sea day

Sunrise off the aft deck after our first time change of the cruise.

Followed by breakfast and time by the pool.

Quiet afternoon watching the Brown Boobys fish in the lee of the ship.

 Port talk at 4:30 watched on TV.

6:30 - The natural history of Costa Rica. By Robin Petch nice talk with lots of great photos  They spotted rough tooth dolphins but we were not there.

Great Dinner with Kyle Acierno and Kateryna in Manfredi's 

Colon, Panama

We arrived in colon after breakfast.  We watched the sunrise from the world cafe.  The ship arrived at the dock shortly afterwards.  

we had the 10:30 am aerial tram rainforest tour. 

The Panama canal

Up before sunrise to see the ship transit the canal.  Breakfast on the balcony watching the toucans and parrots in the trees.   We also saw a crocodile today and heard the howler monkeys off in the jungle.  

4:30 pre dinner lecture is on Canals and their role in history.  Nice talk about the history of canals.  

Cartagena, Columbia

 Upper 80's. Warm and clear 

Location: Cartagena Columbia 

We did the tour of the National aviary 

https://www.aviarionacional.co/

This was followed by tea

Lecture about the moon and all of the private companies working on a lunar base 

Sea Days Dec 25& 26

We are still in the eastern time zone. Today we have several lectures planned for the day.

    9:30am - Explorer the Age of Discovery

(photo credit to Randy)

Lunch 

    3:00pm - Private small group talk on the Bayeux Tapestry with the resident historian.  This was very entertaining and educational.  I played the part of king Harold.   We went down both of the stairways where the tapestry is reproduced in parts on each floor.  The story of that section was told at each landing.   

    4:30pm - Port talk. Watched on TV as the theatre was full

    6:30pm - Kyle Acierno "Lunar Exploration" interesting talk with lots of info about the history of spacecraft to the moon.

 

Christmas

You knew this was coming...

Santa came late last night with the turn down service

Christmas Breakfast 🥞

What a wonderful day.  Breakfast at mamson's. Then a day working out and enjoying the spa.  

got a good shot of the booby flying alongside the ship 🚢

Cozumel, Mexico - 12/24/22 Christmas eve

 Weather: Rainy day, low seventies and windy.  

The harbor for small boats was closed last night, so all of the snorkeling trips got cancelled.  We had a private snorkeling trip set up for this morning but the cold front blowing in from the north has shut down all the small boat marinas.  We decided to go do the included bus tour instead of staying on the ship for the day. The Mayan ruins of the goddess of fertility (Ix Chel) were interesting but it rained most of the time.  Sissel Christmas concert was played in the star theatre after dinner and was very lovely.

Birding note: Thick billed kingbird  (maybe) 

Day 2 - sea day

A very nice day!  Room service for breakfast and then a nice workout in the gym.   5k meters on the rowing machine, then 20 min on the bike.  Fiddled with the app for their equipment but could not link it to Strava.

9:30am port talk on Cozumel by an archaeologist  then a talk on whales and dolphins we are likely to encounter on the cruise.  Lunch at the Restaurant. This evening was a quick dinner in the world cafe followed by a talk on the moon and its legends. Light  rain on an off most of the day.

Bird Note:. Spotted a brown booby flying alongside the ship

Brown Booby

Somewhere between Key West and Havana

Day 1

Uber over from hotel was super easy. The Coast guard was inspecting Neptune when we got to the port and we were delayed boarding for a couple of hours. So we sat in the terminal waiting area and meet several couples. once on board we got a late lunch.  There was a bit of a delay for the delivery of the bags because of the earlier inspections. this caused a little worry but all was well. Luggage forward removed our magnets hooks from our bag.  All in all it has been as smooth as we could hope for.  

Tomorrow is a sea day on the way to Cozumel for Xmas eve and some snorkeling weather permitting.  

Miami:

Here we go kids! Watch this....

Wow, The World Cruise starts tomorrow

The day is finally here! Martha and I have been planning this day for years.  A few sleepless nights and lots of  "to do lists". The flight to Ft Lauderdale was a little delayed but not bad.  Overall easy traveling.😊. We Ubered CVS to get a few items that we could not ship down here.   

Tonight in the Hilton and tomorrow a shuddle to the cruise port

Oh my things are a little busy this morning

We never want to let things go till the last minute but there are the items that you need to use until you are ready to go. The nervousness of travel is something that I think most people experience.  There is the excitement of a grand adventure and the what else can I not live without for 5 months. I can only imagine what Capitan James Cook was experiencing on the day before he left.

The Snorkeling people in Cozumel emailed me this morning as the weather forecast for Sat. is not looking good.  Our plans are firmly cast in Jello.

One week to go

The days are going by quickly.  It seems the to do list is finally starting to shrink and we are only waiting on one more package. We have been following the Viking website for changes to the covid requirements and also any changes in excursions. 

I was greeted by this tidbit, when I logged in this morning:

You are now just a few days from the start of your cruise, which means you are unable to make changes. Once aboard, you can modify and make new reservations.

We picked up an excursion in Barcelona the other day.  Therefore we have one day in Sri Lanka and a day in Whitsunday island with no excursion.   Several cities we only have the basic bus tour until we figure out something better. 

It is a balmy 49 degrees today and I am missing my snorkeling gear that is waiting for me in Ft Lauderdale!  We have been practicing with the snorkel gear at the pool lately and I can't wait to see the fish

Birding on the trip!

As I was checking things off of the to-do list today, I updated the library in my Merlin bird id app on my phone and noticed that the Atlantic ocean library was sponsored by Viking. I am looking forward to seeing some pelagic birds on this cruise.  Hopefully this app will help in identifying them. 

I have always put off maintaining a life list of birds because I often see many of the same birds locally.  I realized that with this world cruise I will be seeing many birds possibility for the first and last time. It is time to finally work on the list in earnest.  Bird watching brings me to the present.  I am in the moment walking through the woods or along a trail looking for birds.  Being out it nature has always been something I enjoyed.

We have signed up for several on the birding tours.  Disappointed the Singapore sanctuary is closed.  We will see the gannet colony in NZ and the rainforest in several countries as well as the mangroves in a couple of other countries.   

T-11 days

 Work continues on the side trips.  We booked a trip to Bukit Merah Orang Utan while in Georgetown. Also booked a trip to see the mangroves in Langkawi.  This will leave the planning for shore excursions down to just a few cities.   

The trip is approaching so quickly when for the longest time it seemed like it would never get here. It it about time to start packing the next set of bags.

One step closer

UPS picked up the luggage today!  This is a big step closer to getting on the boat. It was sort of anticlimactic.  They ran up to the door scanned the bags and whisked them away.  After weeks of packing and repacking.  Debating should I take this or that and revising the packing list.  

Just over 2 weeks before we see the bags again!  

Traveling and History

Traveling the world is an endeavor that requires a lot of planning and thought.   I have posted about packing, excursions and the cruise, but preparing for a world cruise also includes learning. 

History is a part of what gives travel meaning.  History also provides context and insight to who we are and adds richness to our lives.  Traveling brings history alive in ways that can only be experienced by being in a place. History is often invisible in our surroundings unless you are aware of it.  A little bit of reading or a good tour guide can turn a barren landscape or city block into something magical and amazing.  To read about history is one thing. To get some understanding of history is a gift.  To bear witness to history, is part of the journey.

Study prior to a world cruise has to include Captain James Cook.   He was one of the original great world cruisers.  The itinerary of our trip overlaps so much of Captain Cook's exploration it is amazing.  Here is a graphic of his 3 circumnavigations

The routes of Captain James Cook's voyages. The first voyage is shown in red, second voyage in green, and third voyage in blue. The route of Cook's crew following his death is shown as a dashed blue line.

Image reposted under GNU Free Documentation License 

My prep for the cruise was reading the following book. The title of this book about him says it all:

T-21 days

Today's to do list items included a trip to the post office to get a p.o. box.   The post office will only hold your household mail for 30 days.  A P.O Box avoids this problem as it will hold mail till retrieved and will be checked for us by our kids.  I thought it would also be more secure.  I got the full post office experience as they did not have keys for the box they assigned and I was instructed to return the next day to get the keys.  After going out to find my box for future reference, some people were waiting for the police as several boxes were pryed open the night before.   I decided as the thieves only targeted the large boxes that I did not need a large box.  So back in line to get a refund on the big box and get a smaller one with a more secure door.   Getting a refund from the post office, let's consider this for a moment, have you ever seen it happen?   It was less fun than a visit to the dentist.  Which was the next item on the list today.

On a better note the Vietnam visas came via email today!😊

The "My Map" was added to the top of the page and I am planning to update it as we go along.   It can also be found here:  Map