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Published: September 27th 2016
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BOUDOIR
Kevin took the picture in Moorea, Tahiti last year. Happy cruising memories. THE CLASSIC PANAMA CANAL CRUISE In five hours you can fly from one great U.S. city to another--San Francisco to New York. But, what’s the rush when it’s possible to take a leisurely 19 day cruise through the Panama Canal visiting six different countries en route?
In May of 2015 we completed the Silver Sea World Cruise and have been quite busy with land-based activities such as buying a house on the Gulf Coast of Florida. After living on a boat for the past 32 years, it is quite a change to move into a house complete with pool, hot tub, large screened lanai, double car garage and three bedrooms and two baths. Having a huge yard to tend to, along with all the regular household maintenance tasks while also furnishing a new home has kept us on the run. We plan to be bi-coastal as we are keeping our boat in Sausalito. Thus we can spend time with family and friends in both California and Florida. In Rotonda West, we overlook a spring-fed lake and are next to a 165 acre parkland. There are five golf courses and numerous bike trails in Rotonda and we are
TREE TRIMMERS
We had a lot of tree work done in our yard. close to some superb gulf beaches like Boca Grande. We are about 45 minutes south of Sarasota on the Cape Haze Peninsula. The flora and fauna are quite different and abundant in Florida and we are becoming acquainted with bobcats, coyotes, wild boar and alligators who pass through our back yard quite often. Being a bird sanctuary, we are surrounded by many colorful tropical species as well as the northern birds that winter in Florida.
Living the bi-coastal life requires lots of time on airplanes and that is the reason we were especially looking forward to a change in our transportation mode between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. So when we were asked to host the Regent Mariner cruise from San Francisco to New York, we happily accepted. After spending two months in San Luis Obispo and Sausalito, we took a taxi from our boat Mana over the Golden Gate Bridge to the new cruise terminal in San Francisco and boarded one of our favorite ships. We first cruised on the Mariner on September 16, 2001…five days after 9/11. We went on a 35 day cruise to the South Pacific. It was almost therapeutic to leave the shores of
REGENT MARINER
Docked in Cartagena, Colombia. a shocked and saddened nation. Since then we have spent close to 600 days on this ship and so it was like returning home when we boarded her on a sunny morning in September. We immediately started running into many staff and crew we have known from previous cruises. The ship looked in fine shape, having undergone several refurbishments in recent years.
We sailed past Alcatraz and out under the bridge at sunset through a misty fog and turned left heading to warmer climes. Since San Francisco had just recorded it coldest August since 1942 we were happily anticipating some heat. Heading down the coast we started seeing many whales and dolphins. As a matter of fact, on our first morning out in the Pacific we were walking the deck when a huge humpback whale emerged from under our ship and let loose with a tremendous spout of water. I have never seen a whale that close up. The whale probably was equally surprised by this big, white thing invading his ocean.
We are Virtuoso hosts on this cruise with a group of 79 passengers. That is one of the larger groups we have had in recent years.
HOME SWEET HOME
Rotonda, Florida Some of the guests are world cruisers whom we know quite well. We had a mixture of Americans, Canadians and Australians primarily. All the usual activities were taking place around the ship on the sea days such as interesting lectures, bridge, water volleyball, trivia, ping pong tournaments, bingo, fitness classes, cooking demos, dance lessons etc. We had a Virtuoso welcome reception and took our group on a tour of the galley. The executive chef gave the tour and to hear him describe it his job is like a symphony conductor bringing all the parts together producing meals for 700 people in a timely and tasty manner. At the same time he is making sure that the crew and staff are adequately fed.
Our first port of call was scheduled to be Cabo San Lucas but Hurricane Newton had other plans for us. While cruising down the Baja Peninsula Captain Teo kept the guests apprised of the movement of this big storm. As the hurricane finally took aim directly at Cabo, the Captain decided to divert 200 miles westward to avoid the wrath of Newton. It sure made for a more comfortable ride and we had sunny, clear weather out
OUR FLORIDA POOL
Overlooking the lake in Rotonda. at sea. Our Cabo stop was cancelled and so we had five glorious sea days before we would arrived in Acapulco.
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Joanie Miller
non-member comment
Super to hear from you.
I am free now. Would love to go on a cruise again. Am a single. Where are you going next? Let me know... We had a house in BonitaBay in Bonita Springs for 13 years and loved going up to Boca Grande. Your life together sounds wonderful. Voyager world Cruise 2007 and Mariner Ring of Fire,2009. Thanks for putting me on your list again. Joanie.