized couch in black leather, an end table that houses a mini-fridge, another chair and a coffee table that goes taller if you want a dining table. Our balcony is huge and has one chair, one small side table and one lounge hair.  However, the balcony extends past the width of our cabin almost to the back of the ship. With all this, we managed to get everything stowed away including the suitcases most of which are under the beds serving as additional storage.

January 6

Lazy day at sea. Anyone who has followed my blog on other trips knows that means sleep late, putter around or read in various locations for most of the day, talk to people, have dinner and read some more or go to one of the entertainment venues. Today the choices were read, nap, and dinner followed by a bit of classical music by a piano/violin duet. M added in a good bit of wandering around the ship and one of the guest lecturers' presentations.

The red roses we were given at dinner last night have opened nicely. This evening when we got back to the cabin, we found a lobster made from a towel on M's bed and a very nice travel journal for each of us. Tomorrow I plan to figure out how to get my internet access set up. At least I get a strong wifi signal in the cabin.

January 7

I did get hooked to the internet this afternoon, but there just isn't a whole lot exciting going on as we are still headed toward our first port in Colombia. We did have a pretty good view of Cuba as we passed through the Bahamas Channel. I hope that someday I will be able to sail on a ship that stops there.

Project Linus (a nationwide organization that makes and donates blankets to sick children from babies up through teenagers) is alive and well on board. In addition to a number of folks working on their own projects, there are several huge boxes of yarn to be made into hats and blankets. So I started a corner to corner double diamond blanket and now several other ladies want me to teach them the pattern.

I spent a good deal of time in consultation with one of the Shore Excursion staff going over all the various tours I've chosen. She's trying to talk me out of a bunch of them as being too strenuous. Also, at a number of the islands in the South Pacific the vehicles they use for the tours cannot accommodate my walker. Most of those are also tender ports where we will have to go ashore on the ship's small boats. I can do tenders if the seas are calm, but am not fond of the "tender high jump" when trying to get back onto the ship if the waves have picked up. Will have to think about all of this.

The Captain's Welcome Champagne Reception was this evening. Of course that meant formal dress. As we were waiting to go in, we met up with Mike who is one of our tablemates. He's a retired school superintendant from South Carolina on his first long cruise...nothing like starting off big! There's another couple at our table, but I don't have their names down yet. I think they are from Long Island. Tonight we were joined by one of the guest lecturers and his granddaughter who is a lovely young woman who recently moved from Hawaii to San Francisco. It was a congenial group.

I still haven't taken any photos of the cabin, mostly because it's almost always in some degree of disarray.

World cruise 2

January 3

Yesterday we were actually packed and ready to leave half an hour before our target time. Once in Richmond, we had a nice dinner with M's family including the very well-behaved granddaughter (age 2). They will be keeping M's car while we are gone.

Today's flights to Ft. Lauderdale were both on time and both had very young children. The first flight to Charlotte had a cute little girl of 1.5 years who was perfectly behaved. The second flight had several who were quiet and one little boy (right across the aisle from us) of about 2 years who had a screeching meltdown for a solid 40 minutes. I'm not sure that even a set of those fancy noise-canceling headphones would have been able to cope with that.

By the time they brought the drinks cart around, he had worn himself out. Thus I was able to once again enjoy the perennial miracle of having iced tomato juice 36,000 feet up in the air. For some reason, that never fails to evoke my sense of wonder at the technology (and physics) that makes it possible for me to do that.

After some less than satisfactory go-rounds with the hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, I finally got the room I wanted...11th floor with a balcony facing the port so I can sit and watch the big ships tomorrow. One of the big ones arrived this evening while we were at dinner. It was too dark for me to make out its name.

We had a fun, relaxed dinner with a friend here in Ft. Lauderdale at a place called Bimini Boateyard. We had a table outside overlooking the marina. She is a cruise travel agent, so we had lots to talk about, although the conversation ranged all over the map way beyond cruising, as usual.

January 4

This morning there were 5 big ships in port that I could see and possibly another docked directly in front of the one closest to us judging by the morning shadows. I couldn't tell exactly which ships they were -- except for the Regal Princess right in front of us with her wide stern pointed at us -- but there was at least one Carnival ship with its "whale tail" on top.

We had a lazy day watching the ships, boats and drawbridge over the Intercoastal Waterway, reading, managing to get hooked to the hotel's wifi (not as easy as one would think in a Hilton hotel), and wandering around this huge hotel complex. We got back to our balcony just in time to watch the ships parade out of the port. One got too far away for us to see what it was, but the others were 2 Holland America ships, the Eurodam and Niew Amsterdam, then the Regal Princess and the Carnival Freedom. Sure enough, the "wide-bodied" Regal Princess had been hiding something even bigger than herself...Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas.

"And so to bed" (to quote Samuel Pepys) for our last night on land for a good long time.