Blogs from Pacific, Oceans and Seas - page 5

No time changes today but I was up until midnight last night sending off the Cartagena blog. We now have two back to back sea days before reaching Cabo San Lucas. I'm hoping to catch up on the blog. Although all of daily activities have been recorded, the pictures still need to be uploaded and the narrative reviewed prior to sending. Unfortunately, there's a "sitiation" brewing. First, it's after 9am. Second, we have a Captain's Reception and Luncheon to attend and finally, Karen wants to spend some time at the spa. She should. She spent $250 for two weeks of unlimited use and added me for another $150, despite my objections. She's been there twice and me once. I tried to tell her it would be difficult to optimize the value given all the other activities ... read more

David’s birthday day 15 A very relaxing day at sea which started with two hours of pickle ball on the top deck. I had to drag a sweat-soaked David from the court because I feared he would collapse or something! It was fun though.... I AM going to see if there is a pickle ball club in Bracknell when i get home. The rest of the day has been spent relaxing and getting ready for our big day tomorrow going through the Panama Canal. Our transit starts at five am and we will be up from the very start. I managed to tell the guys in the restaurant tonight that it was David’s birthday and, at the end of our meal, they sang happy birthday in front of the whole restaurant and produced a HUGE cheesecake ... read more

After leaving Barrier Landing we headed to Ocean Grange, a lovely cruise in via some tight channels. Again a pretty spot on the lakes, we had some lunch, a walk over to 90 Mile Beach then decided to move onto Duck Arm for the night. Duck Arm is another favourite location for us so we were looking forward to revisiting after a few years. Swing moorings are available throughout the arm but unfortunately all the mooring lines on the buoyes were no longer attached. This meant that John needed to reverse the boat close enough to the swing mooring so that Di could reach out and thread a line through the mooring eye - then John kept gently reversing whilst Di held on to allow the mooring whilst walking up to the bow so that the ... read more

Day eight, day at sea. Up at the crack of dawn again yesterday and had our own little table tennis tournament. We then checked the basketball court but, of course, it was being used by the paddle.....or pickle ball players. To be fair, they acknowledged us and said they just would finish that game so, an improvement! It’s so hot here, I think we did a lot of intense exercise in a short period with very little shelter from the sun. I got a touch of heatstroke I think. Felt quite unwell for the last part of the day but feel much better this morning. There was another basketball competition yesterday....more people attended and i came second by just one basket. Boooooo Dave came third! Which is good too. We are loving our club class status. ... read more

Day four Sea day Revenge is sweet ( and early). Poolside sun and formal night. We must still be on UK time because we keep waking up at the crack of dawn! The clocks went back again last night and we were up bright and early at 6 AM. We decided to head to the basketball court immediately to see if we could beat the old wooden bat tennis players to it. And we did! (Just) We were there for just a few minutes before they all arrived and The look on their faces when they came up to the court and saw us playing basketball was priceless. We both said “morning!!” In our brightest, most cheerful voices lol. We were only using half the court ( we play fair). So, after some discussion with themselves ... read more