Blogs from North Atlantic, Atlantic, Oceans and Seas - page 4

Tuesday 10th April 2012 Ship's Log – MS Balmoral Here we are – on the MS Balmoral, currently cruising towards the site of the Titanic's sinking. Boarding on Sunday was a great day – lots of people turned up in period costume, which was great – the Ocean Terminal was decked out with displays, and a string quartet was playing music from the era. What fun! There were a couple of displays of some rooms on the Titanic – a “bedroom” and a “dining room”. The furniture was genuine, from the Titanic's sister ship “Olympic” as was the cutlery and decorations. It was a wonderful opportunity to see and touch the same sorts of things that would have been on the Titanic. We docked yesterday afternoon in Cobh (pronounced “Cove”) in Ireland – what an experience!! ... read more

this is to see if you get an e.mail Ma - not sure if its the site that has stopped sending the e.mails out or not? xxxx... read more

Today started at 5:30am (Paris/Rome time zone) for us, getting ready to head to the airport. Our flight was not until 9:15 and the hotel is only a 5 minute shuttle ride away, but being unfamiliar with the airport and local check-in procedures, it was probably a good idea to give some room for error. The Holiday Inn Express buffet breakfast was satisfying as usual, although they didn't have the customary (in the US at least) cinnamon rolls that melt in your mouth. A quick check of the room, and then we caught the 6:30 shuttle to the airport. The return trip was scheduled slightly longer than the east-bound trip (because of head winds), but more concerning to us was that it is almost entirely in daylight, landing at DFW at 8:00pm on the same day ... read more

If it's Saturday, it must be Fort Lauderdale and Miami. And it's been a really great day. Our first destination was the Everglades where we took an air boat ride. If you've never done this, believe me it is very, very noisy. And pretty fast. And an absolutely brilliant way to see wildlife. Our tick list has expanded enormously today! We'd only untied the boat for about 30 seconds and had seen 2 alligators. Then we saw Black Vultures and a Great Egret. Then more alligators, a couple of large swimming turtles, 2 yellow bellied slider turtles and then even more alligators. The largest was probably 8 to 10 foot long and relaxing on the bank. He didn't seem at all worried by us, he just tilted his head and blinked. We saw 4 more swimming ... read more

Sunday, October 30 We were up, packed, fed and away by 10:00 am. We drove to the cruise ship terminal in Palma hoping to drop our luggage off so we could use the car to sightsee before taking the car in. We arrived at 11:30 only to find that the clocks had gone back an hour for daylight savings, and it was actually 10:30-- two and a half hours before we could check in. Despite the time, we were able to send our luggage on board and check in. Before boarding, we drove back to Palma, parked and did some sightseeing. We walked along the mallecon in the warm sunshine looking at the yachts, ships, boats, etc. There were lots of huge private yachts. It makes you wonder how people can afford them. Soon we came ... read more

June 17th, 2011; 40 miles outside of Lunenberg Like any final moments of any experience coming to an end, each one is becoming more precious and special. Yesterday was a windy, dry day on watches except for the sprays that were going over the focsle head and midships. Our watch also did a "white unicorn" which is the similar gift exchange as when our family does the "white elephant". The sun set during my helm hour (#1) and everyone was gathered in silence on the port stern to watch it - gorgeous - with a layer of stratus cloud above it - melting orange sun into the horizon. The watch went by fastest ever and it was the coldest ever requiring multiple layers. The "white unicorn" - during 3 rd hour was hilarious with lots of ... read more

Today is like a full-on fall day - windy, clouds with spots of sunshine. Last night's watch was pretty fun. We had a deck surfing competition, told ghost stories. There were high seas and wind so we pulled lookout back ot the bridge. One swell hit the hull so hard we felt the vibration back on the quarter deck. Cody came running out of the salon for a look. His bunk is right against the part that got it worst. Lots of people got doused yesterday. Man ropes were rigged at midships and the quarter deck and 1 day away from full moon showed brightly. This morning I had first helm and 3rd lookout with a moderate amount of sail handling and no ship's work which meant lots of hanging out on the quarter deck, surfing ... read more

This morning was the funnest sail handling watch ever. We are riding up on the east side of a low pressure system which is giving us a force 5 fresh breeze and squallies. There were multiple squalls wthat blew through and loads of snappy sail handling and I finally did a royal stow chase and T'Gallant stow chase which redeemed myself form missing the last 2 opportunities - luckily (unfortunate for Nadja) she couldn't go up which I think gave me the chance for royals because my automatic thought is "there's probably already enough people running up/I'm too slow" but, I actually caught up to Pania and we did a rockin' fast stow! That was definitley a boost in confidence and accomplishment because I'm feeling like I'm starting to catch up/keep up with the more seasoned ... read more

Today there were gentle rolling seas, with a temperature of 58 degrees. It is a little cool with a moderate breeze when you are outside. However the pools were open again – just nobody in them. It is our last full day of sailing without a shore excursion, so we took advantage of the opportunity to replenish our clean clothes supply. There was no shortage today, but we just didn’t want to try do washing on a day when we were off the ship much of the day. We should have enough things to wear until we get off the ship. We hope Sue and Mike don’t mind if we show up with a lot of dirty clothes. This morning was a demonstration in the Princess Theater (not the kitchen) by the Master Chef of the ... read more