Blogs from Pacific, Oceans and Seas - page 23

The third of 3 sea days means today was another total doss. The gym felt good again - Richard can do his belt up on an earlier hole and says he can tie his gym shoe laces much more easily now. I know I can suck it in much easier than before so that has to be good progress. This morning's lecture on snorkelling off Cabo San Lucas has completely freaked me out in readiness for our trip to go sailing and snorkelling tomorrow morning. The photos of the coral reefs and the parrot fish and the sponges were all lovely. The photos of the Barracuda and the Hammer Head Shark were not so lovely. The detail of how the Barracuda shapes its body to make itself look small even though it might be 6 foot ... read more

What a delicious day today has been. After a great night's sleep, it was off to the gym for a good work out and an even better feeling of being virtuous! A healthy breakfast of V8 juice and kippers was then followed by a lecture on the subject of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Then we spent a couple of hours relaxing on the balcony which today was on the shady side of the ship. We then enjoyed a very healthy lunch which lasted for ages because we managed to be on a table of really lovely people with lots of interesting things to talk about. One of them is a lecturer on board this trip. He's a leading expert on canals so came in handy for talks on the Panama and today was delivering on a ... read more

Today was a complete contrast to yesterday as we have cruised past the coast of Panama and started our journey alongside Costa Rica. It was exceedingly hot today and we found it hard to motivate ourselves to do anything much out of doors. We did our hour in gym before breakfast and before it got too hot outside. We are only 8 degrees above the equator and its 28 C now at nearly 10pm. We were well over 30 degrees at lunch and even the sea temperature is 29 degrees C right now! So we have little to report as we've dossed. Almost all day long. A trip to the laundry this morning hardly counts as exciting! We have now learned that the pointy birds are not actually Pterodactyls; they are Frigate birds. And the ship ... read more

Wow! what an amazing experience. We left Brisbane Port onn the 3rd at midday and after being deafened by the mega horn going under the gateway bridge we promptly fell asleep. Two days of only slightly rocky waves left us to enjoy the pool, kids club, restaurants and kids club while we chugged along on our way to New Caledonia. Noumea was our first stop and it was a town that had indeed stopped. the kids played merrily in some gravel, as they always do anywhere we take them, until we were told "that's where the dogs go wee wee". We bypassed the town and went out on a glass bottom boat which the kids loved - heaps of fish to see. Back on the boat and off to kids club for the grommets while we ... read more

Auckland: The opening game caused few upsets as expected. However, two particular highlights were finding my first pint and the referee disallowing New Zealand a perfectly legitimate try. As well as rugby, the sights of a wine tour and several parks on Waiheke island come highly recommended. Other highlights included picking up the campervan and blasting the horn for about 30 seconds until the novelty wore off. Overall reflections: Kiwi’s moan a lot more than the English, especially when it comes to rugby. Tauranga: A day’s surf on the north east coast was abandoned, due to hangovers and terrible weather! (English are only fair weather surfers I’m afraid). Fortunately, we settled on a quiet night and watched England play in the evening in a quiet bar… The night ended with us drinking with the Samoan rugby ... read more