Blogs from North Atlantic, Atlantic, Oceans and Seas - page 9

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

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

The Islands Well, we are recovering from more than a week of hectic days in port. We are now somewhere in the Atlantic, heading home...well, back to Southampton, that is. Our first island was Aruba, one of the Netherland Antilles. Hugh and I went on a semi-submersible boat ride which took us over the wreck of a German freighter as well as a beautiful coral reef. It was Hugh's first time seeing underwater and I think he liked it quite a bit. To get to the boat our bus took us past all the hotels that line the beaches...there are too many and they are too huge! On the other side of the road was every American franchise restaurant you could imagine from MacDonald's to Tony Roma's to Hooters. It would be very easy to spend ... read more

Date Saturday 30th October 2010 City Venice, Italy Climate Low 14c – high 22c – fine and sunny Currency $US dollars on board the ship – paid for by cabin access card =$NZ0.75 Today we boarded the Norwegian Gem for our first transatlantic crossing. We are expecting some cool, rough weather on the crossing itself, but will be hopeful that the first week of our 14 night cruise will bring some calm, mild weather for us to relax and enjoy. We were on board the ship about 1pm and waited for our cabin to be ready while enjoying a light lunch by the pool. The Norwegian Gem is a lovely ship. We sailed on her sister ship the Norwegian Pearl in January – and we immediately noticed how similar they are. In fact, once we started ... read more

It appears the final 4 blog sessions got "stuck" somehow in their system, so theyall 4 are being published again - please forgive if this is a duplicate notice for you. This morning we awakened to more cloud cover than in the past, and the forecast is for that to continue intermittently through tomorrow afternoon. The captain announced today that the course has been adjusted a little more northerly so we can avoid some of the consequences of tropical storm Tomas. Later tomorrow we will turn back south down the gulf stream current and then there may be a little more motion, but today the ride was still pretty smooth. Janet, Kathy, and David attended a cake decorating demonstration this morning. While the pastry cook, the cruise director, and a volunteer from the audience each decorated ... read more